It's Time for Marshmallows.
Do you remember eating sugary cereals with marshamallows as a kid? I believe there had to be three strategies when consuming your Lucky Charms:
1) Eat all the marshamallows first, then slog through the actual "cereal" part.
2) Ration your marshamallows throughout so that every bite has a treasure.
3) Save your marshmallows for the end, so that you can leave the table on a glorious high-note with five spoonfuls of marshmallow magic.
Although option 2 prevailed occasionally, I was a 'saver'. I just couldn't bear the thought that I would have to finish off a colorless cereal at the end, so I suffered through the plain cereal up front.
Oh, but where are you going with this, Slick?
The topic preoccupying much of my brain's time these days is what to do with myself...how to make a living, so to speak. I'm currently the proud owner of quite an impressive amount of student loans--I won't give you a number, but I will tell you that most game show contestants win less than I owe. (So professional game show contestant is out for my job). This has, understandably, narrowed my options for the next few years, at least. Yes, I'm still on track to become a professor, but to be honest with you all out there in blogland, there's an awful lot of bullshit in academia. Yes, I know there's a lot of bullshit elsewhere, too, but the size of the egos with whom I have to work, not to mention the seemingly high rate of mental illness among the senior faculty, combined with the high stress level and lack of an official 'off-time' or holiday really up the bullshit stakes. Further, when I go for my first job in a year or two, the chances are really excellent that my choices will be Kansas, Nebraska or Kentucky (or some such other exciting locale). I was willing to do this for a very long time---eat the plain cereal for a few years, and then move to Marshmallow Land (tenured position in academia, preferrably, a city). I'll travel later, I tell myself, because I'm poor right now, but one day, I'll cruise the world on my paid year-long sabbatical. Of course, Ibiza at 40 is probably not quite the same as Ibiza at 21, but goddamn, those marshmallows will taste good later. I'll accept the offer at UCSD rather than NYU because SD has the better program---of course I would have preferred NYC to SD twice every day and three times on Sunday, but that's like...sixteen bites of plain cereal---so that's at least 5 bites of marshmallows later, right? I'll study something a little less interesting because it will get me a better job--and move me one space closer to the mallows; I'll get my piano compositions down later--I actually turned down a full free ride to a music conservatory thinking that I could compose all I wanted once I was retired.
I'll live later, once I've pre-paid for all of my fun.
Perhaps this was a wise strategy once upon a time, but I'm really friggin' sick of eating plain cereal. But once I leave this track, there's no hopping back on; I can't leave academia for a few months or years and 'figure out' if this is what I want to do. Sure, I could have done that after college, but now it's too late--I'm too far down the path to 'go find myself in Europe' before committing firmly--or rejecting outright--this future.
Sadly, to get tenure, once must basically live a monastic existence, full only of papers and lectures and conferences, oh my! So I'm not just around the corner...I'm just getting onto the street. And I just can't reconcile myself to the fact that I should wait another 8 years before getting to live.
So yeah, I really really really want some sugar.
Now.
1) Eat all the marshamallows first, then slog through the actual "cereal" part.
2) Ration your marshamallows throughout so that every bite has a treasure.
3) Save your marshmallows for the end, so that you can leave the table on a glorious high-note with five spoonfuls of marshmallow magic.
Although option 2 prevailed occasionally, I was a 'saver'. I just couldn't bear the thought that I would have to finish off a colorless cereal at the end, so I suffered through the plain cereal up front.
Oh, but where are you going with this, Slick?
The topic preoccupying much of my brain's time these days is what to do with myself...how to make a living, so to speak. I'm currently the proud owner of quite an impressive amount of student loans--I won't give you a number, but I will tell you that most game show contestants win less than I owe. (So professional game show contestant is out for my job). This has, understandably, narrowed my options for the next few years, at least. Yes, I'm still on track to become a professor, but to be honest with you all out there in blogland, there's an awful lot of bullshit in academia. Yes, I know there's a lot of bullshit elsewhere, too, but the size of the egos with whom I have to work, not to mention the seemingly high rate of mental illness among the senior faculty, combined with the high stress level and lack of an official 'off-time' or holiday really up the bullshit stakes. Further, when I go for my first job in a year or two, the chances are really excellent that my choices will be Kansas, Nebraska or Kentucky (or some such other exciting locale). I was willing to do this for a very long time---eat the plain cereal for a few years, and then move to Marshmallow Land (tenured position in academia, preferrably, a city). I'll travel later, I tell myself, because I'm poor right now, but one day, I'll cruise the world on my paid year-long sabbatical. Of course, Ibiza at 40 is probably not quite the same as Ibiza at 21, but goddamn, those marshmallows will taste good later. I'll accept the offer at UCSD rather than NYU because SD has the better program---of course I would have preferred NYC to SD twice every day and three times on Sunday, but that's like...sixteen bites of plain cereal---so that's at least 5 bites of marshmallows later, right? I'll study something a little less interesting because it will get me a better job--and move me one space closer to the mallows; I'll get my piano compositions down later--I actually turned down a full free ride to a music conservatory thinking that I could compose all I wanted once I was retired.
I'll live later, once I've pre-paid for all of my fun.
Perhaps this was a wise strategy once upon a time, but I'm really friggin' sick of eating plain cereal. But once I leave this track, there's no hopping back on; I can't leave academia for a few months or years and 'figure out' if this is what I want to do. Sure, I could have done that after college, but now it's too late--I'm too far down the path to 'go find myself in Europe' before committing firmly--or rejecting outright--this future.
Sadly, to get tenure, once must basically live a monastic existence, full only of papers and lectures and conferences, oh my! So I'm not just around the corner...I'm just getting onto the street. And I just can't reconcile myself to the fact that I should wait another 8 years before getting to live.
So yeah, I really really really want some sugar.
Now.
Labels: Work and Such
posted by slickaphonic at 12:34 AM
6 Comments:
I so want to give good advice here, but alas. I know that sometimes I want to set my life on fire and just make art. But that wouldn't be prudent.
yeah, but you never know when the cereal bowl is going to be yanked away from you. and what if you never got a single friggin' marshmallow? seriously, i don't think people are afraid of dying as much as they are of 'not living'. i know i am.
and i already regret not taking out a few student loans to study or travel abroad when i was younger, and more willing to stay out until 4 am dancing. i just don't want to hit 40 and regret following this path that i'm on now.
bugger.
Funny, I emailed this to a friend because it struck such a cord as I waffle between continuing on or cut-and-running. Yet I didn't comment. Sometimes you think so hard in response that you think you thunk out loud (or at least in print).
yeah, i had the same reaction after your email response...so please consider this a belated reply, my blonde twin.
watch it youngun, some of us are 40! I don't regret not keeping on with art when I was younger, but I realize my path, and me as well, are so singular I can't point to myself as any kind of model for those important Maslow's hierarchy of needs stuff.
yeah, it's just difficult to tell what's prudent behavior and what's fear-driven behavior, what's daydreaming and what's actual longing...
it looks like i'm going to get to start traveling the world doing experiments in remote locations for my next dissertation topic, so i'm thinking I'm about to get a sugar fix.
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