An initiation ritual does something to your character structure --it adds something and it takes something away, making one's destiny more fated, more certain. My PhD was like that for me, because I wrote it in such a way as to take seriously Nietzsche's injunction, "live dangerously". This meant that my thinking was very independent indeed and far from being able to resort to academic assistance. The way this changed me was I gained a hell of a lot of self-respect. I established my right to be thoroughly independent. What I lost through the thesis process was the sense that I was a particularly special person or that my ego amounted to very much. But these had been only Western ephiphenomena, not something real to a person of an African upbringing. In fact, I was much more gratified to be counted in the ranks of those who have thought and acted dangerously. I mean, bravely.
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