The pursuit of PhDs

… is it a hot-footed chase after a delinquent qualification, complete with screeching tyres and pistol shots gone wild? “Calling all cars, calling all cars. Suspected PhD currently heading down Route 83 between Oaktown and Ashburg. Degree may be armed and dangerous. Pursue with caution.” or “Quick driver! follow that dissertation!”
… Or perhaps it’s a more zoological thing. The PhD not a malevolent or demanding intelligence, but a thing of nature, arbitrary, fickle. Must one wander through forests of regression, net in hand, seeking the butterflies of statistical significance? Must one sit crouched in a machaan over the dead horse of one’s thesis topic, waiting for a contribution to emerge?

Falstaff muses on the meaning of pursuing a PhD.