Juliet, Naked

I love the fiction of Nick Hornby, although I came to it indirectly, first seeing the movie High Fidelity. But his novels, for reasons I cannot fully explain, just pull me in. I think foremost it is the humor. He has a sense of humor unlike anything I have come across in fiction (not that I read all that much fiction). His characters are invariably likeable. Reading fiction is generally not effortless for me, or if it is effortless it seems pretty empty (mysteries). His fiction strikes both effortless and substantive. Which made his latest book a mixed experience. It had all the Hornby characteristics, the dry humor, the insights into what motivates us, the likeable characters. But there was an underlying, how shall I say, weight, a sadness, I would even go so far as to say a bleakness, to the whole thing. I would still give it a thumbs up. But, well, if you are not already on anti-depressants, this book might well cause you to sign on.





Juliet, Naked tells the story of a early forty-ish British couple, Duncan and Annie, that have been together for fifteen years. They live in some out of the way small English city.Duncan teaches at a college and is obsessed with an 80s folk icon, Tucker Crowe, who quit the business about twenty years ago and has become the stuff of legend to some obsessed fans, Duncan among them. As the novel begins Duncan and Annie are touring sites in America associated with the musician, including the bathroom in a bar where he supposedly had some kind of satori that caused him to leave.



The first major incident in the novel involves an unplugged version of a Tucker Crowe's final album that has just been released. Duncan writes a glowing review on a website devoted to Crowe. Annie thinks the album is shit and writes a review online saying so, offending Duncan not only because it shows a disagreement with his taste but because it is, in Duncan's mind, an incredible act of chutzpah, for this neophyte to be posting a review. Unbeknownst to Duncan, Annie actually gets a reply from the real Tucker, and they start up a correspondence. Meanwhile, Duncan has an affair with another teacher at the college.



All the while Annie is regretting the time the relationship with Duncan, the lack of passion and the loss of lovers that might have been but never were because of this fifteen year period of stultification; she is thinking all this even before she finds out about the affair. At one point she is commenting on the pictures of their vacations. She notes that being childless meant that your snapshots were a little on the dull side: "Nobody grew up or got bigger; no landark occasions were commerated because there were none. Duncan and Annie just got older, and a little fatter."



It's a sad comment on the inevitability of decline. As is the project that Annie is working on. Annie works at a museum and as the book begins she is putting together an exhibit about the summer of 1964 when the Stones played their little town and a 30 foot shark washed up on the beach. She has asked the citizens form momentos. but all they have been able to get is a picture of four young people obviously enjoying the day and the shark's eye in a jar.



The picture becomes a central image in the book, as Annie looks at the two young men and women and imagines this was a great day for them, as you can tell by their smiles, and reflects it may have been the best day of their life. And now where are they? She actually meets one of the women in the picture, who confirms that yes it was a great day with two blokes they had just met. Nothing happened between them, she said, because well, she was a good girl. And now she wonders what was the point, of being a good girl that is. More sadness on the passage of time.



And what about Tucker. He is living back in the States with yet another relationship about to break up. It turns out he has four or five (I forget) children from different women, and when for reasons I won't go into, goes to London to visit one of them (and to see Annie) he has a heart attack. But he survives, slips away from the wives and children who have descended upon London and sneaks off with Annie, bringing his son from his latest relationship with him. Annie and Tucker make love, Duncan meets his idol (and doesn't believe it's him) and Tucker goes back to the States.



Tucker ultimately releases a new album, which is all about how happy he is with his life in the States and with his son--an album all his old fans hate, though some new ones like it.And so what. Annie is alone without any real prospects, Duncan has stumbled into a relationship with a woman he does not have much in common with for no other reason than that he was bored. I mean, I'm not sure what to make of it. I think of the scene in Annie Hall, where an old woman tells Woody "Love fades." Yeah, and so does life, according to the book. And once its gone its gone. Well, I sort of knew that. There is some suggestion that if they had had kids, Duncan and Annie might have been happier (at least Annie). And Tucker is happy with his kid in the States. So is the answer to have kids?

In one of my favorite parts of the book--a classic Nick Hornby moment--Annie has written Tucker asking what do you do when you've wasted fifteen years of your life. And since Tucker really hasn't done much for fifteen plus years, he feel he can reply and does so, making observations such as that you should try to think of activities that weren't such a waste so you can get the total amount of lost time under ten years, and then goes about suggesting what might work. He also talks about Charles Dickens, who he has been reading, and goes on to mention all that Dickens did in his his life--the novels, the correspondence, the life. I think the point might be that no matter how much you did you will never stack up to Dickens, so don't get so depressed about not doing much. It's an interesting line of reasoning. I started applying it to my own time in academia, trying to get the number as low as I could. I think I got it down to around seven years, though I wished I had gotten it down to five.


Well, I enjoyed the ride because it was a Nick Hornby novel, but I am not very happy about the destination he dropped me off at.

Final Thoughts on Moore

This is probably the last entry I will devote to Moore's book "A Life at Work." As a result, I will limit myself mostly to quotes, with a few random comments. As I said, it is definitely a book worth picking up.

"In your confusion and experienting, you learn about the laws of life and you feel the burden of your existence. This is not a bad thing because it gives weight to your thougths and gives character to your work."
--All I can say is that this is one of those lines that struck me as true the moment I read it, in that it really feels that what I am doing is experimenting in all of this. I only hope I "learn about the laws of life."

"Here is my starting point in looking for a life work: Step out of the frenzied pursuit of the right job, look around at the whole of your life, and connect with the source of your vitality. If you begin with who you are and with the current of life you feel inside you, you will be grounded as you search and experiment. Your quest will be like a spring flowing from the font of your very nature, rather than a mere maddening search for a suitable occupation or position."
--I think this is the most helpful piece of advice I take away from the book, namely, the fact that you need to step back from the idea of getting the right job and look at the big picture. I sort of had a premonition of this when I did not attempt to the MSW while teaching. That would have ultimately involved a direct jump from one job to another without taking the step back that Moore recommends and that I certainly feel is needed. I should say that I don't feel I have even remotely begun this process. I should also add that I am not really sure how to go about doing this.


"You sit with the chaos of your work life, perhaps not able to get a useful job, certainly far from feelng that you have your life work in your hands. You sit there with your failures, wrong turns, bad choices, incomplet projects, far-off dreams, and frustrating expectations--any life teems with raw material, and it takes a long time to do the inventory. You sense the chaos and wnat to do something abou it. You may not see your situation as one of possibility and the ability to develop, but if you trust the alchemical wisdom you may glimst the secret of the chaotic. It allows change and development, whereas a clear and fixed job or position might blind you to future possibility. You may be too comfortable outside of chaos to consider the possible alternatives."
--I guess I like this line because it vindicates my choice--who doesn't like things that vindicate us. I also like the phrase "the secret of the chaotic."

"In therapy I have witnessed many people searching for deeper satisfaction in their lives, but they are so identified with the future, with possibilities that bounce in their heads and give them pleasure for the moment, that they don't really know what they want, or bettter, what their heart wants. Finding a life work is all about desire, not a passing wish--a deep, long-standing desire to be someone and to do something. Yet people often do not know themselves well enough to know what they want."
--I could go on quite a bit about this line. I have known the danger of having possibilities bounce in my head, of getting so caught up in the possible that you forget the actual. This also relates to the previous quote about taking time off to look around before making a decision, or rather, taking time off to look inside. Some of that is definitely called for.

"Rather than escape into pleasant fantasies of a successful future, it may be more useful to gather the courage to face the past in all its disturbing detail."
--No comment required on this, I think

Are you a mouse or a man?

On the recommendation of a friend I’ve been reading Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. The story is essentially a little parable about how to deal with change in work and in life It involves two mice—Sniff and Scurry—and two mice sized but otherwise human creatures known as Hem and Haw and their relation to cheese. At the start of the saga, all the mice and the mice-sized people have access to cheese, and as a result are quite content. One day, however, the cheese is no longer there, although there are some questions weather in fact the cheese has in fact been decreasing over time or the drop off was sudden. In either case, the mice immediately head off in search of new cheese. But the two human like creatures are quite baffled by the whole situation, and first sit around and complain, and then analyze, and ultimately engage in some rather futile activity to bring the cheese back. Finally one of the people like creatures—Haw—decides to leave behind their previous location and, despite being afraid, goes out into the maze in search of new cheese—a task which after some effort he ultimately successfully completes. Along the way he leaves “handwriting on the wall” of the maze in the hopes his old friend Hem might read it and be encouraged,

These nuggets of wisdom are summarized at the end:
1. Change happens (they keep moving the cheese)
2. Anticipate change: Get ready for the cheese to move
3. Monitor change: Smell the old cheese so you know when it is getting old
4. Adopt to change quickly: the quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese
5. Change: Move with the cheese
6. Enjoy change: savor the adventure and enjoy the new cheese
7. Be ready to change quickly (they keep moving the cheese)

This is only a sketch and an inadequate one at that of a short work I highly recommend. All I can say is this little tale went a long way towards delineating my situation, although if I were to describe myself it would be as another character “Huh?” , who has left the place where there no longer is any cheese and now wonders why he isn’t getting any cheese. Shouldn’t the fact that he moved out of the cheeseless situation be enough? Huh? asks himself. But the thing is, of course, you don’t get any cheese just by leaving the place where there was no cheese before. You have to act, and that is what I have failed to do up to this point. I am neither in the old place looking for old cheese like Hem but neither am I out exploring the maze like Haw.

metaphors and canyon swings

I take my metaphors where I can get them. And somehow, falling 110 meters into a canyon and then swinging for another couple hundred meters seemed as good a stand in as any for the leap I’ve taken in my career. To tell the truth, I was not sure what the connection was. But it was pretty clear at least the Shotover Canyon Swing in Queenstown was a physical instantiation of what I had done to my career: a jump into the abyss. I am not sure what exactly my thinking was. But I could tell you what it was not. My thinking was definitely not that if I survive this physical leap in the abyss I will be alright with the career leap. It just seemed, well, fitting, that if I was going to jump in the one situation I jump in the other. Also, I think that if you go to Rome, you see the Vatican, and if you got to Queenstown, you jump into a canyon.

So as soon as we got back from hike I made my way over to the Canyon Swing office and singed up. At this stage, the whole thing was unreal. You are putting your name on a piece of paper and paying some money. It is all theoretical courage. Even watching videos of previous leapers really could not impact my state of mind since I had not personally experienced this situation. I was told at the office that due to the lateness of my signing up I had roughly a half hour until the place closed to cancel my jump, and that they would jump in any weather.

I slept fine, again not thinking too much about it I because it all seemed unreal. But when I woke up in the morning the reality that I was going to do something incredibly stupid did it hit pretty much first thing and put me in a rather foul mood. To make things worse, it’s raining pretty steadily when I get up, and I momentarily contemplated using this as an excuse to back off, but knew really that I could not

The image I had in my mind at that time is one I saw on a biography of Buster Keaton, the silent film comedian. At one point in his career, things are really not going well: there are business troubles, women troubles. And they are out there filming a stunt where a house has to fall on him, and there is a hole where a window is that is supposed to be the spot that saves him. And they show Buster’s face as he is filming this stusnt, and you can tell he really does not care if that house fall on him. Something like that spirit was in me as I prepare for the jump. There is a real sense that the worst case scenario would not be so bad.

At the office, there are two other guys besides myself who are there to jump, one is from Amsterdam and one if from Germany. Both are young strapping guys in their twenties with girlfriends in tow. I am glad I am doing this with other guys. Yesterday as I singed up it was a group of young girls that was heading out. This just seems more fitting. The rain is coming down pretty heavily as its time to depart. We all jump into the van. Our driver is a 30-ish affable rogue named, fittingly, Kramer.

It’s only about a ten minute drive up to Shotover Canyon and on the way they show us a dvd of various styles of jumping. Kramer suggests jumping off yourself particularly if you have never done the jump because it’s more challenging than if they just cut you off. When I get there, however, I ask to be cut away, but they say that they cannot do this in the rain, although I am not sure whether they are just shitting me or not, because when I give into their reply they say, “you’re easy to convince.” I reply, it doesn’t really matter, does it.

It’s raining even more heavily and as they ask who wants to go first I volunteer, figuring the rain will only get worse. Plus I think if I wait around I might consider backing out. So they hook me up and I am not really listening to what they are saying but when we get to the edge Kramer and his co-worker start to banter with me, joking about hitting the water, the solidity of land. I mention my philosophy books and in particular the one about stoicism and how it teaches you to maintain control in all circumstances and they mention that this will give me a chance to practice what I preach. They briefly try to talk me into a jump called the “pinhead” which they claim I can use on the back cover of my next book, but I demur and say I will simply step off. They hook me up the cable, pull away the safety rope and it’s time to go. I say, you just step off and they say, yes and that’s exactly what I do

And before I know it I am flying, with my eyes closed. It is like a dream, really and I would not be surprised to wake up in my bed, but instead I am jerked to a stop and then start swinging across the canyon and soon am being hauled back up to the top. On return, someone mentions it was the most blasé step off they had ever seen.

New Zealand

Been in New Zeland this past week, hiking the Milford Track for most of that time and so cut off from civilization. Returning to Queenstown, the place seems overwhelmed by students onb break. Man, if you ever want to feel old, come to Queenstown in December. Anyway, fuller report later. Bungee jumping tomorrow. So if the blog suddenly ends, you will know why.

Moore commentary cont.

Curretnltly ont a two week trip to New Zealand with my sister. However, I brought along a kindle version of Moore's book and my netbook (yeah, I know, something perverted about bringing this stuff on a vacation, along with my ipod). So I will offer up some commentary on Moore's text as I work my way through it.

“A calling is the sense that you are on this earth for a reason, that you have a destiny, no matter how great or small. Those who look at life more soberly might question whether such an attitude is warranted. It may seem naïve. But the sense of calling doesn’t necessarily require belief in the supernatural and it doesn’t have to be naïve. A calling is a sensation or intuition that life wants something from you.”

--Let me begin by saying I am sure a lot of people feel this sense of calling about academia. And if you are one of them, then god bless and stay right where you are. Or you might believe the whole sense of calling is a “crock” and you just want a steady job that gives you security, a decent pay check and a fair amount of time off. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. All I can say is that in my own situation it was not the case that I felt a sense of calling in academia, and I am unfortunate enough to believe in such things. Through my own experience and from talking to numerous colleagues, I know that academics are constantly complaining about some element or other with regard to their job. In this, they are no different than workers in countless other professions. And to be sure, there is plenty to complain about.

But yet, not everyone feels that way about their job. One of the many “signs” I came across when travelling last spring and summer and trying to sort some things out was a lunch (well, not actually a lunch because we were at a fasting resort. More like our daily broth). I sat and listened as these two women described jobs they were committed to and that could certainly qualify as noble callings. One was working in the Palestinian territories for the UN educating children; the other had just quit her job at a law firm in London and was going back to the States to work for some organization that would advocate for justice on behalf of third world women. It’s not that I felt embarrassed at being a college professor, and I did have the two years of Peace Corps service I was coming off of. But I felt there was a way to contribute to the world through one’s occupation, and I am not sure most people in academia have that sense. Or I should say at least I did not have that sense, and I knew I wanted my job to contribute to some higher good. I felt that in a way with the Peace Corps, though there are obviously difficulties with this organization in general and with what they are doing in China in particular. But there heart is in the right place, and that was a direction I needed to go.

More Moore

I thought that in addition to quoting from Moore's work I would also post some of my thoughts on these quotes.

"The concrete, visible, material world speaks to us, if we would only listen. You don't have to do exactly what the signs indicate, but it would help to consider them in evaluating the status of your work life. For example, if you are failingin a particular line of work, your difficulty may not mean that you are lacking or at fault, but that you are in the wrong profession."

Comment: Certainly, the fact is that I was not flourishing as an academic. From the start, I knew I was not able to do the sort of academic writing that would be necessary to succeed in this arena. It really did not take long for me to determine this fact. Hell, I probably knew it before I even got my first job. But yet I kept at the academic writing for a number of years. And then when I switched to doing the sort of writing that I found more enjoyable, I did it with the sense that those doing the academic writing are all screwed up and with more than a little resentment over the ability to succeed and further careers as a result of this writing. If I had listened, I might have taken my inability to succeed in the sort of activity that was a prerequisite for advancement in my chosen profession as a sign that perhaps this was not the profession for me. And it was not only the publishing part of academia that gave me difficulty. Although I had my moments in worked hard at it, I never particularly enjoyed teaching. It always seemed to me more than a little ironic that those who go into a profession because they liked reading and study--basically introverts--had to make their living by engaging in an extremely extraverted activity. So my lack of ability in academic writing combined with my unease at teaching would have been one of the ways in which the concrete world was speaking--and I was not listening

A Life at Work

I've been reading Thomas Moore's A Life at Work: The Joy of Doscovering What you Were Born to Do. You may remember him from Care of the Soul. The focus of his most recent book should be obvious from the title. Using the model of the alchemist, he lays out a strategy by which one can go about the quest for one's lifework the way the alchemist would search for the philosopher's gold. Perhaps not the best model, since what the alchemists were after was delusional. But the seriousness of one's quest should not be obscured by the impossibility of achieiving it, else we are all screwed. Here is one quote to give you the general flavor of the work: "Doing work that has not soul is the great hidden malady of our time. Clearly, it would be worth our while as individuals and as a society to address unhappiness at work and discover the deep roots of our discontent. The anceint art of alchemy shows a way: Pay attention to your deep and complex interior life, become more sensitive about relationships, consider your past thoughtfully, and use your imagnation at its full power. Work from teh ground up toward finding the work that will make your life worthwhile"

So far I am enjoying the book quite a bit and will give a fuller report later on. For now I would put this work with What Color is Your Parachute and Po Bronson's What Should I Do With My LIfe as must reads for anyone embarked on a journey for a meaningful career.

Pumpkins and velvet cushions

A line from Thoreau pops into my head. This is not an unusual thing to have happen. I have relied on his words for more then thirty years. When some people say that writing does not matter, I think of how many times it is the written word that has gotten me through a night. I recall reading somewhere that Bobby Kennedy was aided through the period after his brother’s death by the Greek tragedians and the Existentialists. Just so, Thoreau is one of those sources I draw on in order to make it through a particularly tough time.

The quote I have in mind is his claim that he would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to himself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. Academia was quite a velvet cushion. Short days, long vacations, good pay, secure position. But there was a sense in which I always felt like a misfit. Certainly I did not shine in academia, but I would argue it is because my talents are not really those designed to shine in academia. Writing the sort of stuff that will get you noticed in academia was just not part of my personality. For a while I tried but and even published in this vein. But in the end, I chose another route, chose to write stuff that was more likely to reach a general audience. I don’t say that was either good or bad. It was simply where my interest and I think my ability lay. And while I did o.k. as a teacher, this is not the best position for an introvert, and in some ways it simply went against my grain.

So now I am out on my own. There is not the shelter and safety of academia, not the business card that explains who you are, not the easy answer to the question, “what do you do?” More importantly, not the income nor the benefits. As a result I will have to live a much simpler life, and in some ways a harder life. I have no illusion about what has been lost.But in focusing on Thoreau I can turn my attention to what has been gained. Thoreau tells the story of an Indian who, when he someone refused to buy his basket replied, “what, do you mean us to starve.” Thoreau wanted his life to be where he did not have to sell his baskets. And I guess that is where I am headed.

Leaving Academe

I've recently started looking at the "leaving academe" discussion site on the Chronicle of Education website. A little late, I realize. Anyway, I've been posting. Here is one of the columns I've been following. The original post is:

"I'm thinking of retiring early and wonder if anyone out there who's done that would be willing to share their experience.I'm 54, thinking it'd be great to retire at 59. This is the soonest I can retire and still take advantage of my upcoming sabbatical. Over the past few years, I've gotten more and more oriented toward research and writing. This is in contrast to my early years in which teaching was pure heaven; I loved the challenge of turning weak or reluctant students around and helping them become real learners, and I've been pretty successful at it. But these days that process takes more and more energy out of me, and now I live for term breaks and summers when I can really think and write.I can survive financially, if not thrive. (Health-insurance costs are something I haven't yet calculated. I do have a partner who's willing to help support me if I need it.) I'm hoping that with free time to do a lot of writing, I might be able to bring in enough income beyond Social Security and TIAA-CREF to relax just a bit -- but that's not critical to my survival.If you've retired early and regretted it, why? If you've done so and been delighted, why? What factors might I not be thinking of at this stage? Stories, thoughts welcome."

Someone responds with:"You haven't calculated the health insurance costs? That's major. MAJOR. Don't even consider it until you have that angle completely worked out.Prytania,who can go out in 2012 (provided the world doesn't end)"

My response is: "I just left academia this fall at age 49. Left a tenured position and a lifetime security because, well becuase this is simply not what I wanted to do with my life. Nothing more complicated than that. I "did not have every angle figured out, especially health insurance." But I knew it was time to go. Hell, it was time to go probably ten years ago. If you are happy in academia, then I say god bless. Stay there and don't go anywhere else because you have found your bliss. But if not, well what is wrong with moving on and tyring to find out what you are supposed to do with your life before you die. The thing is, even with the best health insurance, you die anyway. There is a beautiful essay by Pico Iyer you should read, about how he left behind a very successful writing life in New York and now lives in a two room apartment in Japan http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/the-joy-of-less/"If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies." If you're interested, I am keeping a blog of my journet at xphilosopher.blogspot.com

You know you've bottomed out when

The way you figure out it is Thursday is that you know you watched The Prisoner on Sunday night and it was a three part series and last night you did not watch The Prisoner

Part 3

I did not rely only on psychology but leaned pretty heavily on philosophy as well, for despite all the ambivalent feelings I may have about my profession I believe that at its best it provides wisdom and insight that can be invaluable, or at least that I, a man without religion, could not do without. Two philosophers in particular came to mind: William James and Jean-Paul Sartre.
In his essay “Existentialism is a Humanism” Sartre tells the story of a student who comes to him for advice about whether to join the French Resistance. Although the young man strongly feels the pull of duty to country during wartime, his mother is ill and he is her only support. What should he do? Sartre’s answer is the only one a serious person could provide in such a situation: I can’t help you. For Sartre, we are defined by/the sum total of our choices. In this case, there was not one right choice; rather, there were two choices each which affirmed a different value scheme. The young man had to choose and then accept full responsibility for the choice: nothing more and nothing less. Applied to my own situation, it meant that there were no words from a friend that would make my choice clear, no insight I would stumble upon if I reflected on the issue longer. Rather, there were two paths, and I had to choose by which one I wanted to define what was left of my life.

If Sartre clearly showed me the nature of the choice and what was at stake, it was the American philosopher William James who provided the methodology that may have ultimately decided the day. In “The Will to Believe,” James had argued that when we are faced with a genuine option—a choice between two momentous alternatives— the only sane way to decide, if it is not a matter of scientific reasoning where the evidence clearly lines up on one side (sorry creationists, birthers, and global warming skeptics) is with our passional nature. When I put the choice in those terms—where did my heart lie—the answer was clear, at least from a negative perspective. That is, I knew my heart was not in the academic game. I could go back, but it would not be out of passion for a calling but because of fear of losing health insurance premiums. True, when I thought of life without academia my head spun, my stomach turned, my heart rate increased. Of course, that may have been the side effects from the medication. But it also, at least to me, signaled an energy for a path which led I knew not where.
I knew what I had to do.

There is certainly a common sense argument that says if you are going to leave a job for life you should at least have something else lined up, even if it involves the phrase “would you like fries with that.” And as it is always easier to get a job if you already have a job, this would entail not leaving academia until you have assured yourself of alternate employment. As I myself spent a year looking for a job while teaching, I am obviously not unsympathetic towards this line of reasoning. But for my two cents worth, I would now advise against leaving a long term academic career and moving immediately into another position for the same reason I don’t think it’s a good idea to walk out of a fifteen year marriage and without taking a beat go back to the altar. In both cases, some time off seems called for.

This is precisely what I am doing now. As a result, I can’t provide any closure for this article because there is none in my life. But I will keep you posted. I do have one last thought. Having gone over the ground in more detail than I had planned, I am reminded that when asked why he left Walden Pond, Thoreau replied “Perhaps it seemed to me had several lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one.” It strikes me really that this is all that needed to be said.

Essay, part 2

Thus began the great job search of 2008-2009. Of course, I had no idea what positions I was going to apply for. The best bet seemed to involve the fact that as a returned Peace Corps volunteer I had what is known as non-competitive eligibility, which essentially means that if a government agency so desires they can hire you without the trouble of going through a job search so long as you meet the minimum qualifications for the position. The advantage to the agency is that a federal job search is, well, a federal issue, and oftentimes the ability to avoid the mounds of paperwork and man hours involved is enough of an incentive to get someone with non-competitive eligibility hired. With this in mind, I turned to the website usajobs.gov, the site where jobs with the federal government are posted, and soon found myself applying for positions such as Intelligent Research Specialist with the Department of Homeland Security, a Writer/Editor with the Veterans Health Administration, Management and Program Analyst with the Department of Education.

Applying for government jobs is both mind numbing and time consuming. Each application requires you to answer between half dozen and a dozen essay questions requiring a couple of pages each on how you fit the exact qualifications for that specific job. As a result, few of the replies can be used in more than one job search. To make a long, sad story a short, sad story, I spent hundreds of hours filling out dozens of applications to receive a grand total of one (unsuccessful) interview. I knew I had hit bottom when I applied to be an Education Advisor in Iraq. I had more success with my other plan, which involved applying to graduate schools in social work. Here, I had managed to get myself accepted to three, including one in the state that offered the opportunity to pursue the degree while I was teaching. By then the spring semester had ended and I was no nearer to a decision than I was when the school year had started

So I decided to leave town for the summer and travel to Asia, not because I thought it would help me make a decision but because, well, I’m not really sure why I took this trip. In any case, before I knew it the trip was behind me and summer was drawing to a close. Time was running out. Not only was there my self-imposed deadline to make a choice before the next school year started. I had also provided a drop dead date to my university when I would let them know whether I would be returning for the fall. Desperate, I drew up pro and con lists, talked with friends, and even consulted the on line I Ching. I seemed in an impossible position. Common sense argued that I could not simply throw a career away. But that voice inside screamed out that I could not under any circumstances walk into another classroom.


As I reflect back, I know one factor that weighed heavily on me was the knowledge in my heart that the only reason I was staying was out of fear. I was afraid what would happen if I left academia: afraid of the loss of status, afraid of the loss of income, afraid of the loss of health insurance. As I meditated on this one undeniable reality, I concluded that I did not want my life to be ruled by fear. Now, granted, some fears are healthy fears. All I can say is that this fear did not feel like a healthy one.

More Lives to Live (Part 1)

Before I joined the Peace Corps I wrote a piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education (which I've posted somewhere on this blog) about my reasons for leaving. I am working on a follow up piece and thought I would post it here in installments as a way of motivating me to write. The title is still undecided, although I am leaning towards "More Lives to Live," a line from the last chapter of Walden ,where Thoreau explains why he left Walden Pond (Perhaps I had several more lives to live and could not waste any more time on this one").



MORE LIVES TO LIVE

Remember me? When last we met, I had taken a leave of absence from my tenured position in order to serve a two year mission in China with the Peace Corps. Since I talked at some length in the original article about my reasons for my temporary exodus from academia, I won’t review the details here except to say that at its core it involved nothing more or less than the fact that after fifteen years I had grown bored with university life. Another detail from the original essay worth repeating is that there was an implied commitment on my part to return to teaching at the end of my time in China and on the university’s part to take me back. Despite this mutual agreement, I confess I felt less than fully obligated to return to my old job, in part because I knew the administration would be happy to see me gone and in part because I was fairly confident my department would have no trouble replacing me. I mean, hiring a new philosopher is not exactly like spotting a minority at a tea bagger rally—in fact, it’s more like finding the crazy person among all the tea baggers. So morally if not legally, I felt little pressure to return. Financially, it was another matter. And so it was that after two years, having no other prospects and insufficient savings, I opted to reenter the life I had left behind what now seemed like a lifetime ago.

Almost immediately I was certain I had made a mistake. A big mistake. Worse than the time I had put a deposit on the cartload of Chicago Cubs World Series paraphernalia I was going to make a fortune selling on ebay. My entire being cried out: “This is wrong. You are not supposed to be here.” Of course, I may have just been hearing the echo from my Dean’s office. In any case, I knew I faced a choice. I would either have to quiet the voice, put my head down and finish my working days as an academic or make a complete break by the end of the year. In truth, it wasn’t all bad. After living on $150 a month for two years, it was nice to have a steady income again. The short term financial boon, however, was little comfort in the face of the impending existential crisis.

For the first couple of months I essentially did nothing about the situation, simply rented an apartment, taught classes and went about my life like nothing had happened. Perhaps part of me was hoping that the overwhelming feeling that I had to get out of there would fade and I would be able to slide seamlessly back into the comfortable life of an academic (and make no mistake, no matter how much anyone complains, it is a very comfortable life). Of course, this worked about as well as ignoring the hacking cough that won’t go away or the mysterious lump that continues to grow. Once spiritual symptoms of this magnitude occur, they generally don’t disappear on their own. And so it wasn’t long before I could delay no longer; it was time to act.
When I did decide to do something about my condition one of the first places I turned to was the Chronicle in general and in particular the forum “leaving academia.” Be warned, however, this is not the cheeriest of chat rooms, and probably ranks right below “cancer patients who have been involved in disfiguring car accidents during their bankruptcies” in the upbeat nature of its participants. There were few success stories. Worse, there were even fewer strategies that seemed applicable to my circumstances. Many of those who dropped out of the game had another family member to support them, or they were very early in their careers. I came across only a few tenured faculty with my length of experience who had decided to throw in the towel. That fact alone did not bode well for my prospects.

Among those who were similarly situated a few had switched into administration, which was a non-starter for me. Not only was it akin to going over to the dark side. More importantly, it did not offer the sort of radical change I felt necessary. One thing in the Chronicle that did pique my interest was an essay by a long-time faculty member who sounded like he had been struggling with issues very similar to mine and had bargained with his Dean for a reduced teaching load of one semester a year. Overall, he reported he was pleased with a move that had calmed his angst by freeing up more time for him to engage in projects he was interested in while allowing him a modicum of financial security. Although I was not initially enamored of this half-measure, on reflection I had to admit that it did strike a note of moderation, a virtue I had grown to admire as a result of my time in China.

Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a possible solution. Brimming with confidence from the writer’s bold assertion that a university would be happy to keep around someone with experience and institutional loyalty, I approached my chair and then my Dean with this idea—and was promptly laughed out of two offices. But I would not go gently into that good night. Instead, I informed them that I would start looking for a job outside of academia, which of course got even more laughs. In any case, I informed them that although I would give consideration to my teaching schedule, of course if the right offer came up I would not hesitate to take it. In other words, I would give them about as much consideration as they had given me.

Freelancing and Out of Work

The Newshour had an interesting segment on its friday show http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html. Titled "Freelance and out of work," it depicted a number of individuals who had either quit or could not find regular employment and were now attempting to make it as freelancers. Besides portraying a number of interesting and inspiring life stories, it offered some practical information, for example, that there exists a freelancers union which can be helpful in things like purchasing insurance (http://www.freelancersunion.org/). Back to the stories: A woman who had given up a college teaching job in order to work as a musician said, "I always wanted to make music," she said. Another woman who was trying to sell her own jewerly said: "I need to be able to claim something that I can say 'this is me' and I can be proud of that." Another simply said, "I can't wear the suit." A man who was starting his own business said: "Many times I have given up safety and security because I wanted to change the environment and try different things." Although in some ways there were inspiring figures, near the end of the piece things got decidedly less optimistic--"The happy face of freelancing started to sag" was how reporter Paul Solomon aptly put it--and we heard how tought things were for these folks. For obvious reasons, for me the ex-academic story was most compelling: "I hate having to have been extremely successful and then having to make so much less...I hate making less money." This for me is the ghost of Christmas future after my one year terminal sabbitical pay runs out. It's a segment worth watching for anyone contemplating making the move on their own.

The Sickness Unto Academia

There was an interesting piece the other day in the New York Times titled "Kierkegaard on the Couch." The writer, himself a professional philosopher (or as Robert Pirsig named them, philosographers i.e., writers about philosophy and not philosophers themselves) argued that the despairing Dane initiated a distinction that we seem to have lost in the present age: the distinction between a psychological and a spiritual disorder. If we tell someone we are depressed, it is immediately suggested that we go to counseling and/or pick up some Prozac. But in Kierkegaard's world, someone who is in despair can actually be psychologically healthy, while the smiley faced optimist can be a classic case of real mental illness. In despair, if we approach the phenomenon properly, we come to know the true nature of the self. We may indeed simply be depressed (psychological disorder); but it is just as possible we are in despair (a spiritual malfunction).

How is all this relavant? Well, I have been having more than my share of despair these days. No doubt not having anything to do, having no structure for my days, has only exacerbated the situation. But is it only a depression that can be cured with the right career and/or other objective goods. Or is it an indication of something deeper?

At times I take the what I call "What Color is Your Parachute" approach, that is, try to come up with a career path that will utilize my capabilities and provide the sort of self-fufillment we are all after. But K's point would be that if we have a false view of the self, then fulfilling that self could do more harm than good. K's belief was that despair was a sign from our spiritual nature, a cry longing to be heard. It was one of Kierkegaard's claim that one stage of being in despair was not being conscious of being in despair. This he thought was the situation most find themselves in. We can be in despair because we have failed to achieve something (i.e., failed to be a successful academic). But it was K's belief that had we achieved that we would have been in despair as well, even worse off because the accomplishment could have prevented us from dealing with deeper spiritual issues.

This is why as tempting as it is, for me it is important not merely to jump into another task, another career. I have had a sense since leaving that there are things that really need to be dealt with and that weren't being dealt with in the daily sweep of my existence, and that if I did not deal with them now, it would soon be too late. This was the reason I left behind a reasonably fufilling and financially comfortable and secure position. This is about the only way I can make sense of my leaving. I think for me the problem with academia--the despair for lack of a better word, the emptiness--had nothing (or very little) to do with academia and much more to do with larger spiritual issues that were being neglected or not dealt with properly. Theoretically they not doubt could have been dealt with within the context of my career but for all practical purposes really required the separation I ended up making.

For Kierkegaard, to the extent that I think that finding the right career would resolve my current psychic disorder, then I am simply deluded. K would say that academia was not the cause of the psychological state I found myself in, and another career path or any other objective accomplishment will not rectify the situation. And I tend to agree with him here.

Here's the link for the piece. The comments are interesting as well,

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/kierkegaard-on-the-couch/?scp=1&sq=kierkegaard&st=cse

Frontline's Close to Home

Just finished watching an amazing Frontline episode. Titled "Close to Home," it takes place in a hair salon on the East Side of Manhattan, where you hear the hard luck stories of client after client. Most of the people featured had good paying jobs at some point, but many have lost their jobs and even many of those who still have jobs have fallen on hard times. Probably the most poignant is Rob, who a year after losing his job as a high paid human resource executive still gets tears in his eyes as he tells the story of the day he was fired. A good chunk of the show follows his truly Sisyphean struggle to find a job, as we are taken to a series of networking sessions, job interview classes and his explanation of his never ending struggle. At the end we are told 18 months after losing his job, he is still unemployed. The owner herself is in danger of losing the salon, while her sister in Florida, who has come up to help, is about to lose her house in Florida. The sister has had to take in four borders, and they all have a hard luck story. One of the guys, now in his fifties, used to be a dancer with the Florida Ballet, and was lost his house two days after his wife died. Anyone contemplating leaving a job should watch http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/closetohome/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=proglist&utm_source=proglist


Hell, if I had watched I might not have quit my job. I mean, I'm glad I did because I know it was the right thing to do. But in all honesty, I might have hung on if I had viewed this earlier. It's that powerful. Of course, maybe it has a special impact because now I am in that position whereas before I could only theoretically conceive of it. In any case, these people are all working much harder at finding a job then I know I am capable of. And the thing is, none of them had found any work. These are all people around my age or a little older and their prospects are not good. It was sobering, depressing.

It certainly makes my upcoming trip to New Zealand seem frivolous and wasteful. But preparations are made. So I tell myself this is a gift to myself to prepare me for the harsh reality that will confront me when I return.

Lonely Planet Thorntree

So to divert myself I have been planning this New Zealand trip. Here are a couple of posts I put on Lonely Planet Thorntree. I've posted the links if you want to read the responses. So much more interesting to do this sort of stuff than to think about one's future

Arrival/departure enigmaHere's a question I haven't seen answered after reading these message boards for a couple of hours. Most flights into New Zealand are into Auckland. But most people seem to want to spend most of the time on the South Island. I am just curious how others deal with the situation. Do you (a) circle back to Auckland at the end, (b) buy a one way ticket from Christchurch to Auckland, (c) fly into Auckland and out of Christchurch? (C) would seem ideal, but after extensive checking seems more expensive than (b). I am planning on five weeks in New Zealand and would like to do one week in North and four in South and would appreciate suggestions on how to handle the arrival/departue city enigma. Much thanks.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1832847&tstart=30

Thanks all for your previous advice on departure/arrival possibilities. I've decided to fly into Christchurch and out of Auckland. I am planning on renting a car for the first two weeks on the South Island, and here is the itinerary I've come up with. This looks good to me on paper, but as I've no experience on the ground any suggestions would be appreciated. I am especially looking for substantial day hikes to do in the second part of the trip11/10 (T) Arrive Christchurch11/11 (W)Drive to Blenheim w/stop in Kaikoura (316 km/196 m). Nite in Blenheim11/12 (TH)Blenheim to Nelson (113 km/70m).Camp in Totaranui campground11/13 (F) Do hike in Abel Tasmen : Night in campground11/14 (S) Nelson to Karamea (330km/205 m) night in Karamea11/15: (S): Hike 5 hr on Heaphy Track. Night at Heaphy Hut 11/16 (M) Hike out of Heaphy Track; drive to Greymouth (329km/205 mi)11/17 (T) Greymouth to Fox Glacier (203 km/126 mi) Camp near Fox Glacier11/18 (W) Hike Alex Knob Track. Camp Fox Glacier11/19 (TH): Fox Glacier to Wanaka (262 km/163 m). Night in Wanaka11/20: (F) Explore Wanaka11/21: (S) Wanaka to Te Anu (230 km/143 mi). Night in Te Anu11/22: (S) Drive to Milford Sound . Night in Te Anu11/23: (M) Te Anu to Oamaru (413 km/257 m).11/24: (T) Oamaru to Christchurch (248km/154m)/
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1836963&tstart=0

And a night comes

Re-reading Tropic of Cancer when I came across this line: "And a night comes when all is over, when so many jaws have closed upon us that we no longer have the strength to stand, and our meat hangs upon our bodies, as though it had been masticated by every mouth."

Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo

The Statler Brthers song, which I hadn't thoght of for years if not decades, lept to my mind for some unknown reason (ha). Thank God there's you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s8nRL2bPCU&feature=related

I keep hearing you're concerned about my happiness.
All that thought you're giving me is conscience, I guess.
If I were walking in your shoes, I wouldn't worry none.
While you and your friends are worrying 'bout me, I'm having lots of fun.

Counting flowers on the wall,That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don't tell me I've nothing to do.

Last night I dressed in tails, pretended I was on the town.
As long as I can dream, it's hard to slow this swinger down.
So please don't give a thought to me, I'm really doing fine.
You can always find me here, having quite a time.

Counting flowers on the wall,That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don't tell me I've nothing to do.

Well, it's good to see you, I must go, I know I look a fright.
Anyway my eyes are not accustomed to this light.
And my shoes are not accustomed to this hard concrete.
So I must go back to my room and make my day complete.

Counting flowers on the wall,That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, counting flowers on the wall,That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don't tell me I've nothing to do.Don't tell me I've nothing to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s8nRL2bPCU&feature=related

The Hamster Wheel

In some sense, although it has created an existential setback insofar as it has left me temporarily without a sense of purpose, I do think the Peace Corps stint being cancelled is on balance a good thing. At least it offers the opportunity for me to get off the the hamster wheel, it feels I have been on, well, since college.

The hamster wheel certainly describes my sense of academia: the same tasks semester after semester, a perverted version of eternal recurrence. To be sure, there were some good things about the wheel. It gave me a sense of purpose and structured my days. And there were certainly times off: summers, winter breaks and sabbaticals. But I was usually involved in some project during those periods, i.e., still on the wheel. And even when I took time away, it was always justified in my mind because of the time I had been on the wheel and deserved a break and the time I would return to the wheel and so needed to rest up for. So the wheel became my reality.

And now I find myself recreating the hamster wheel as I now more or less invent tasks: revise the book, study Chinese, practice classical guitar. But at some point, I would like to give myself a long stretch with nothing to do. Going to the Buddhist meditation center would probably be a good thing--a month long Dathun is probaably what is called for--but I don't see that in my immediate future.

One of the plans I considered before quitting was going to graduate school in Social Work. It was a weekend MSW program in Denver which I was actually quite excited about, and the way my schedule worked I could have pulled it off the first year and then gotten this terminal sabbatical the second year. And I would be lying if I didn't say there have been more than I few moments when I wished I had taken that option. But again, as with the Peace Corps, I am more often greatful I did not. It would have been a continuation of the wheel, indeed, running two wheels at once. I need to get off the wheel, and though physically I have stepped off of it, mentally I am still running the wheel.

This is all much easier said than done.The question is what to do once you are off the wheel, and the response at one level is that if you are doing something you are not really off the wheel. Maybe there is no getting off the wheel. On the other hand, the Tao Te Ching tells us, do nothing and nothing will not be done. This at least sounds like it is possible to get off the wheel. The TTC also reminds us that dirty water left to settle becomes clear.

Parachute Colors

So I recently picked up the classic job hunting guide "What Color is Your Parachute" and am currently working myway through some of its exercises. I am not sure how much value it is in the actual process of job hunting, but some of its exercises I think can increase self-awarness, which may actually end up helping in the process more than any practical advice (although there is plenty of practical advice in the book).


In any case, one of the first exercises involves answering the question "Who Am I?" with then words that you then flesh out a bit. This was not as easy as I thought, and turned out to be more interesting than I had initially believed. Here are my answers with corresponding comments:


1. Writer
--Always felt this was the one thing I had some sort of talent in and one thing I would do (and continue to d0) even when I am not paid

2. Traveler
--Here, I am reminded of the scorpion and frog story. I can't help it, it's my nature. The road always seems to be calling, even though sometimes I should just hang up, or at least put it on hold.

3. Child of the Universe
--as in Desiderata. Yeah, this may sound corny, but it strikes me as trufe. I feel the universe is essentially a spiritual place and that there are larger forces working themselves out that we ought to acknowledge and can connect to.

4. Aspiring Buddhist
--The particular type of spirituality that makes the most sense to me is Buddhism, and I contintue to try to live my life in a way in accordance with this.

5. Brother/Son
--I feel a great connection to my family.

6. Runner
--Perhaps it is the fact that I have been running for more than thirty years, but I fell in love with running immediately and have never stopped enjoying the activity.This connects to something deep in me, ass well it allows me to honor the physical part of my being

7. Italian-American
--In part we are defined by our genetics and I have always appreciated my Italian-American heritage. Feel that its earthiness provides a balance to the Buddhism

8. Hopeless romantic
--Despite everything I am still looking to find someone to spend my life with and hope this occurs

9. Student
--I feel it is part of my nature to keep learning, and right now I am especially interested in learning Chinese and classical guitar

10. Lover of movies, music and literature
--The aesthetic experience is as important as the intellectual, spiritual or physical. There are certain movies and musicians and writers I can’t imagine life without.

Better Lies

I spent the morning talking on Skype to my friend Paul who is living in Japan. We are the same age, and like me he is undergoing a major life crisis, though one of a very different nature. We have known each other since high school and it is good to bounce things off him. Especially since leaving Weber, he is the only real friend I have right now, the only person I can talk to about my situation. In any case, and as always talking to him gives me hope. I almost never hang up on him without feeling better. When I think of why, it is because despite the nature of his situation, which is pretty dire, he always ends up, sometimes despite himself, being optimistic. There is always a scheme that is going to change things (the business he is tangentially attached to will take him on full time and strike it big) or some unlikely dream will be fulfilled (he will move to Hollywood and be a screenwriter). Doubtless these are highly improbable. But what is wrong with a dream, regardless of how delusional, that keeps you going? I remember way back when in graduate school I knew a starving artist, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, who told me that we don’t need more truth, we need better lies. Exactly. And I recall when my sister was dying of pancreatic cancer, she just never accepted that fact despite its obviousness and undesirability. And so one might say she never achieved the acceptance they talk about in stages of dying. BUT SO WHAT?!! It’s not like you win a prize for going through all the five stages. So she was stuck in denial. Big deal. I would argue that she was no worse off than someone who goes through all the five stages. ..I am reminded of the scene at the end of Butch Cassidy, where Butch and Sundance are surrounded by fedarales and obviously going to be killed. After an initial round of gunfire have filled them with multiple wounds, they crawl back to regroup. It’s clear to anyone that they are going to die. But Butch starts talking about going to Austrailia after they get out of this mess, and slowly convinces Sundance of the plausibility of the scheme, and they start to make plans. And then they are gunned down in a massive volley. But you know, so what. There is something I admire about the dream of Australia. I guess I would say it caused them to face their final moment with hope rather than despair, and what more can we ask. I recall a line someone said about Whitman, that a lot of people went to their death easier because of his poetry. And so I would finish with the observation that it seems to me we are all just Butch and Sundance waiting to get slaughtered. So why not dream of Australia. So Paul and I talk into the night and contrive our implausible schemes.

The Pull of the Familiar

The marathon was a disaster. My knee started hurting at around mile 10 and by the halfway point I was strongly considering calling it a day. But I had come all this way and decided to hobble (literally) the rest of the race. It was truly the most physically painful experience of my life. And I seriously think I may have done permanent damage to my knee. So the three things that were supposed to play out have done so very differently than I thought. The marathon was a disaster, the book is still in limbo and the Peace Corps assignment is no longer viable.

So I’ve decided to take a trip, something trivial and non-existential, an enjoyable break from things before returning to whatever it is I need to do. The three trips I’ve been considering are

(1) Go to Europe and run the Athens/Florence marathons (Nov 8/29th respectively). The main thing this trip has going for it is that the air transportation is free. It also has a clearly focused goal that at the end will let me feel like I have accomplished something. Once there, it will be the most expensive of the trips, but given the fact that the airfare is free, it would probably end up being the least expensive trip. (2) Go to New Zealand for a month. I think now I would bring my camping gear and camp for the first two weeks and then figure out to do for the other two. This would certainly be the most expensive trip but it would also probably be the most interesting. And it does allow me to experience spring rather than the winter that will be occurring everywhere else. This would also have the added bonus of being a trip to an English speaking country. (3) This option involves using my friend’s place in Chiang Mai as a base to explore Southeast Asia. Although I would have to pay for the airfare—and its not cheap—it would at least have the advantage of adding to my United Miles account.

So I asked the electronic I Ching which trip should I take. And the answer came back:
He is blessed by heaven. Good fortune. Nothing that does not further.
Which I interpret to mean that it doesn’t really matter; any option is good. They are all good trips. Just pick one. And that advice seems about right. Of course, it doesn’t help me pick one.

So a friend offered up the following criterion. Choose the one that excites you the most. And when I reflected on that, it became pretty easy. I had been to the other two places before. Why not go someplace I hadn’t been. So, I booked an airline ticket to New Zealand. It also struck me that the readiness I had to take the familiar route was something that applied not only to trips but to other areas in my life. And that the pull of the familiar was something I felt very strongly before making my decision. The familiar is very seductive--and easy. And sometimes there is nothing wrong with the familiar. But if it becomes deadening, as I believe it was in my case, then it is time to somehow find the energy to step outside of it.

Things to do in Denver

I am sitting in a hotel room in Denver watching the second game of the American League Championship Series as it goes into extra innings. It's the night before the Denver marathon. The plan was to run this marathon and then two weeks later I was to be in Indonesia with the Peace Corps. Then the Peace Corps mission was delayed until December and now it has been put off until next spring when it will be too late for me to go. So now, the whole point of the marathon seems to be lost, at least on me. The truth is, right now I am having a hard time recovering from this Peace Corps stint being cancelled. Of course, the Peace Corps probably did me a favor. What my next move would was going to have be decided at some point, and the Peace Corps Indonesia was a delaying tactic at best. And given the fact that I am not getting any younger, it was probably good thing to have to confront this sooner rather than later. Still, I do feel I need a break and so after this marathon plan on taking one--a trip somewhere. Oh yeah, I was supposed to at least have the fate of the book decided by mid-October but now that has been put off for another month. Nothing is going according to schedule. But that, I think, is to be expected during this transition period. Indeed, it would be kind of boring if everything went according to schedule.

SNL

Sometimes, I feel like I’m in an old Saturday Nite Live Skit. A talk show called “What Were You Thinking?”, where various celebrities were confronted with a decision they made and then had the title question put to them. I seem to recall (although I could be wrong) that among the people who were asked questions was McClean Stevenson, who was asked about his leaving MASH. The one I remember most is someone playing Walter Mondale had the scenario put to him regarding the fact that he promised to raise people’s taxes as part of his campaign for president. And the interviewer queried him over the fact that no one in the history of politics has ever ran on the platform of raising taxes. Not one race, ever. Not from the lowest city mayor to president of the U.S. No one has ever told the voters up front that they would raise the voters’ taxes. So, the interviewer finished: “Walter, what were you thinking?” And Walter sort of mumbles, “Uh, I don’t know.”

So I think the question could be put to me, “Peter. You had a job for life. You could not be fired. You worked twelve hours a week for thirty weeks a year. And yet, in the worst recession since the Great Depression, you decided to quit. Peter, what were you thinking?” And I think right now I would have no better response than Walter’s.

My Kingdom for a Plan

So I was reading, as I sometimes do, the blog leavingacademia, and I came across a discussion on the importance of having a plan if you are going to leave academia: at least a year's income and a solid job search strategy, some were saying. And while it was hard to disagree with the prudence of what was said, I felt something was missing. So I penned the following

A plan! Darn it. I knew I forgot something. But after fifteen years of academia I left a tenured position without one of those. Fortunately, I did not have a spouse or family to worry about--but neither do I have one to support me. Although financially it was not a good time to make the move, I knew that it was time to go (actually, it was probably time to go a while ago). For me the decision to leave was not so much the outcome of a rational decision process but the result of realizing that my soul was dying and that I had to get out if I was going to save it (and a fear that it may already be too late). And I don't have a plan anymore than someone who is drowning has a plan to breathe oxygen.

So although I have nothing against a plan, I would point out the wisdom of the claim that remimds us there is no better way to make God laugh than to have one. Instead I would argue that there is the path of listening to your head and the path of listenting to your heart, and yes, in the ideal world we would combine them: listen to our heart and then plan with your head. But this isn't the ideal world and sometimes we make decisions under less than ideal circumstances. So I'm not knocking a plan. But I also think that sometimes and in some situations leaving without a plan--taking a leap into the unknown and trusting the universe--can be the right thing to do--at least that's what it seems I've done. I'll let you know how it works out.

Let's hope it's not a sign

Two things that I had forgotten about emerged in the past 24 hours to give an indication of the current state of things. First, a couple of months ago I sent a couple of sample chapters of the book to an agent who was recommended to me by an associate. I felt fortunate to even get an agent to look at it, since generally unagented writers have a hard time gaining even the attention, much less the representation, of an agent. Anyway, I just received news that the agent “did not fall in love with the project” and so was rejecting it. And then, almost three or so months ago I had applied for a Peace Corps job. I assumed because it had been so long that I had not gotten it, but when I saw the e mail I thought there was some chance I might be in the running. But when I opened it up it was simply a form letter telling me that the position had been filled. In any case, this didn’t exactly do a lot to lift my spirits.

And now for something comletely different

After a couple weeks of camping, I just received the news that the Peace Corps has delayed the Indonesia program until May, which means I almost definitely will not be going to Indonesia. Make that definitely will not be going to Indonesia. If this was going to happen, the time for it was this fall. Indeed, my mind was set to go November 1st. Hence, the Denver marathon, which I registered for speficially to get a marathon in before departue.

In any case, the question now becomes what the next move will be. Plan B was always to travel for a few months—India or Southeast Asia—and then to study in China for the spring semester and then to start graduate school in the fall. The truth is, right now, none of the above seems particularly appealing, perhaps because of the letdown from Plan A falling through. In any case, stay tuned, I'm sure something will develop.

On the road

Been on the road camping for about a week, and though I've had no problem with access to the internet it seems I don't have much to stay. The thing about being on the road like this without a plan, is that all mental energy is directed to where to stay next, what supplies you need, what to do for the day. No time to contemplate my next move except late at night lying in the sleeping bag, which is actually more than enough time, too much time. Where's the xanax when you need it?

About the only thing I am clear on is the fact that I'm in no hurry to take up another path. I think the thing that finally decided the matter for me about leaving the university was that this was the path I had been on more or less my entire life, without a break. That is, I went from undergraduate to graduate school to one year job to tenure track. I briefly took about s five month break early on in my graduate career, leaving school in mid-term of my second semester but starting up again in the fall. So you can say that since I became an adult there was not one semester that did not find me attached to a university in some manner, until now. So I think it is a well-deserved break, and I think that was the right call given those conditions. But this also causes me to doubt that my situation has relevance outside of the peculiarities of my condition.

Why this is not a good time to read Thomas Hardy

"Externally there was nothing to hinder his making another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights achieving higher things than his soul in its half-formed state had been able to acoomplish. But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum--which arranges that wisdom shall come paripassu with the departure of zest for doing--stood in the way of all that. He had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world that had become a mere painted scene for him."
--Thomas Hardy, Mayor of Casterbridge

Leaving Town and Taking Down Tents

It became real when I drove out of town with my car loaded with all of my worldly possessions. Up until that point, it was like I was on break or sabbatical. But driving out of town realizing that I would never be back, that was hard, real hard. Perhaps the hardest thing I've ever done. It reminds me of when I left Chicago, but that's a long story and one I don't want to tell, but it was the last time I remember feeling this lost. Then it was also a leap into the dark, and the jury is still out on how that turned out. In any case, I think it is going to take some time to recover my bearings.

In the meantime, here is a desciption of one of the activities performed while at the retreat center. The 9-5 physical labor I engaged in there was a nice break from the mental torture I had been feeling for the previous months and it is a simplicity I find myself longing for now.

Taking down tents
One of my favorite things to do was to take down tents. The process required two, and preferably three, people. These were big canvass tents that were constructed for two people to live in comfortably, or at least as comfortably as one can live in a tent. The first thing you had to do was to inspect the tents to make sure that people were no longer living in them. Once this was verified, you had to empty the tent of its furniture, which usually consisted of two wooden bed frames, foam mattresses, wooden clothes racks and book shelves. The clothes racks and book shelves were stuffed under the platforms on which the tents were situated, to be pulled out the following spring. The mattresses and frames were carried off to a separate location to be stored for pick up later. Once this preliminary work was done, one person on the crew used a drill to unscrew the tent from the various places were it was screwed into the platform, making sure to leave it screwed in, however, in one place at each of the four corners. Next (or actually usually at the same time) another person on the crew went into the tent and untied the ties that bound the tent to the metal poles on the inside. Also, this person had to make sure the flaps over the windows were rolled down. At this point, the deconstruction of the tent could begin. Two people went inside the tent and first each person kicked a metal pole at the front of the ten from where it had been wedged as part of the frame. As that collapsed from each side, the person holding the pole pulled (or usually kicked) the pole into sections and tossed the sections outside the tent. Next, each person did the same with the framing at the back of the tent. Finally it was time to take down the center frame which was high above the head. The two people had to agree which way to kick the pole. Then as it fell each person had to untie the tent from where it had been tied to the center pole. At this point, the tent would be collapsing upon itself, so it was usually up to the person in the back of the tent to work his way through the falling tent while the person at the front held part of the tent open for him to escape. Once they were both out, the metal poles would then be stuffed under the wooden platform, to be utilized the following spring. At this point, the tent was completely collapsed onto the frame and had to be folded neatly up, a process which because of the size of the tent was better done with three rather than two people. But before this could be accomplished the four screws at the corners had to be unscrewed. When the tent was neatly folded and properly bound, it was hauled to another location with other tents to be picked up by a truck and stored in the trailer of an old truck that was now used for storage. Repeat process.

The Things I Carried

My 2003 Chevy Cavelier is loaded to the brim. Tomorrow morning I will finally leave Ogden, perhaps never to return. Since there is only so much space in the car, decisions had to be made about what to bring. It is interesting to note what made it and what didn't. I should say that I leave behind a lot of furniture, including a bed, a roll away bed that doubled as couch, a couch and a lazy boy, a dresser, a television/dvd player. I shipped down two boxes of books but donated most of my books to the library. The trunk of my car is mostly filled with camping gear: two sleeping bags, a tent, a couple of large backpacks. The back seat mostly contains clothes, including a whole bag of winter gear I would use for outdoor sports and another bag containing mostly coats. There is also a box of miscellaneous camping gear sitting on the back seat. Stuffed back there as well is a comforter which for some reason I seem unwilling to part with, perhaps because it was originally a couple of hundred dollars and I got in on sale for fifty. The passenger side front seat is mostly filled with electronic gear including a laptop computer and a desk compute, a Bose radio, and a printer. Slid on top of that is a classical guitar. I have a lot of books covering the floor of the car and stuffed under the seats. I kept a painting that a friend gave me back in my graduate school days in Seattle. The snow shoes made it in but for obvious reasons the cross country skis did not. The last thing I had left was a box of all my lecture notes and one box containing all my academic materials including dossiers, tenure documents, etc. My original plan was to go up into the mountains and build a bonfire and burn them. But time got too short, so then I was just going to dump them. But it was too much material to load into a friend's dumpsters and store dumpsters were either locked or hard to get to. So I just drove to my university and left them outside of my old building.

Where things stand

The Peace Corps assignment has been moved until December. In addition, the assignment has been somewhat altered. Now it seems the group going in May will do teacher training, the group going in December will be doing more administrative tasks, which is fine with me actually. Also, since we would be doing administrative stuff primarily there would be no training period, which again works fine with me. So this means a six month stint in Indonesia beginning in December, although this could change the next minute.

Nevertheless, I will be leaving Ogden Thursday or Friday. Right now I am picking through my storage shed and trying to fit as much as possible in my car. I've already shipped two boxes of books down.

Last night some friends had a final get together, a wake as someone called it. This is what is the hardest thing about leaving, giving up these friends, harder than soon not having health insurance. One of them presented me with a limerick:
Three cheers for our great friend Vernezze
Admiring him always is easy
His thoughts are insightful
His intellect, frightful
But now that he's leaving we're queasy

Eastern Sun

Back from a week at the Shambhala Mountain Center. I guess you would call it a volunteer vacation, the best kind really, where you feel you are being of use and getting some needed re-creation. It was good to work out of doors in the mountains every day, taking down tents and moving supplies. And that was really all I thought I was going to get out of it, and that would have been enough. But it seems I was sent there for other reasons. (And I truly do have the sense of being sent there. For in fact because of the Peace Corps medical clearance I had written the Shambhala Center and told them I would be unable to come. But a week or so ago I received a call from someone up there wondering why I wasn't there, and when I told them I had this Peace Corps thing and could not make my three week commitment, they said I could still come up for part of it. Now, it seems the person calling did not receive my original email. But if she had not called me one day while I was working on my netbook at Burger King, I never would have gone up there. So I do feel there was something calling me there, something that caused me to make the plan in the first place and that would not so easily let me abandon it.)

And that other reason was to get me to reconnect me to something that I think will be very important on this journey, and this is Buddhism.

Buddhism is fundamentally about waking up (the Buddha, recall, is the awakened one) to a realization of the nature of reality, which is impermanence and groundlessness, and then learning how to live one’s life in full recognition of this fact. That is, we think things are solid, permanent and that everything will remain as it is and then we are surprised when something major happens: a lover leaves, a parent dies, an illness strikes us. Buddhism is about getting us to live joyfully with the recognition of impermanence and to embrace it so that we can be more fully alive. The last thing Buddhism is about is renunciation of the world.

So what does all this have to do with my leaving my job? Well, nothing can make you realize the nature of impermanence and groundless more quickly, I think, then a move like this one. I mean, these were teachings I have known and even taught. But right now, they really begin to mean something. And I found myself drawn back to them. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche is the founder of the Shambhala Tradition in the West and of the Shambhala Mountain Center. One of his students, Pema Chodron, is probably the most widely read Buddhst today. In an article of the recent issue of the Shambhala Sun magazine, Pema Chodron talks about her current teacher who had declared that in America it seemed that Buddhist teachings were just a pastime for students, something to dabble in or use for relaxation, but when their lives fell apart, the teachings and practices became as essential as food and medicine.

While at SMC, I reread one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s book, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. In it he distinguishes between the Eastern sun and the setting sun. The Eastern sun is the spirit of life. It is the spirit of being open to life and alive to the present moment. It is the spirit of hope and optimism. He contrasts this to the spirit of the Western, setting sun. This is the spirit of fear, the spirit of death. I will quote “When we follow the path of the setting sun we enclose ourselves in a world in which we can hide or go to sleep. ..It is as though we wish to re-enter our mother’s womb and avoid being born…When we are afraid of waking up and afraid of experiencing our own fear, we build a cocoon we guild ourselves a cocoon in order to shield ourselves from the vision of the eastern sun. We prefer to hide in our personal jungles and caves. When we hide from the world in this way, we feel secure. We may think we have quieted our fear but we are actually becoming numb with our fear. ..The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in this cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of behavior and thought, we never have to leap onto fresh air or fresh ground. In the cocoon there is no dance…it is comfortable and sleepy: an intense and very familiar home. In the world of the cocoon, such things as spring cleaning have never taken place. We feel that it is too much work, too much trouble, to clean it up. We would prefer to go back to sleep.”

What I can say is that I went up to the SMC in the spirit of the Western setting sun and left imbued, however slightly, with the spirit of the Eastern sun.

Incommunicado

Off for a week to the Shambhala Mountain Center, a Buddhist retreat cener in Red Feathers Lake Colorado. I will be a volunteer at what is known as "take down" in which they take down the facilities they've constructed for their summer programs. In exhange for your labor you get free housing (albiet modest), free food, and a good deal of mediation thrown in. Throw in the fact that there is not cell phone coverage or internet connection available and it's as close to heaven (or should I say Nirvana) as you can get. But this means you won't hear from me for a week.

The task that lies ahead

It looks like after a couple of weeks of delay I will finally be able to get out of here for a week to the Shambhala Mountain Center. The plan, recall, was to be there for three weeks, and it was a pretty good plan, I think. But circumstances intervened. Not everything is complete at this time. There are a couple of more vaccines and one more medical test to do for Peace Corps clearance. But the process is mostly finished. Same with the book, the other thing that delayed me here. I did the work I needed to do on that and probably could have done more but shipped off a final version of the manuscript to the editor and now it is time for a break. Both these matters--Peace Corps and the book--are out of my hands now. That is, the Peace Corps program has not been finally approved by the Indonesian government, though I've been told its ninety percent certain it will go. Because it starts so soon, they have had us do the medical clearance before the program is formally approved, which is unusual. And I won't know whether the book will get accepted until October. So all in all, it's a good time for a break. Maybe there I can get some clarity on the situation. In any case, it will be good to be away from distractions for a week. Not even bringing my internet up there, nor cell phone, wouldn't matter because there is no reception.

The focus on these two matters--the Peace Corps and the book--have kept my mind off of the larger picture of what the hell I am going to do with my life. It is only now with the Peace Corps paper work and the manuscript behind me that the question begins to re-emerge, and at least for tonight I am not ready to deal with it. I've been searching for a quote I remembe and wrote down once from Jude the Obscure, and it is not a happy quote so maybe it is a good thing I can't find it. The gist of the quote was the author commenting on how it was theoretically possible for the protagonist, who has suffered a series of defeats, to make a comeback, even though he is no longer young. But while there is nothing theoretically to stand in his way and it is logically possible for him to achieve an even higher state than the one he had fallen from, the fact is, life saps our energies and what is theoretically possible becomes in practice unrealizable. The novel does not end well. I will find the quote and post it, because it is quite well worded and a warning to keep in mind about not underestimating the task that lies ahead

comic relief

This is appropos of nothing related to my current journey, except I was watching Obama's speech last night with particular interest because I now have a vested interest in how this health care things turn out. Anyway, I see to be the only one taking not of the similarity between Congressman Asshole shouting out "you lie" to the president and the fan at one of Dylan's early electric shows shouting out "Judas" to Bob. If you haven't seen the Bob clip, watch it. I wished Obama had pulled the Dylan response out, but he did alright nonetheless
Joe Wilson tell Obama "You Lie"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyTelRaoBAI

Unnamed fan calling Bob Dylan "Judas"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2MgdF6GWi0

Random Thoughts

1. Do you remember in Thelma and Louise when for some unknown reason Thelma (or was it Louise) would not drive through Texas and so they had to take a big detour? Well, I am like that now with my university. I will drive miles out of my way not to have to drive down the street that it is on.

2. But yet I am stuck here busy getting things done for the Peace Corps November 1st departure. Today, for example, went to doctor to get flu, tetanus and typhoid vaccination, but since they didn't have typhoid had to go the Health Department, which requires a separate appointment. Also had to make an appointment to another doctor to get an exam for something that was noted on my physical which I left the Peace Corps, which was just intended as a suggestion to have something looked at for cosmetic reasons but now that it is on there I need to get it checked out. So that's just a little hint of what it's like when you apply to the Peace Corps, in case that is what anyone is thinking of doing. I've been told they make the application process especially tedious to see how serious you are. It was actually a lot worse for my initial assignment.

3. Some friends want to have a get together before I go. I am very ambivalent about the whole idea. I've always like the way the Jerry Orbach character left Law and Order. He doesn't tell anyone he's retiring and one day just takes a box of goods from his desk and walks out. No party, no golden watch. Reminded me of the last stanza one of my favorite poems, Solitude by Alexander Pope"Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;Thus unlamented let me die;Steal from the world, and not a stoneTell where I lie"

4. I did sign up for a marathon today. The Denver Marathon October 18th. Actually a couple weeks before that I will hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim in a day with a few friends as sort of a last preparation for the marathon. This is not as crazy as it sounds (well, maybe it is) since we did it last year. And there are people who do rim to rim to rim in a day. Now those are the real crazies.

5. Watched Obama's speech about health care tonight. I hope he pulls it off. This is no longer a theoretical discussion for me. The outcome of this debate will have a real impact on my life. Like watching a story the night before on the Newshour about people looking for jobs. When I had a job for life, it was like Lucretius says in De Rerum Natura, that there is nothing sweeter than being on dry land watching a shipwreck, or something like that. Now, I can't even watch a story about how bad the employment picture is.

Professor in the Peace Corps

This is a copy of an article I wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education when I origianlly joined the Peace Corps. I am thinking of doing another one as a follow up:


Professor in the Peace Corps
By Peter J. Vernezze
First Person
Personal experiences on the job market
Halfway through my academic journey, I lost my way. At least I think it was halfway through; by that point, I had quit keeping track.
I had been at my college for about 15 years, reaching the rank of associate professor of philosophy. I figured I had roughly the same number of years left until retirement. At some point, I can't say exactly when, the wheels started to come off.
To be sure, there were a few personal events that contributed to the situation, but I won't get into those details here. The simple fact was that after a decade and a half I had become bored with my job.
Part of the problem, no doubt, was a function of my institution -- a teaching-focused university with no philosophy major. That meant I invariably taught a heavy load of lower-division courses, repeating the same few every year. Perhaps if I had been given a reasonably varied teaching schedule, worked with philosophy majors, or taught more upper-division courses, things might have been different. Perhaps not.
Because, in truth, I have never been very comfortable with teaching. A natural introvert, I am much more at home in the library than in the lecture hall and find the classroom more exhausting than rewarding.
My issues with teaching might have resolved themselves if I had been able to immerse myself in research. But a heavy course load leaves little time for writing articles and books. And the truth of the matter is that I have faint interest in combing over voluminous amounts of secondary material and familiarizing myself with the minutiae of interpretative strategy, both of which are necessary to get published in my profession.
Actually, what troubles me is not the research itself but the type of writing you have to produce to flourish in academe. Regardless of the discipline, the process involved in writing an article for a refereed journal is the same: You carve out some position of your own while duly reporting and refuting all previous views. So in my attempts to come up with something quasi-original to say, I invariably wound up dealing not with the great thinkers I loved but with what successions of scholars have had to say about those thinkers in obscure footnote-laden articles of interest to no more than a handful of people.
I soon realized I possessed neither the desire nor the ability to excel at that undertaking, although I did enough to get tenure. (Should I have realized all of this before pursuing a job in academe? All I can say in my defense is that my thinking on this issue has evolved since receiving my doctorate.)
Given those conditions, it is amazing that things went on as long as they did. But the life of a tenured college professor is a good gig, and I wasn't ready to give it up. Still, I couldn't continue, either.
My options at that point seemed limited. One possibility was to try for a job at another university. But with an undistinguished publication record, that was not likely to happen. Besides, my suspicion was that if I was bored teaching at one university, I would be bored teaching at another.
That meant a career change might be in order. But it was getting rather late in the game to be contemplating such a drastic move, which would probably require going back to school and starting over again at a time when most of my colleagues would have one eye on retirement. I doubted whether I had the energy for such an undertaking.
Even now, I am not sure when the idea of the Peace Corps entered into the equation. Of course I knew about the organization and had actually looked into applying at one point in my distant past. And when the idea arose in my mind again, I did not see how joining that organization would resolve anything. If I was unemployable outside of my tenured position, giving it up to spend two years overseas would just exacerbate things, leaving me to start from scratch even later in life.
Nonetheless, I went ahead and filled out the application, which was available online, and thought no more about it until I received a message from a recruiter asking to set up an interview. I still don't think I saw the Peace Corps as a viable option even after I received word that my application had been accepted.
But when the call came to start discussing possible overseas assignments, it was clearly time to contemplate what my life would be like if I actually went through with this.
The image that came to mind was Wile E. Coyote going over a cliff in mad pursuit of the elusive roadrunner, holding up a "help" sign in a last-minute act of desperation. In short, I would be abandoning everything I had spent half my life working toward in order to take up a two-year volunteer position from which I would return unemployed and almost certainly unemployable.
It was completely irrational, and wasn't I a philosopher, devoted to reason? Well, I wasn't a very good philosopher, so maybe I wasn't that rational.
But I still had enough of my reasoning faculty left to realize that there was an alternative between remaining desperately where I was and throwing everything away: I could petition the university for a two-year leave of absence. It seemed like a half-measure, or perhaps it was the middle way. In any case, it was a long shot. But it was worth a try.
Emphasizing my 15 years of service to the university and the reputation of the Peace Corps, I pitched the idea to my shocked but somewhat sympathetic department head.
In the meantime, I discussed possible postings with my Peace Corps recruiter. Although you don't get to choose which country you will work in, you can request a geographical location -- Central Asia, the Caribbean, East Africa, for example -- that coordinates with a particular job. You then make a list of your top three assignments and the Peace Corps tries to offer you one of them.
Given that it was weariness with teaching that started the whole process, there was more than a little irony in my ultimately being offered an assignment teaching English in China. But what the hell, I thought. My real desire was to be of use somewhere, and if that was where the Peace Corps thought I would be of most use, that is where I would go.
Like the servant in the story who sees death in a marketplace in Bagdad and flees to Samara, only to learn that death had, in fact, been scheduled to meet him in Samara, perhaps there was no way to avoid this teaching thing.
My leave was approved. Last July I began 10 weeks of training with the Peace Corps, and in September I was assigned to Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu. So, after nearly a year in China, how are things going?"
I needed to walk a different path than the one I had been walking for the past 15 years, which had become a rut. Volunteering for the Peace Corps has allowed me to do that. Yes, I am still in the classroom, but teaching Chinese students to speak English is such a different activity from teaching philosophy as to almost qualify as another line of work. Lectures are out, as are any discussions that rely on words of more than two syllables; games and group work are in.
Everything else -- from immersing myself in a completely foreign culture where even a trip to the grocery store is an adventure to being forced to exist on a volunteer's stipend -- is an attempt to make it clear to me that I am not in Kansas (or rather, Utah) anymore living the comfortable and familiar life of an academic.
Most of all, I have tried to quiet my mind. I don't know how to explain that except to say that the philosophical mind is a busy, analytic one and that, as a result, I have tried to avoid all activities that remotely resemble logical analysis. In doing so, it strikes me that I am trying to bring my being back into balance and that Chinese culture is particularly suited to that sort of activity.
I am not sure what will happen when these two years are up. Situations don't magically resolve themselves, and there is no reason to think the same issues that troubled me before won't reappear when I return.
But sometimes you need to get some distance on an issue in order to see it more clearly. I hope that is what is going on here. In any case, I tell myself there have been two-year stints of my academic career that I cannot now even vaguely recall. I'm pretty sure this won't be one of those.