Satisfying, because everyone likes talking (or writing) about themselves. This is why psychotherapy feels so good, and why everyone wants to write a memoir or autobiography, even though they may not admit it.

As a “course of life” a CV is akin to journaling, a reflective act that encourages one to recognize accomplishments as well as weaknesses and gaps in one’s professional performance. For instance, I once again had to confront the vacuous hole where publications should be. (Maybe next year, right?)

Loathsome, because not only must one lament one’s shortcomings, writing a CV is by definition an autoerotic, narcissistic episode where one must prop up a largely positive image of one’s self against a sea of more qualified (or equally artificial, if you see it that way) competitors. Yet there is also a difficult honesty in a CV, for one can only list accomplishments–the things one has actually done in the past–obviating current or future prospects.

A classmate stated that one must decide how to construct a CV based on what story one wants to tell about one’s self. I can see that in a resume, but a CV is like a catalogue, a full listing of anything minutely significant. It can be pared, true, but most choose to be comprehensive, and in doing so must sacrifice elaboration in favor of listing, if only to preserve some (admittedly tepid) resemblance to readability.