Lost in the Forest of Research
Today, I’m reflecting on where I’m at in my current long from research project into the Mythology of Taylor Swift. If you want to know more about this project, you can check out my website which summarises it.
Every long form research project follows the same trajectory. I start with wonder and curiosity, then I get really excited, then I get overwhelmed, then I feel like everything sucks and I’m really stupid, it all suddenly clicks and then I’m excited and brilliant again, then it sucks again, and then you somehow peter into “eh, I think this okay”. And that’s where it typically ends. Or maybe it’s just me and how my research projects follow. Some of the last bit falls into the writing portion of the project, but that’s pretty much how every project goes for me.
Right now I’m in the “overwhelmed” bit. Stage three. I’m looking at a long journey of more emotions and experiences and information to sort through. And, despite knowing I’ve already travelled pretty far, I can still see the beginning, making it feel like I haven’t even gone anywhere. It’s like when you go on a long hike, and even though you’re a third of the way through, you can’t see the end, the future of the path stretches before you in lengthy beautiful twirls through the countryside. But then you turn around, and you can still see the village you started in.
So, let’s talk about it.
Research is a process. It’s a journey like the hike in my very long simile, where you trudge around along the path, looking at everything, taking every moment in. And I know at the end of the whole thing, people will only see the few snapshots I took along the way. This can be demoralising. Especially because it makes people thing all I did was drive along a path and occasionally pop out to take pictures.
But research isn’t really about other people. This sounds a bit odd, because obviously I’m doing it because at the end of the whole endeavour I’m going to write a book I share with other people, for the purpose of showing them the research.
The thing is, the book at the end of everything, or the publication in whatever form it may take, is more the reason to stop doing the research and the not the reason to do it. If I didn’t have the final end project of the book or the article or the video, then I would just still be researching. I’d still be researching the Slender Man, and cosplay, and all the other little tidbits I’ve picked up along the way.
In a dream life, I’d spend all my life jumping from project reading to project reading, gathering data in whatever way I could, still interviewing and doing surveys and analysing these bits of info. Because things would change over time, as they always do, and I would want to see it and experience it.
I thrive on the thrill of finding, my heart beats to the sound of discovery. Research is not a means to an end. Its a way of being, a definition to the soul, a lens through which to see and experience the world. It’s a call to be curious and to want more, to constantly find more, to always ask questions.
Which, as you can imagine, is why it can be so overwhelming. It’s not jsut seeing the path before you, but to see every leaf on the trees in between, hear every twist of every worm in the earth on the way, search for every bird and every dragonfly. It’s to not just walk the path, but to truly fully understand it in its entirety.
So, let’s pull ourselves back from the brink of the constant metaphor and instead talk about things in more concrete terms. So, let’s summarise where we are right now.
120+ responses in a survey
5 (at time of writing) one-to-one interviews
a list of 16 topics which are recurring in the research
If I say that’s it, does it sound like a lot or a little? I’m not even sure anymore. I keep thinking I haven’t done much at all, but then seeing the growing pile of papers of research on my desk - interviews to annotate, surveys to analyse, and lists of academic work to read - I have to think I must be doing something. And yet, it can feel more like a growing to do list than anything actually accomplished.
I mean, I just keep finding more things of interest! Things are just more and more fascinating! There are more nooks and crannies to explore, more questions I find myself asking. Each interview leaves me scrambling for note pages to scribble more things down.
So, yeah. I’m overwhelmed. I keep feeling like I’ll just be drowning in Taylor Swift research for the rest of my life - though, to be honest, I wouldn’t really actually mind that being my life. Add her to Slender Man and cosplay, areas I could spend the rest of my life just fading further and further into the depths of the research forest. The overwhelm is not necessarily a bad thing, though my constant need to reach out to explain myself on platforms such as this make me feel like I need to at least grasp something.
Like I said, though, this is the flow of things. I’m lost in the mess, feeling like there is so much - too much - ahead of me.
Yet, despite all I have just said, this is, perhaps, the most exciting bit of a project. The overwhelm is insane, yes, and I’m looking around feeling more and more lost (see the next step: everything sucks and I’m stupid). Yet, this sinking feeling is beginning to happen because I’m making connections elsewhere. Answers lead to more questions - but I still got those answers! I know now what the path is on my way, which endeavours to dive into, which methods and topics will guide me. I haven’t gone very far on the path yet, but I have a map.
Before I leave you I’ll summarise where I am right now. I’m overwhelmed, but excited, and confused but in the best way possible.