--> the worst loneliness I've ever experienced was being lonely together with someone. It created a fundamental alienation from the very possibility of relationship.
--> I'm having that pressing feeling that higher education is a sham, that my job is not to impart wisdom, strength, self-reliance, or critical skills. Rather, I'm starting to think that my job is to teach people to endure that which is uninteresting.
--> I recently had a realization that academic careers can easily turn into abusive relationships (this is a "psychological analogy," Flight of the Conchords fans). The twin message, if you grant the "calling" of the academic life any power is (a) that you are never good enough, but (b) that no one else will ever love you the way I do. I want to get out of this abusive cycle.
--> the first way I started to break this cycle has been to unapologetically take weekends for myself. If it isn't done on Friday, it won't get looked at again until Monday. This has left me feeling empowered, but has temporarily left a void that used to filled with guilt, worry, and pacing.
--> another thing I'll need to do is restructure my relationship to writing. It has to be either targeted formulaic disciplinary stuff that accomplishes "just doing the job" or transdiciplinary creative work that targets broader readerships.
--> I have the sinking feeling that all of my clutter reveals an avoidance of happiness. Could making my space happy and neat help me actually be happy and neat?
--> I want to laugh more, create more, take more chances, learn new things, force myself out of my comfort zones, follow my desires, and become irresistible.
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2 comments:
ditto on every last thing you've said, literally.
--jerz
Hey I get your academic angst. The problem is, when you work a 9 to 5, all you want is to flee back to the classroom. Trapped in the classroom, though, you feel like a fish in a tank that needs cleaning. I have no answers. but I'm sending you good thoughts, Dr. M.
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