What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
I love researching and writing. Love it. I like teaching and interacting with young folks, even the ones who aren't all that into my subject. Then why does the thought of applying for an academic job make me want to hurl?
For those of you outside of the wacky world of higher ed, getting a prof job is truly stupid and grueling process. But so is IF treatment, and I seem to be able to handle that. In fact, I've spent a lot of time engaged in various stupid and grueling processes, so while the job search is a big turn off (it is for everyone), something else is at play here.
I've long had a love-hate relationship with academe. My entire educational career was devoted to studying hardcore, then fleeing the scene (usually to Eastern Europe) as fast as my credit card and passport could take me. I finished undergrad a semester early to leave the country. I split town the second I finished my PhD coursework. But then eventually, I decided I wanted to finish my degree, if only because I had already poured so much blood, sweat, and tears into it that it seemed a betrayal of self to just throw all that effort away. Plus, I love the Obscure Corner of the World, its languages, its history and culture.
What would I really want to do? Write books about OCOW, intelligent yet popular books about the people and history I've learned. Translate works on OCOW that are not available in English, or even in some other widely known European language. Do something creative, while helping out on The Farm.
But I'm scared. I'm terrified of failing. Of not being able to make a living. Of not being taken seriously because I don't have a prof position to fall back on as proof of my worthiness to tell these tales, and thus never being able to get my work out to potential readers.
(WARNING: potentially dull critique of academia ahead!)
Of turning into some version of Sarah Palin (just without the lipstick and political ambitions), the Crazy Cat Lady, or the sad, threadbare "independent scholar" trying to prove that Ataturk was actually a prophet predicting the eventual dominance of the Hungarians in the EU or that certain ruins in Western China point to Swedish-Uighur trade links and possible alien visitations of Urumchi in the 11th century. You know, one of those "scholars."
I'm scared because I feel that academia has the pursuit of knowledge in a kind of lock-down, unless you can call what you do "art." Yet so few academics reach out to the wider public and share, in clear and eloquent language, what (you'd think) they love so dearly. Most academics write in such obtuse language, referencing sources irrelevent to the lives of even excellently read and broadly engaged laypeople. Their accounts are technical, and frankly, just plain dead. I don't want to write that way.
More popular accounts are often shallow and/or inaccurate (especially as the narratives regarding my area of specialty are only poorly sketched out). I want to change that.
(End of academia rant)
So how do I proceed? Part of me wants desperately to stay here, in this community my guy and I love so well, where all the elements for a happy life can be found. And yet, by staying here, I basically wave goodbye to Prof. Shinejil. I'm equally afraid that if I give up on academia, I'll wind up with my brains turning to mush, living day to day without contributing my tiny little piece to the universe's puzzle. I'm afraid I'll never find the discipline and response from others I need to sustain the considerable efforts of researching and writings my books (by response, I mean money as well as praise, encouragement, etc.).
Sigh. What to do?
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14 comments:
Tough questions indeed! I can only speak to my own experience, in that I don't think I'm doing what I want to be doing either at the age of 35. I'm successful and my career in accounting provides me with a comfortable and relatively secure (considering the current economy) job. Yet on some levels that I can't quite define, I don't feel satisfied by it.
I hadn't intended on entering the business world when I 'grew up'. I studied the environmental sciences and spent a wonderful first year out of school doing stream restoration work and environmental outreach. The problem was that at the time, I couldn’t find a position that paid more than minimum wage… so I took pursued an additional diploma to expand my options. Now I dabble a bit in environmental work through volunteering for my township’s environmental advisory council. Sometimes I think about returning to this field… yet I put so much effort into obtaining my CPA, and the comfort factor can’t be ignored. *sigh*
I also look at choices made by my BIL, who is someone that I would call “book smart, life dumb”. He’s been working on a Master’s and now a PhD for about seven years, with seemingly little regard to what would be best for his young family (my nephews are 6 and 3). They live in a bad neighborhood, and have had to borrow money from us to pay for living expenses. We’re not sure what he’s going to eventually do but he has spoken about becoming a professor. It’s scary when academia makes you blind to what’s going on around you… I’m certainly not saying it happens to everyone but I have seen some people close themselves off.
Sorry for the rambling... I wish you good luck in your decision!
is there only one univ near you? any other opps for profs? maybe you could become a highly reputed author and paid guest lecturer on all things OCOW? there are also visiting professorships when tenure is not an option. that could leave plenty of time for farming right? I have no doubt that whatever you decide, however you contribute, the world will be a better place.
oh wow, I hate big life questioning moments. But something I have learnt about you, through your writting, is that you are so strong and resourceful! You will find your way out of this problem too, it will be hard, there will be complaining and tears, but I know that you will come out of it with a view of the silver lining and things will be good. Good luck with your decision making time, I feel for you!
Ugh. The damn crossroads of life.
I may have shared with you before that I peeled off the academia expressway early on, even though I thought while I was doing my undergrad that I was going to make it my life. Once I got away from it for a while, I started to see that while I know I could succeed in that world, I don't really want to. And while I'm not maybe as quick with the quotations as I once was, and don't speak Academese as well (thank G*d!), my brains certainly haven't turned to mush. My brain's place in my life before was like a speed skater's thighs - kind of overdeveloped. It's way more in balance now.
I understand your fear of failure and of feeling disconnected from a community of your peers and from a receptive audience for your ideas. But I think you would rock it so hard if you follow your heart and do things independently. You seem to me to be strong and brilliant and powerful and creative - in my experience, the lock-down is not so open to all of that. Granted, I don't have your experience, and the point is moot for me anyway as I've chosen another path entirely. But I get the sense that you need freedom and space for yourself in your life, and it sounds like you have it already in the life you have now.
I feel I am rambling so I will stop. To summarize: you will be brilliant no matter what you decide. But I have a lot of faith that you can take the scarier, murkier path here and create a masterpiece of your life. Good luck and much peace and clarity with your decision making.
Oh, the "what do I do with my life" question. That's a pretty big issue to be wrestling with as you also wrestle the infertility beast. I wish I had the answer. I don't, but encourage you to be creative and follow your heart, while still allowing for food on the table. You seem so adjusted to me, so I feel certain you will find your path.
I can't figure out what to do with my life, so I have no clue how to direct anyone else.
I have been told to follow my heart, but like you, the fear of failure overcomes me. If you figure it out, please let me know.
I can relate to just about every word of this post, shinejil!
Like you, I love researching, writing and teaching, but I am filled with dread at the thought of what seems to be the standard academic career path. I hate all the back-biting and in-fighting, and the whole 'publish or perish' phenomenon that seems to be such an integral part of the UK academic scene. I keep thinking to myself that there surely must be another way...
I think that it is certainly possible to pick up work as a free-lance lecturer/writer/translator, but that it can also be quite a precarious existence. You are, after all, waving good bye to a regular salary.
Financial security & professional prestige in an academic post vs. intellectual freedom & personal contentment? It's not an easy choice to make, and one with which I too am struggling.
Ugh. Scary non-IF related thoughts. I once thought I might be an academic, but I discovered soon into law school that, while I loved learning and research, I really couldn't cope with the world of academia. I pretty much ran from that as far and fast as possible.
Somehow I lucked into the perfect job for me. I really hope you can find the same. With the family stuff unsettled, it must be hard to be trying to figure out the career stuff as well.
Try not to let it make you crazy. (And I hope your guy feels better soon too.)
hmmm, I wish I could look into a crystal ball and see you being a hotly published author/professor at a cool college and yet you have enough time in your day to go home and tend to your herb/veggie farm (because your five beautiful children happily hoe the fields and man the roadside stand.)
And because you're a highly paid tenured professor you have those insanely long summers off so you can all go to the OCOTW to reconnect and get more fodder for your future books.
That's what a decent crystal ball would show!!
I would say it sounds like you are still young enough to being able to take a stab at something/anything now and have enough time to veer down a different road later on.
I may be way off (re: your age), but when I had these kinds of 'what am i going to do with my life' thoughts I was in my '30s and now that I'm in my '40s it's so off my radar because I have learned nothing is forever (infertility wasn't forever, losing one great or crappy job always led to a completely unexpected new opportunity, everything I ever did served a purpose for later on...)
And so life now seems more like a giant open field in which I am free and capable to wander rather than "HS! two roads diverging in the wood...OMG which do I take because one may lead to failure."
I don't believe there is anything you can or can't do that would be a real failure in the long term in the grand scheme of life (and that seems hard to believe on the heels of a lost pregnancy). Maybe this perspective comes with age and the miracle of beating IF... but all you can do is do the things that bring you joy 60-80% of the time!!!
Riddle me this, Batman. Why does chosing your heart's path to write cogent, entertaining yet accurate books about OCOW mean you can never be a professor? From my (uneducated) seat on the sideline, I've noticed that people in academics or science who dare to reach out to the common man and write on their level, to make their field accessible, as it were... are mercilessly mocked by their fellow smarties. And yet, they are the names that I feel so much thankfulness for. Carl Sagan, for instance, who captured my attention and interest as a tiny corn cob because his love of his subject was so great that he dared to bring it to us, the plebians. YOu have that gift. I can read it in your writing, and you have the potential to bring your love of the OCOW to us. Would you be snubbed by academia? Probably. But do you really, really want to live for their good opinion? No, I didn't think so.
Going on the market doesn't guarantee that you have to take a job and leave your community, it just starts the ball rolling. Some friends I've had go on the academic market fall in love with a school/city and are persuaded to move. Some do not fall in love, and stay put for another year. I say start by looking at the ads and see what the market looks like this year in your field. Good luck!
You won't end up with a brain turning to mush -- trust me. Intelligent people don't get dumb overnight. You're in the throes of a major life-changing experience ... it takes some time to figure out which way is up. You will find the right answer. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Man, everyone else is so thoughtful and eloquent and shit.
I think there are ways to keep your brain from turning to mush without losing your community. (And it is wonderful - you don't want to live somewhere like here, it would suck your soul.)
I hope you find a way to have it all and I PROMISE you will never be Sarah Palin. I swear.
Yeah, those are some difficult questions to face.
Speaking as an academic wife, I would say that you should run screaming in the opposite direction of being a professor. But that's because I'm stuck in Fucking-Winston-Fucking-Salem for the rest of my life. I do feel at times that my husband mislead me with his intentions, job-wise. At least, that is that he told me that this was only a 3 year contract, emphasizing the temporary nature of it all, but neglected to say how very badly he never wanted to have to look for a job again. And also he neglected to mention that my job, whatever career I land myself in will never, ever, EVER be the priority. My job, whatever it is I find to feed my soul, will be limited to a 30 mile radius of this hellhole.
So.
I do have a close understanding of how attractive the academic life is, and H and I have been so lucky to have found an academic home that is free from all the infighting and other pettiness that apparently plagues so many other departments, but in finding that, we have effectively locked ourselves in to this one place forever and ever. And I hate that.
So do what makes your soul sing, but always keep your options open so that if you do land in a department-o'-pettiness or in a city that leaves you routinely crying yourself to sleep (still after more than 3 years living there), you can make a hasty retreat to greener pastures and be no worse for the wear.
That's my best advice.
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