Most people come out of their Ph.D. experience trying to prove themselves, trying to get ahead, trying to get published. You're scared everybody else is going to do your research and get your topic.

You don't build your character by doing what everybody else is doing.

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.

It makes sense that whatever the topic is, it's more compelling if you can provide the audience with a range of perspectives, and you can cross disciplines. And you don't have to control what people take out of it.

I do everything that everybody else does.

Artists are like everybody else.