Letting the Mud Settle

I'm still in this pool of self doubt but at least now, I am managing.
Last year was the ulimate pressure to give my theses a go. But a part of me is holding back for the simple reason that I want more experiments with doing quali research. The thing is I'm learning this on my own with help from Doctor X and Jean Gray, 2 people I look up to when it comes to doing research and maybe the most immediate ones I know I can rely on for help. My curiosities now are with the types of quali research methodologies which I'd like to experiment on for the sake of experimenting and not particularly to come up with a decent output. I'd like to just undergo the process of doing things and make the essential mistakes I have to in order to learn.

This gets in conflict with external pressure to acquire a PhD because this is what is acceptable to the academic world. A PhD is a necessity in a higher ed career. Academics and scholars are supposed to generate knowledge. This I question of course. There's just too much knowledge to go around with, right? The greater need for me is to write what I want to write. I thought I could pull it with my first topic presentation but I was not able to in my panel members' view.

So it's still an ongoing battle of wills: a part of me says "Wisen up!", a part of me says "Give it up!" and yet one says "Give it a rest...let things be".