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.