2016-01-06

FunkyPlaid successfully defended his doctoral thesis today! I’ve thought about writing those words for as long as we’ve been on this path together, so by now I should have something momentous to say to mark the occasion.

As a younger person, I believed fervently in the ability to put any feeling or experience into words. Every day I live a little longer I realise that there are fewer and fewer experiences that can be fully articulated. Something is always left out.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s a large part of what drives me as a writer and as a human being: in the former case, to try to express the ineffable, and in the latter, not to do so.

Goodness, this took a philosophical turn. Fitting, as it is honour of my newly-minted Doctor of Philosophy, and also fitting considering just how many words he wrote to earn the title. There now, in non-philosophical terms: I am heart-crackingly proud of FunkyPlaid, his achievement, and his humility and grace through it all. The rest of this shared moment I’ll savour wordlessly.