I have been having some interesting talks with our kids, Kelly and Christian. We are all going through a pretty rough period after leaving a fundamentalist, tradition bound church that was our entire community for decades. We are all about three-four years out from having left and are kind of waking up to the fact that filling the void from leaving with out bitterness is easier said than done. In the meantime, I read a blurb on X from the first ex-wife of Elon Musk, for whom neither of which I have much respect on any level, but that resonated with me. She said that to accomplish something in this life–I took this as the temporal life we live on this earth–a good way to go about it is to become excellent at one discipline, then switch disciplines and become an expert at a second discipline. The focus being on the disciplines themselves and not the money or accolades you receive from dominating those disciplines. I think that was a valuable thought and has definitely been something I think has allowed me to achieve the limited amount of success I have received in my career.
I said all of that to say the following: I was going to ditch the idea of a second PhD. I am having second thoughts. It would be an excellent thing to get a second PhD if I can contribute to the community and dominate a new domain. And when I say dominate a new domain, I have no illusions of being a luminary in that domain, but I do think I can bring skills to bear that might advance the state of the art in several different domains that are worthy of investigation. To that end, I am going to enter into my interview with TAMU on Monday afternoon with renewed vigor. God will provide the guidance.
