The only research that ever paid dividends for me has come in fields that nearly all relatives and teachers told me would be utterly useless, un-serious, a waste of time: muscle bodies, wrestling, deep dives into beefy oddballs, weird fitness
My PhD advisor encouraged it. He said if I was so serious about such strange stuff, I'd obviously derive value from it (hence his own research into university glee clubs and the dietary habits of John Dos Passos)
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As did my father, albeit with different reasoning. He believed that thinking critically about throwaway or trash subjects that were nevertheless hobbies to millions might have some value down the line, if a market ever developed for smart insider commentary
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Smart guy.
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My advisor didn't discourage oddities in my dissertation, primarily about Shakespeare and the King's 2 bodies, standard enough, but I had a knack for incorporating odd things into the argument. It still isn't read. I see it footnoted as backup for the opposite of what it says.
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Actually, not all citations cite it to backup something that contradicts the book, a few do.
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