Does "me" matter?

While brewing the afternoon coffee, my advisor asked, “Which journal would you like to set as a goal to publish your tool?” I was stumped. “I haven’t thought about it.” He replied, “You should have.”

I never care too much about the final destination of articles. Of course, nobody would refuse to publish articles in journals with high IF and/or good reputation. But that’s a retrospective thought, instead of a goal set at the very beginning. I haven’t developed a sense of desire for certain journals, and I doubt whether I will. I do have my judgement when browsing articles in different journals and have somehow developed a preference in publishing styles. But that only happens when I read. When it comes to publishing my own work, I don’t have the weathervane anymore.

Setting a goal is not my thing, either. Most of the time, I place greater value on whether I am doing my utmost and striving for perfection in the process of accomplishing a task, rather than merely working towards an end goal that may involve elements of luck and timing. I tried to explain these thoughts to my advisor in my first year here at Fudan, but he didn’t seem to get it. I can’t recall what he replied before; perhaps it was some commonplace relating to the so-called success.

But that’s also a question I can’t dodge forever. I have to choose one or more journals by myself, after finishing writing. If such a thing is inevitable, why do I still not want to think about it, as if it’s trying to confine my motivation within a utilitarian cage? Does such behaviour equal setting a goal for the paper? In form, they do indeed seem indistinguishable. But actually, they are not. So theoretically, there’s no need to feel strange about it.

While writing this, it strikes me that what made me stumped was not the choosing thing itself, but the order of writing the article and choosing the journal. I wish to finish writing with no other things interfering with me at first, and then start to choose the journal that suits my style of writing and/or the category of my tool. But at this point, I have merely finished the development of my tool and haven’t started writing at all. The question and reply from my advisor implied that I should choose the style of a certain journal and then write the paper to fit such a style. It’s as if the purpose and destiny of the article were to be published in a particular journal, instead of just introducing what I have developed. My personal subjectivity was obliterated in such a pursuit.

But to be honest, no one cares about my personal subjectivity, right? There’s only one person in the world who cares, and that is me. No wonder my advisor didn’t seem to get it, because this tiny little subjectivity doesn’t matter to his work, nor to my own work. I have to understand that though the word “writing” seems to contain “me” in it, it’s not the case in scientific research. Science requires “me” only if one’s mind sparkles in their work, which only happens after they have made a great and real contribution to science. Here, I, a nobody, would not be appreciated for having “me” in the writing.

OK, that sounds really cruel, and that’s also an underlying rule I don’t want to follow. Can I retain my subjectivity while still accomplishing my writings? Is there an accessible balance I can try to reach? I don’t know.