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I know it's been a little while, and March is wrapping up. I've been busy doing my usual juggling act of getting things done and trying to relax, but with spring coming around, I've been in a much better mood. My anxiety is very present, since I'm proceeding with my enrollment process. It's down to editing and tidying up submissions and finally tracking down those recommendation letters. My problem is the same as it ever was, but a little more pronounced - simply, I don't actually know anybody anymore. I've come to feel that the admissions processes are intentional like that - more or less designed for a certain type of person with a certain type of connection set to be allowed in, and the process remain more or less exclusionary to the greater public. In that capacity, I fear it's a lot like the business world. People who say that academia isn't like the 'real world' take note; sadly it seems to be exactly like the 'real world' - just as worthless, just as stuck in its infighting, just as in love with internal and meaningless politicking.
My hope to exist withing that atmosphere is not based on my personal feelings about academics and their overall worth. I can tell you why academic work is useful, and I can tell you why it's useless, and I can tell you why it depends on your perspective, your values, and maybe just on where you're standing when you ask the question. I'm too far away from my initial undergrad days to think I'd come into academia and really make a difference in a big way, that suddenly people will read what I make or listen to a lesson I've crafted and see things my way. The world is full of utterly brilliant people talking over each other. So, I have a personal belief in what's right and good, but mostly I want to get away from low-wage labor and call centers, and this is what I'm best at. I'm not even qualified for the job portion of it, yet, so I get to be wrung through another wringer.
If anything, that might be my most enduring quality, my best qualification for the position of student - my capacity for tolerating and compartmentalizing a truly stunning degree of abuse. Like, what, are you going to disenchant me of my notions? Well, I won't count them out, it's always possible to get worse.
Despite all that, I'm all in. I mean, I've already internalized the shit and I'm willing to do it anyway. I've already swallowed the worst-case scenario. I find writing rewarding and I'd like to try to teach, and I need to learn more to do it, plus the rewards (few as they may be, as I've been led to understand) are sufficient for my wants and needs. And I think I can do it.
Everything I've got right now, though, mostly says, 'quit'. As in, why bother? My wants are so understated and my needs so little that my lifestyle is actually now adequate. And I don't know if that's because I've cut everything out of my life in terms of 'wants' but a two pound bag of whole, generic brand coffee beans, a handle of mid-tier vodka, and five identical gray t-shirts that come shipped in small cubes from Muji, by way of the New York Municipal Art Museum, or if I'm just really good at handling my miniscule finances, but I'm not sure I want to deal with the stress. But when it comes down to it, like it all eventually does, I know that this is just my head playing tricks on me; that I'll be better off, more actualized, maybe even happier, by following through. That anxiety produces a series of illusions and lies about the sameness of events in terms of my experiences that isn't real. That if I try and succeed, I can go on to a new chapter in my life full of new experiences (and familiar, desired ones) that won't be mine unless I follow through - or at least make the attempt.
I often ask, "What is it in this world that drives me?" A warm front and a cold front; a need for personal growth and change and the vertigo of anticipation of failure. I feel like if I go to long without doing something that makes me want to tear my heart out from stress, I grow too stagnant for my liking. If I do something that terrifies me every year or so, I feel like I'm doing something right.
My hope to exist withing that atmosphere is not based on my personal feelings about academics and their overall worth. I can tell you why academic work is useful, and I can tell you why it's useless, and I can tell you why it depends on your perspective, your values, and maybe just on where you're standing when you ask the question. I'm too far away from my initial undergrad days to think I'd come into academia and really make a difference in a big way, that suddenly people will read what I make or listen to a lesson I've crafted and see things my way. The world is full of utterly brilliant people talking over each other. So, I have a personal belief in what's right and good, but mostly I want to get away from low-wage labor and call centers, and this is what I'm best at. I'm not even qualified for the job portion of it, yet, so I get to be wrung through another wringer.
If anything, that might be my most enduring quality, my best qualification for the position of student - my capacity for tolerating and compartmentalizing a truly stunning degree of abuse. Like, what, are you going to disenchant me of my notions? Well, I won't count them out, it's always possible to get worse.
Despite all that, I'm all in. I mean, I've already internalized the shit and I'm willing to do it anyway. I've already swallowed the worst-case scenario. I find writing rewarding and I'd like to try to teach, and I need to learn more to do it, plus the rewards (few as they may be, as I've been led to understand) are sufficient for my wants and needs. And I think I can do it.
Everything I've got right now, though, mostly says, 'quit'. As in, why bother? My wants are so understated and my needs so little that my lifestyle is actually now adequate. And I don't know if that's because I've cut everything out of my life in terms of 'wants' but a two pound bag of whole, generic brand coffee beans, a handle of mid-tier vodka, and five identical gray t-shirts that come shipped in small cubes from Muji, by way of the New York Municipal Art Museum, or if I'm just really good at handling my miniscule finances, but I'm not sure I want to deal with the stress. But when it comes down to it, like it all eventually does, I know that this is just my head playing tricks on me; that I'll be better off, more actualized, maybe even happier, by following through. That anxiety produces a series of illusions and lies about the sameness of events in terms of my experiences that isn't real. That if I try and succeed, I can go on to a new chapter in my life full of new experiences (and familiar, desired ones) that won't be mine unless I follow through - or at least make the attempt.
I often ask, "What is it in this world that drives me?" A warm front and a cold front; a need for personal growth and change and the vertigo of anticipation of failure. I feel like if I go to long without doing something that makes me want to tear my heart out from stress, I grow too stagnant for my liking. If I do something that terrifies me every year or so, I feel like I'm doing something right.