How to decide?

At the end of the day, people will for the most part tell you what you want to hear. If you are enthusiastic about leaving, they will support you in this and tell you about the exciting opportunities that await. If you are skeptical and nervous, they will urge caution, tell you that you can be happy where you are. At the end of the day, you can rely only on yourself to make your decision. There are no signs, or if there are signs, they are like what Sartre talked about with respect to the man who had failed at relationships again and again and decided to join the priesthood. The truth is, as Sartre says, he could have read the signs either as suggesting resignation or as urging perseverence. So you cannot rely on people or signs to help you make the decision.

Don't rely on websites either. I looked on one. It might be worth going through the various options offered and cashing this out in terms of them. The most common method is to have you list the pros and cons. My favorite is a sight that allows you to flip a quarter or use an 8 ball. And then there is the virtual I Ching, which I tried as well, a couple of times. The thing is, that you can interpret all of these either way.

In the end, the method that appealed most to me, and I would like to think it was the one I went with, involved Sartre's notion that in the end you will be what you have willed yourself to be. Ask yourself, do you want to have been nothing but an academic for your whole life. And the answer came back 'no'. I want to be a person who at least tried to experiment a little bit with his live, albeit a little late in the game. So I think I chose based on the sort of person I wanted to be, and there was nothing more magical than that.

a good shrink

Saw my shrink yesterday, and in general I think if you are going to make a bit transition like the one I am contemplating, I think psychogolocial counselling is a necessity. This particular counselor I have known for more than fifteen years, and he has seen me through almost everything. He was particularly concerned about me last year, because I had more or less withdrawn into a shell. I was like a deer in the headlights. I could not see how to make a move. I would go to school, teach my classes and go home. The only change I had made was to move down to Salt Lake so I would not have to be near Ogden. But this meant I had a rather longish commute each day. In retrospect, I don't believe how much I shut myself up last year. At the very least, I could have gone to the zen temple. And so much more. It was not a very good year.

Anyway, I made myself go and see him after I made this decision. I stuck around the area much longer than I otherwise would have just so I could talk to him, because I am not really talking this over with anyone, which is probably a mistake, although in the end, this is a decision you have to make for yourself. And as I told him, you will never know if you are right. I was thinking of a line off the latest Cat Stevens (or whatever his name is) album. 'There's only one right road, and that's the one you chose'. In any case, I wanted to get a sense that I was not doing anything crazy, and I think he definitely would have stopped me if he had thought that. He just recommended I buy "The Power of Now" which I did. He says I look a lot better than I have in a while, in terms of my attitude. I can't tell. I will have to take his word on it

Marriage and Tenure

I really can't speak for anyone else, but I have been having incredible ups and downs in the period since I made the decision to leave my tenured position. The posting about health insurance a few days ago was certainly written during one of the "down" periods. But there are plenty of times when I feel hopeful and optimistic about the future. Facing the unkknown for the first time does have something exciting about it. But then, so again does jumping off a cliff.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to discuss the previous post about moving from one position into another. Generally speaking, as I said, I think it's a pretty good idea not just to walk away from a job without having another job--or the real good possibility of a job--waiting for you. And, all things equal, it is better to look for a job if you already have a job; it puts you in a position of strength. But in the case of a professor leaving a tenured position, or anyone similarly situated (is there anyone similarly situated) I simply do not think this is the best course to follow. My guess is a tenured professor who is contemplating leaving has put a good 12-15 years of his life, if you count graduate school, into his position (more in my case). It has probably been the defining charactersitic of their identity--how they define themselves and how others define them. I just don't think it's a good idea to walk out of that into another position any more than I think it would be a good idea to leave a long marriage and walk right into another marriage. In both cases, having left or lost something substantial, there needs to be time to grieve, time to think, time to search. This is why, painful as this is, I think I am making the right decision--at least this afternoon.

health care crisis

The health care crisis I am referring to is my own. The biggest sticking point in this whole thing is health insurance. I am fairly certain that if I could be guaranteed health insurance at a reasonable price, I would be able be able to go that last 5-10 percent. As the situation stands, I would come away with 2 1/2 years of health insurance. But there is no guarantee after that. My fear is that something comes up during this period and my existing health care coverage runs out and I am unable to pick up anything else. This one thing might decide the situaton. Really have to do some thinking on this one. I seriously think I might have to wait until this health care thing gets decided to make the move. At least that is how I feel right now, this morning.

Just another day

Like every day since I have sent in the letter, I wake up this morning in a semi-state of panic. I am getting a little better at starting the day with meditation, and it is helping a bit. But mostly I see myself as facing an abyss. This feeling is compounded, no doubt, by the immediate situation, by which I mean the fact that I do not even know where I will be sleeping tonight. At a friend's house, I start the morning with meditation, coffee, Chinese pod, and some writing on the book I am working on about the time in China. I want to go running before it gets too hot. And then? That is the question. If I had to guess, I would say I will go to the Uintahs for a couple of days of camping, one night in Park City and get back to Ogden on Friday in time for the appointment with my therapist. And then? Well, if I have three days planned out, I should not complain.

This morning, I kept feeling pulled to the option of going to grad school in Denver while teaching in Utah. On the face of it, of course, it is a crazy option. Teaching and full time graduate school and a 500 mile weekly commute--all at a time when I am exhausted. But what attracts me, not surprisingly, is the security. I can have a stable present and a path laid out to the future. So I consider contacting Denver to see if it is still possible to get in. Or I think about Utah, possibly taking a few courses this semester, whatever fits, and having that be a start to something else. All with the goal of a stable present and a path to the future. Maybe ten years ago I could have taken that route. But this is simply not where I am at right now. Not only because I am too exhausted to teach, much less teach and go to graduate school. But I need some time with the abyss, for lack of a better way put it.

I mean, if pressed (as I will be) I can lay out a couple of options for the future. Option 1 is to take the Peace Corps situation if it arises, with the possibility of starting graduate school the following fall or of spending the next year in China and then starting graduate school. Or I can do Option 1 but end up living by teaching one semester in China and then living in the states and writing/travelling the rest of the time. But the truth is, I just don't know where things will end up, and I have to get comfortable with living with this not knowing

Lawyer

Met with a lawyer today to go over the contract. The only question I had concerned the fact that the contract had left out mention of COBRA, which was something I had specifically asked about. I was also curious about teh 21 day cooling off period which was in the contract. I mean, the dean would put nothing in there out of good will, so there must have been some necessity for that clause. However, there was also a rider where I could override the 21 day clause. Speaking of the dean, I received an e-mail from him reminding me that time is of the essence since they need to higher someone for the fall semester, which starts in less than three weeks. I still wonder whether I should have held out for the on line course. I caved in too quickly on that one. I was so close to writing him back saying, "then i am sorry I caused you the trouble." But the only reason I would have done that would have been out of spite, which is the only reason I would stick around, to spite some people.

Just saw a colleague in the store tonight. He did not realize I had come back last year, thought I had been gone three years. He also asked if I was teaching this fall. Like he'd heard something. So I just said, last time I checked. Well, no doubt people will talk.

If I had to guess where I am right now in terms of certainty that i will leave, I would put it at ninety percent. There is still doubt. As I told my lawyer today, you can never be sure you are doing the right thing. It has been a week, I guess, since I sent in the original e-mail. It has beeen a week of high anxiety, which I guess is to be expected, I mean, if I did not feel incredibly anxious, I think that would be a sign that I had not quite come to grips with my decision.
It is almost impossible for me to get any other work done, for obvious reasons.

It feels strange to be hanging around here, like a ghost.

No more books

The reference is to Phil Ochs's song "No More Songs," which is not the most inspiring song in the world. Indeed, anyone doubting whether Phil was suffering from depression need only listen to the lyrics. I don't mean to draw a parallel, but today I just removed all the books from my office and donated them to the library. Actually, before I left for China in the spring I had boxed everyhing away, which made the situation much more quick than I thought it would be. I had to stop myself from lifting the cover off the boxes and looking at books. When I did this once I saw a book I immediately wanted to keep, JUng's "Two Essays on Analytic Psychology." But if I started down that road, I knew there was no guarantee that it woout stop. So I refused to life any of the lids for the rest of the process. There was some problem with the elevator at first; it didn't seem to be working, which I was going to take as a sign. Fortunately, they kicked in rather quickly. THere were about thirteen boxes in all, and they fit into my little Cavalier, which I drove to the loading dock of the library. I had arranged to deliver the books today, but no one was around to help out. So the woman at the desk gave me her key and told me to unload them myself, which I did rather quickly. There was a lttle blue form to fill ou for the donation, asking if you wanted a nameplate with your name pasted on the inside. It didn't mater to me, I said. I just wanted to be rid of the books. And so I am. So one more of the preconditions of my leaving is in place: my office is cleaned out. I think I was a lot less traumatizd by this then I thought I would be because in part everything is going digital anyway and if I decided to take up the burden again I could get a lot of what I need on line. I also thought of the line in one of the Seinfeld shows, where he said he did not understand why people kept books once they read them. What are they, like trophies?