When in Doubt, Play The Shots

“How are you still at it?”
“I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it.”

This is me thinking about it.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a curious person in the possession of good skills must be in the want of a PhD”, said no one ever. Someone asked me how I was still engaging with my problem in my sixth year working on it; I did not know what to say.

My thesis is mostly about simulating microstructures - in other words, solving mathematical equations to generate images of what materials look like at scales of microns (i.e. at length scales of around a tenth of the diameter of human hair). These mathematical equations describe how the materials behave under the influence of various factors (like maybe fluctuations in temperature or pressure).

What if the microstructure (i.e., the material’s structure at the scale of one-millionths of a metre) is a composite of two materials as different as say rubber and steel? It may seem like such a composite would respond to external factors in mysterious ways. Still, fundamental equations that describe their behaviours individually can be coupled to describe their overall response.

Now, when we start asking questions: How different are these materials in the composite? Is it only a composite of two materials? What if it is three or four different ones? Can we predict how the microstructure changes? How would we know our predictions are reasonable or accurate? As you keep asking more questions of this nature and try answering them, suddenly, you’re in the middle of a PhD thesis.

While working on my thesis, I will frequently find myself stuck at a point. Consider this situation: As I try to shut a door, I notice that it does not go all the way into the frame, and it does not shut tight. To fix this, I have to roll up my sleeves, scratch my head, and ask: Is the door size slightly larger than its frame? Maybe the hinge is not well-oiled? Or maybe one of the hinges is loose. Perhaps something is obstructing the door. This fixing of doors is what I do most of the time when I’m working on my PhD. Not literally fixing doors, of course; that would have been probably more financially rewarding, but carrying out this exercise where the door is science, math and code.

In this context, someone had asked me how I was at it all this time because frequently when you encounter doors that don’t close (or open), the easiest way is to look for another door.

As I thought about it, I realised that, in my case, it was never a consistent pursuit. There were breaks. In between, life happened: troubles in personal life, strained finances, lack of motivation and other usual suspects. While it may seem like I was at it consistently, especially to someone looking in from the outside, that was never the case.

My work on my PhD was always in bursts. Leading up to a conference or yearly reviews, I would sprint to work on something, but most of the time, I was fixing different doors. With time, I got better at it over the last six years. The hope is that eventually, as I figure it out and close that final door, I get handed a piece of paper that announces just that.

When I’m stuck on a particular piece of the puzzle, I would either take a break or approach the same problem differently. Sometimes, I would zoom out and rethink, and that would work. Other times, I would just leave it. In between, when life happened, and I just couldn’t get myself to work, I didn’t. And so, there’s that.

So why am I telling you all this? Biswa Kalyan Rath has this bit where he says in India, people tell you a story, and then they also tell you the moral of the story. They don’t want you to think too much about it. This story does not have a moral as such, but if you do one, here it is: all of this exercise in thinking was prompted by a colleague’s question. I had known this person for years, but it is only recently that we spoke at length and in detail about work and how life intervenes and affects the PhD. And that conversation felt so good! After years of just maybe saying “Hi” and making small, work-focused short conversations, what led to this recent deep dive conversation? A discussion on mental health that came up randomly.

Generally, when we experience something great, we want to stand on a soapbox and yell it out to the world. “That restaurant has fantastic food,” and “This TV series is amazing, check it out,” or “I order groceries from that website because they have a hassle-free delivery”¹. Therapy for me was one such experience. These days, if someone even hints that something is on their mind that they find hard to resolve, I will immediately suggest therapy.

This colleague of mine was a fellow therapy taker, too, and being in IISc, a discussion on mental health issues and how these affected students on the campus was something on which both had some thoughts².

This skill of being able to discuss emotions and thoughts freely without feeling vulnerable is something I have acquired only recently. Years ago, I had read somewhere that the answer is always no unless you ask. It changed my perspective about writing a cold email to a potential client or asking for an internship. This idea of when in doubt, play the shots³ is perhaps complementary to that idea.

For me, this was useful in breaking out of my comfort zone. I have previously spoken about how difficult it is getting our bubbles burst and intentionally listening to a different, new perspective; the same goes for experiences as well: Going to a stand-up show or a movie alone that one time when your friend couldn’t make it for some reason or when stuck in a traffic jam, asking the rider by your side whether the exhaust on his Royal Enfield Himalayan was a custom one because it sounded nice (It wasn’t a custom one BTW, it was the stock).

Until maybe a few years ago, one particular activity I was not fond of was the idea of social gatherings. Not the actual event per se; I almost always felt good after hosting someone or attending a social gathering, but let’s just say that I was usually not the first person to sign up for these. But with time, I realised that these events were often okay and not as bad as I thought they’d be. I opened up to the idea of being more comfortable signing up to attend these. It was also around this time that I had read somewhere that, in general, a little exposure to extroversion for introverts is a good thing (probably written by an extrovert)

But in any case, it sure seems to be a perspective improving experience to bring in these small, incremental changes and push the boundary just a little bit. Is it necessary? Probably not. But it sure is a different experience and might just get me some more dots to connect in the future. So, when in doubt, play the shot.

Footnotes