channeling my inner charlie brown.

Post date: Mar 04, 2020 3:38:46 AM

it's been a few months since the holiday season .. and actually, i first wrote this in january. still, occasionally my thoughts turn towards the opening lines of "a charlie brown christmas" [imdb link] ...

"I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel.

"... I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed."

that line hits home: i don't feel the way that i'm supposed to feel.

...

it happens that my university awarded me tenure, about nine months ago.

my romantic associate has been over the moon about this. everyone's been supportive and congratulatory [1]. i bet there are plenty of people, academics or otherwise, that would kill (and bury the corpses, without a second thought) for this kind of deal ...

... but the only things that come to my mind are the added responsibilities to the promotion. i could swear that the number of administrative meetings that i've attended have doubled .. and i have a bad feeling that it's only the beginning of things to come.

hell, i didn't even know that PTDS was a thing until the chronicle wrote about it:

"The phenomenon of post-tenure dissatisfaction is not just an anecdotal observation. A few years ago, The Chronicle reported on a survey of college teachers showing that academics were 'most upbeat at the beginning and at the end of their careers' ("A Midlife Crisis Hits College Campuses"). Another article, written by two historians, drew on different survey data to conclude that 'associate professors were the most disaffected group in the history profession.' I don’t think the situation has changed much."

i feel tired all the time, and that nothing i do really matters anymore. i have this sinking feeling that things are getting worse all the time.

that said, someone actually studied this as a general psychological phenomenon: apparently just as there is a law of conservation of energy, from the psychological standpoint there is a law of conservation of pessimism!

"Gilbert et al. suggest that prevalence-induced concept change may cause unjustified pessimism, because as the prevalence of bad things decreases, more things start to seem bad. The authors warn that this can be dangerous for people and organizations that set out to solve problems. Suppose I decide to improve my diet by eliminating junk food. Once I've cut out the candy and deep-fried foods, bread and ice cream may fall under suspicion. If I continue to clean up my diet, red meat and sugary fruits may be the next to go. Yet the concept of unhealthy food expands until every morsel seems potentially toxic.

"Even when things get better, people will tend to perceive them as getting worse. Expanding concepts of problems mean that we are unlikely to appreciate the progress we have made towards solving them."

maybe this is what the current holy-stics are talking about when they talk about gratefulness. even corporate business (i.e. socialism-for-us-whilst-capitalism-for-you-lowly-fvckers) have been making it, as they say, a *thing.*

i don't know [2]. i'm just someone who has time on his hands, gainfully employed, and now subject to longevity and the fears that come with it ... of the erosion of academic freedom and self-determination.

honestly: to butcher a quote of Solon the Athenian, as secondhand from Rousseau:

growing older, i worry all the time.

...

[1] when it was suggested to me to throw a party, my immediate thoughts were: fvck no, fvck that noise. i know too many people who didn't make it. celebrating, to me, is in bad taste. it would be like celebrating winning the lottery without the ability to share the winnings. i couldn't think of a non-dishonorable way to conduct that kind of affair ... so i didn't.

[2] you know, i've been saying that a lot lately.