The perfect scholar

A short essay on scholarship, adapted from the epilogue of my thesis, was just published in paradigm_shift. It starts off describing the first ‘peer review’ I received:

The first paper I ever submitted received a review that read: “This [paper] is akin to a non-musician trying to play a Bach concerto. There are likely to be rough patches in the actual implementation”. And if a Bach concerto is a perfect piece of music, capable of being played perfectly, then I, at that moment, never felt further from any kind of desirable ideal in my chosen course of study: sustainable development.

You can read the rest here…