Choosing my way

"Composing is a terribly personal matter: the overcoming of difficulties, gaining knowledge, deciding upon a certain order, a certain method of constructing a new piece. This is important. You have to choose your way, you have to pick a proper path from an infinite number of possibilities."

-- Henryk Górecki

In describing the doctoral experience, Tom Coates suggests that we are more likely to succeed if we "take on relatively unambitious projects which don't stretch the assumptions or structures of the discipline too much". Sadly, I have to agree. But then again, I suspect that experience is common to many, if not most, people outside of academia as well. I mean, really, when has it been easy to change the ways things are done?

When - in composing my dissertation and myself - I do not have before me Górecki's "infinite number of possibilities" can I not still choose my own way?