Disturbance hypothesis

Graduate school in my life is analagous to disturbance in an ecological system. Its disruptive, its difficult, it pushes my limits, and ultimately it cleans things out and provides fertile ground for growth and change. Most ecological systems require some disturbance, or are dependent on disturbance events for some piece of their functioning (fire, flood, wind, etc). Maybe it makes sense, then, that so many people choose to subject themselves to the catastrophic lifestyle of graduate school. Its a challenge, it pushes us to find our limits, it expands our horizons and perspectives. Just in the meantime, we feel a bit ruffled and tousled. Yet another way the human organism is similar to the ecosystems we are part of and inhabit. Now, i just have to figure out how publishing work fits into this scheme of lunacy?