A New Ship of Theseus
Are We Asking the Wrong Questions About it?
Content warning for mentions of abuse
This Essay builds off of a previous one on my podcast The Oracle of Dusk. Which can be found here
Introduction: Love Never Dies? Try Anger.
This essay diverged drastically from what it was meant to be. And I cannot steer this ship back to where it was first meant to go. If that is a weakness on my part, I do not apologize. To a great extent, this all needs to be said, and even though I have said it repeatedly, that necessity remains. Yes, this is another essay that references or is in some way rooted in the terrible experience I had with an academic advisor my senior year of university. I keep talking about it for a variety of reasons. For one, I want to make them reluctant to claim me as their pupil. While I’m sure there are some rules or norms that would say I have to submit to this title, I do not like rules and norms. It’s one of the many reasons why I am not cut out to be an academic. And if claiming me would mean staining their professional reputation with the blood I have pour out in these pieces, then they would likely be reluctant to do so, and I could be left alone. On the other hand, it feels especially relevant in light of a–for lack of a better word–bad run in with the Twitter algorithm in which it suggested I follow the same advisor who stifled my development (at best) or emotionally abused me (at worst). This sent me reeling and recoiling from a segment of the internet that I had previously drawn a great deal of comfort from. Mostly, and not on any hand, but on the heart, I still have some unsettled questions. There are still elements of that experience and its aftermath that I do not fully understand, which leads us back to this essay or what it was meant to be.
That brief Twitter encounter had left me reeling, to say the least. It has been nine months since the incident, and I am only now at a point where I can begin to explain what happened.
To take this essay back to the beginning, I had the distinct honor of being a guest on The First Episode Of (TFEO) podcast hosted by W. Keith Tims, creator of The Book of Constellations. TFEO is an interview show where Tims invites an audio fiction creator to discuss their creation with some emphasis on that first episode or that first introduction between creation and audience. At this point, I should add that Tims and I had become something vaguely akin to friends. Uncertainty around the specifics stems from the long and sudden absences I tend to take from Twitter and Podcast-Discord. When I say that he is a good host who knows how to ask the right questions and where to push or side step, you may feel inclined to take my word with a grain of salt as a result of this quasi-connection. I wish you would not, but I understand why you might.
In any event, I enjoyed being a guest on his show. We had a great conversation about my show The Oracle of Dusk and went over several points regarding the show’s identity and development that I thought might never see the light of day. But towards the end of the interview, Tims asks me if there’s anything else I wanted to add, which was not a question I was expecting despite how inevitable it might have been. Regardless, my spontaneous answer included the line, “I have managed to make a life for myself that I could not have imagined five years ago, but I have come to love beyond my wildest imagination.”
That seems like a filler response. I won’t be offended if you say it is because in some ways, that is what I was going for. It was in reference to “the entire experience of podcasting,” which is something I genuinely love but seldom get much of a chance to talk about. Consequently, when I saw an opportunity to do just that, I seized it. There was a space, I had something I wanted to say, so I brought them together. But in hindsight, there are implications to that statement that I couldn’t have unpacked on that show. There was no time for it, and it would have been unfair to make anyone undertake that level of emotional labor in such a context. But given that this context is entirely mine, I can do what I feel like needs to be done.
Part of what led me to online content creation was that aforementioned falling out my senior year and all its implications. On one hand, that traumatic incident led to the birth of my flagship audio fiction podcast. As I talk about in my piece on The Oracle of Dusk, I thought so many bridges between me and other faculty members were burned as a result of this incident. Which meant that when I started having nightmares about death and a faculty member who changed my life, I could not reach out to him. There was nothing I could do for him, sure, but I could have comforted myself with a simple email message or other cursory attempt to establish that he was safe. I didn’t. The ensuing stress and trauma is what birthed that podcast. Beyond that, one of the reasons why I leaned so heavily into my creative endeavors was that I had entered the workforce rather than pushing my mental limits with the challenges of a PhD program. Being in the workforce left me the mental energy to be creative. Things in my first few jobs were repetitive and dull, and I distracted myself with the sort of creative musings that led to so many of the projects I have both finished and am working on now.
But that also leads to certain implications, does it not? One of the worst moments of my life paved the way for so much good to follow. That idea might lead one to wonder if it was necessary that I suffer to the extent that I did for the sake of that course correction and all that came after. When laid out that way, that is a terrible thing to say. I am certainly uncomfortable with that idea. And after I said that line on TFEO, the wheels in my head started turning in their usual somewhat self destructive direction. In no short order, I was asking myself if I still had the right to be upset about what happened all those years ago when I was a senior in university. I had changed so much since then. I was a new person with an entirely different and seemingly better life. Being on the periphery of academia meant that I had seen the struggles of doctoral students and early career scholars, struggles that I had been able to avoid because of that incident where a faculty member burned a bridge that I had no business taking. And how many times have I said that I am ill suited for academia even if it’s just because I don’t like being told what to do?
All of that is true, so should I still be upset about this? Should I still talk about it like I do? Honestly, I think so.
***
What is the Ship of Theseus
This essay was initially going to be rooted in the Ship of Theseus, and while my thoughts and conclusions have gone of course a bit, it still feels relevant. To explain for anyone who may not know, The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment that centers around the ship of the heroic Theseus, the mythical king and founder of Athens. Say that the legendary ship was parked in a harbor to sit as some sort of monument, but over time every piece of that ship–every board, nail and more were changed for one reason or another, and all of those reasons stem back to the onslaught and damages of time. With all of those pieces changed, is it still the same ship? And if not, at what point did it stop being the ship of Theseus? And if you took all the removed pieces from the original and assembled them into another ship, is that the ship of Theseus?
It seems pedantic, but this thought experiment is one of the oldest in Western Philosophy and actually makes for good brain fodder for those who like that sort of thing. And the resulting answers to this question have led to ideas or concepts that are important in other contexts. I would definitely encourage you to look more into the concept, and the Wikipedia page (seen here Ship of Theseus - Wikipedia ) may be a good starting point in your quest for knowledge.
To make a seemingly random aside relevant, ever since that TFEO interview, I felt like the Ship of Theseus. My pieces had been removed and changed over the years, and consequently, by some standards, I may not have been the same person who suffered at the hands of my advisor. Much like the title and honor that the ship would only be owed if it were the true Ship of Theseus, I would only be entitled to that hurt if I were really the young woman who sat in that professor’s office while my research interests were dictated to me and while the worst aspects of my existence were commandeered by someone who did not have my best interests at heart. I started wondering if I was entitled to that hurt or if–by virtue of that heartache having no rightful owner or heir–I had to forgive that person.
Now, of course, you are pushing into notions of Christian forgiveness and whether or not I should ever speak with this professor again. On the former, I think there is much to consider or dissect about that notion. It has changed and evolved across time and socio-political contexts, which creates a need for careful consideration. On the latter, I have an email drafted out to shut them down if they should attempt to contact me again. But this essay isn’t about either of those points. It is genuinely a question of what my rights are now that I had acknowledged that everything in my life had worked out.
***
And the Answer?
I don’t have a good answer to the Ship of Theseus paradox. Personally, I think that titles and names are part of the way we communicate with each other. And if you and I can both point to the ship in the harbor and confidently call it the Ship of Theseus, then that is what it is. Rivers and other bodies of moving water are constantly replenishing themselves, but because we use these as locations or markers of said locations, we aren’t inclined to get into a disagreement about how the water in said river is constantly flowing, picking up and depositing sediment in the bank underneath, which is technically a shift of the river or something like that. We live in a shared world that is, in many ways, defined by the agreements we reach. I would suppose that–as an extension–I shouldn’t be trying to compare myself as a full person to a mythical ship that really only exists in a philosophical thought experiment. But I did. And in the course of thinking myself out of that hole, I found a way to explain the damage that was done to me–intentional or not–and why it still matters even after all this time.
Here’s the thing: not everything was replaced within me, I realized. Some things cannot be replaced as there are outright changes to the design of said ship or me. And I realized as much when I saw a Tweet from said advisor in which they had allegedly received flowers from their current class of students (I would not be surprised if said faculty member bought them for themselves, quite frankly). The caption to the picture–which I will paraphrase to make tracing the Tweet that much harder–was about how much gratitude and joy students feel and then express when mentorship is not patriarchal or exploitative. The premise itself–that good mentorship does not discriminate against someone’s identity or takes advantage of their abilities–is not so outlandish. But given that my mistreatment lay in that person’s inability to listen or not seize the chance for another disciple, it’s the application of this idea that would not sit right with me.
Now there is something ironic about a Tweet from the person that hurt me being the thing that helped me clarify the hurt. But it did. I won’t deny that. On one hand, it reminded me what I did not get. Most obviously, I did not get an advisor I would buy flowers for. I knew other faculty members like that, but given the task that I had to undertake under this advisor’s watch, that gift would have gone a much longer way. But in the same way that the lessons of a good mentor would have stayed with me for the rest of my life, I still live with the same wounds and heartaches imposed on me because of my mentor’s actions. The consequences are still here, and no development in my life will be able to displace them. No matter where my life leads, my happiness does not clear the ledger or negate the wrongs done to me because you just can’t compare apples and oranges.
***
This Other Inventory - Things Lost and the Changes Therein
I did love my time at college. There are issues with my university that I won’t go into specifically lest I give anyone another tool with which to dox me. But there have been numerous times in the past couple of years when I’ve felt a deep embarrassment at the choices my alma mater has made. Despite this, there were good people there. I had the distinct honor of studying under many who were not just brilliant minds but brilliantly kind and compassionate. They were not involved in the shenanigans I am indirectly complaining about. And I cannot reach out to them again.
Perhaps that last sentence was abrupt, and in some ways I meant it to be. It’s something I went in depth into when I wrote about my podcast The Oracle of Dusk. Given the norms of academia–how faculty often protect each other even in the presence of evidence I did not have–I had assumed that most of these bridges were burned when that one relationship imploded. Either the faculty member I had a falling out with burned said bridges in their anger or they would be burned in vengeance if they found out that a particular faculty member was important to me. There were people in that department I looked up to. And I genuinely grieve the fact that I cannot even send those people updates on my life thus far, a life that their influence helped me to build.
That is one of the main sticking points for me. Because yes, things have worked out. I won’t deny that, but I do not get to celebrate them with all of those individuals who saved me from law school and the life trajectory that would have left me profoundly miserable. That is a real loss in my books. The rebuttal, of course, would be that I could still reach out to them, after so much time and tell them. There was never any physical barrier stopping me from doing as much. It was just my fear of retaliation, which would have included having this connection ripped from me once I got my hopes up, and given that I work in the periphery of academia, there is still–perhaps–reason to fear professional reprisals as well. But given how much time has passed, these faculty members may not remember me or may not care to. That would normally be alright. It is the consequence of silence after all, but my silence was not taken willingly.
And right now, I watch my step professionally and when it comes to this blog. I can’t promote it in the sort of venues that would like this content. It would mean risking being identified or recognized, and if my status rose too high, it would mean that this advisor had a reason to return and attempt to retake control. Perhaps that is also an unrealistic fear. They might have forgotten me or took a hint that so much silence across so many years means that I saw through their attempt to save face when I won a departmental prize for my thesis. Either way, if they did connect the pen name to the mousy student who had just a bit of fight left in her, they might not do anything about it. But I can’t believe that. It is not just the sort of Pascal’s Wager choice at hand. (I.e. It’s not that I am making my choices or judgments based on the worst possible outcomes regardless of how connected they are to reality or the way I understand reality.) It is not just a risk assessment on my part. Rather, they recently updated their resume and included my name as a mentee. It was misspelled, and my majors were listed incorrectly. But to me, that suggests I am not so far out of their mind as to be completely irrelevant, their memory of me is somewhat fluid which could let them clue in on my pen name, and they don’t have the sort of self awareness necessary to realize that if they cannot ask a former student to verify their major that could very well be a fully burned or decayed bridge. This isn’t a situation with clear answers or outcomes after all. It is constantly fluid and full of second guessing. Just how they left me.
So there is an element of my own stifling. After so much time, I had out of habit and perceived need dampened myself and my sense of self-worth in the name of self-preservation.
As an extension of this, I’ve noticed my digital life shift dramatically now that I know they have a Twitter and that said Twitter algorithm will not hesitate to connect us. Even before the recent downturn of the app, I have shied away from it. This is not so new. It goes back to me being more of a silent watcher than an active participant by personality. But there is more to that now. Now, I worry about this connection being forged, that once again, my own words might lead me to some sort of ruin. Privacy settings were an option, yes, but I didn’t want to draw attention to it. I didn’t want to confirm this person’s suspicions on who MJ Bailey was by preemptively blocking them on accounts which they might stumble upon if anyone recommends my podcast or blog to them.
I have long since accepted that a sizeable portion of my former academic community will not believe me in my accusations. I remain unsure about everyone else. Here there is loss and opportunity for more loss. Consequently, not all the pieces of me were changed over, were they? The worst parts remain. Fear and grief most obviously. I have lost connections I would have otherwise treasured, and I carry the fear that more is to come. Not just more loss, but that the ordeal that was sitting in my advisor’s office–while they dug into every festering wound I had told them about under some misguided obligation–might happen again. Harm might still come to me, I mean to say. I might not be ashamed of my story, but who is to say they will tell the simple truth if a distorted and twisted version would benefit them more? After all, I’m just an object used to bolster their own causes.
***
Unexpected Losses, First a Year and So Much More
It may go without saying, but the relationship with this unnamed mentor did not end well. But for clarity’s sake, it didn’t start off well. Or at least, at the transition point between being a student in their class and to my being an undergraduate advisee of theirs, things didn't go so smoothly. In one of our first get-to-know-you-conversations, it came up that I like writing. At the time, I was mostly writing novels. I like longer form stories and had not yet considered making a podcast. And this love and careful cultivation of a craft was one of the rare points of pride I had to my name. I wasn’t at my self-deprecating peak anymore; I had climbed down from that quite awhile before. But I was still uneasy in my own skin and had a nervousness about me that I couldn’t shake. Their reaction to my declaration is one that I will never forget. Even in the moment it didn’t sit well with me.
“Oh great,” they said. “That’s something I’ve always meant to do. I haven’t had the time for it.”
I still somewhat struggle to explain why that rubbed me the wrong way or how her admission wasn’t met with a sort of ‘kindred spirit’ excitement one might have expected. After all, it was something my advisor and I shared, right? It was a bonding or conversation point between the two of us. But it didn’t sound like that to me. I chalked it up to my own ego at the time. By then, I thought of it as a sort of self defense mechanism or something else like that. My point, however, was that it was a me-problem and not a problem with something they had said. They had made an innocent comment. I had overreacted. It was simple.
But I don’t think it was so simple anymore. There was something limiting and undercutting about it. This interest of mine felt trivialized as some shiny object anyone could pick up if they only had the time to do so, which isn’t wrong per say. I don’t think writing should be gate-kept, but why in a conversation about me did we turn back to their aspirations and the main barrier behind them? The fact that the barrier was time seemed to push the cut open even more because I did want to make something vaguely akin to a career out of this. I had no misconceptions about how unlikely it would be to live off of such an income, but it was still something I wanted to strive for. But to say or imply this couldn’t or shouldn’t be a priority, to downgrade it in this way made me question myself. Regardless of their motives, I felt smaller at that moment. I felt unsure of what to do next. I felt admonished or indirectly scolded like my mother used to do when she thought I was out of line in public.
There were two reasons why I didn’t write for a year after our falling out. Neither of which was the reason I’m more likely to give when asked about it. I might want to say that it was because I was in an accelerated graduate program, and so I just didn’t have the time. That sounded like the acceptable answer, though I fear I might have stung others in the same way I was hurt when I first heard that remark. But really, it was that moment, that deflating of myself, and the moment when this mentorship burst into flames, the loss of my voice at their behest and the need to reclaim it. I didn’t want to write until I could sound like myself again, and I couldn’t bring myself to write if doing so was pointless. Both felt true.
After a year, I had already had some sort of rescue, which came from my master’s thesis advisor. He had already pieced together that I was not the best fit for academia but had let me come to the conclusion on my own and with the full assurance that neither he nor anyone who genuinely cared about me would feel jilted that I had not walked in their footsteps. After that program, I had an entire thesis under my belt that might have been a hot mess in its earlier drafts but had come together and was definitively written in my voice with only gentle nudging on his part. And it was not that bad of a thesis either. I regret that it may never see the light of day, as I’m fairly certain that university retains publishing or distribution rights as an extension of maintaining a program database for future students, but I did make something worth making, something of value. Which picked up my confidence a bit. But self-development and recovery aren’t linear processes. And something that brought you comfort in a time of distress once will always be appealing when under that same sense of duress.
And I do wish I could promote him and his work here, but I pray he understands that for so many reasons–many of which are written out above this line of text–I cannot.
***
Status Unknown
I haven’t stopped writing or podcasting. The podcasting has slowed down, but it hasn’t stopped. And I now write on Twitch as a writing/productivity streamer. I’m not afraid to do that. In fact, I feel emboldened to do so, bolstered by friends who I know believe me when they hear this story, who are surprised I am so willing to offer the quasi-forgiveness I hold, or–in a few instances–were there for me when this all unfolded. No matter what comes I know they have my back. Frankly, I see them as my training wheels right now as I try to choke down the fear that is arising in me because I want to keep going. I want to pursue my dreams, I want to publish novels, I want to make more podcasts, and I want to not worry about this one specter of my past that shouldn’t matter anyway. But that means knowing I might be discovered and that the consequences 22-year-old me was so desperate to avoid might come to pass anyway.
It seems like nothing, but I am still that 22-year-old in so many ways. I am that same person, that same ship that went through a heinous trial at the behest of a being who may very well be unworthy of the rank they hold. No amount of changed parts has changed that. So I am asking something of myself I am hesitant to give anymore.
I am still scarred and marked up. The lines of someone’s callousness run the length of who I am. This sort of repair is almost impossible. I am scared. I want you to know that just so you know where I am right now. I am frightened but stronger and working towards where I need to be.
***
The Reason Why Educators Matter (and Why Their Abuses Matter)
When we talk about the value of educators, we almost always do it in a positive sense. We are touched by the good they are able to achieve despite so many barriers and forces working against them. And each act of educational heroism is commendable, though we should still be mindful of how unfair it is to make such a demand on anyone and take steps to lessen that demand. Regardless, conversations around the damage educators can do when things go wrong or they are left unchecked should still happen. They don’t just have the power to leave physical marks or welts on their students. It can go beyond that. It did go beyond that with me. There are aspects of myself and my life that are permanently changed or altered. The damage is not negated by my ability to scrape myself up off the floor and cannot be washed away through any of the small repairs and replacements that happen as life goes on. It was life altering, and I worry that this power is handed out so freely and so unchecked.
What will it take to make a change, I wonder. When will it be enough?