You have to save your seeds. People are not taught this in school and it is very, very important. And it is a really beautiful day, like summer in Los Angeles, sparkling. The sky breathes soft winds at a temperature of 84 degrees, so it is cool enough to go outside.
*
As we know, I became an eco-freak in Peru and I am glad, as it was just in time. I also became an advocate of very low fat eating, as Peruvian cuisine is very low fat and this is one reason why one feels so much better there. Since returning I have really realized since how strangely fatty my diet is here, although by United States standards it is quite low in fat. For example: I put olive oil on every salad. In Peru it is vinegar with mustard, garlic, and hot peppers, and it is just as rich as my vinaigrette with oil.
*
It is possible to rescue one’s health and save the planet, but everyone must start right now.
*
At yoga class, in the bathroom, I came upon two new faculty members in tears. What has happened? asked I.
We have made a terrible mistake, said they. We did not fully realize what working conditions would be at this job, or what living conditions would be in this town. We spent our savings moving here because it was tenure track. Having been here almost two months we realize that if we are to have careers of any kind, we must resign, but we have no money to move on now and we do not make enough to save for a transition with any kind of speed. We have trapped ourselves.
Don’t worry, you will adjust! said the graduate student. You can do community projects and get people to help you, and you will find friends. It is not a question of whether they can do that. They will do that if they stay, said I quickly. I shot my best shut-up glance to the graduate student because I had seen tears well up again in the eyes of the new faculty members as they heard her “sensible,” yet oppressive advice. The question is whether that is what they want to do with their lives. Remember, they are not from here and they are not faculty wives, so they are not required to be here.
Relieved, the new faculty members said: but you seem to have found a way around all these problems, and to be doing well. I am neither doing well generally, nor am I successful, said I. I am merely cheerful in public. When I cannot keep up an acceptable façade, I stay home. It really is not optimum, especially when you consider that I am barely supporting myself.
But you are able to affirm our experience, replied they, so you cannot be entirely caught up in falseness. You are also affirming my experience, I said.
*
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I hope you don’t think my advice is very sensible!
Anyway, I read some Zizek this morning and he’s going on about repressive desublimation and how that limits your freedom by compelling you to enjoy that which you must do anyway.
I think in general I am switching off from a large part of this world of ours, and Zizek kind of nails the reason as to why. It’s a mode of consciousness that creates a milieu very hard to communicate anything serious within. In terms of the logic of this consciousness, we can and should all find happiness simply by setting our noses to the grindstone, and if we do not, there is no means to complain (that anyone would care about).
I am frustrated with the upsurgence of this realisation in my own mind. I am trying to solve the problem, and it is taking all my energy.
It’s much easier to do what you have to do anyway if you do not load upon it the imperative to enjoy it.
It’s also easy to keep your nose to the grindstone on a project you don’t like if it is *definitely* going to get you a result you want.
The example which comes to mind for me was required classes in school. I did in fact want to be at that school in that town, I liked it, so passing a few classes I wasn’t really interested in was worth the trouble because it couldn’t fail to get me the immediate reward of continuing on with classes I did like.
I think what it is is that a lot of people really *don’t* enjoy life. They do not know what it would be like to do that, so they are much more amenable to the nose to the grindstone philosophy. They claim to be satisfied with having things be tolerable and then having “fun” sometimes. They are not aware of what it would be to actually be in life.
It sounds like Zizek has in fact nailed it.
Yeah, you are right.
Anyway, sorry if I’ve been business-like or brusque the past few weeks. I’ve had to do a number of things that were difficult, and I’m only now realising the level of pressure I put my mind under. (Perhaps I will never completely realise it as I have always been extremely accustomed to stress, and tend to find stressful environments, of certain sorts, can be my element. Go figure. I’m a child of a civil war.)
Anyway, I faced the terrible medical exam, and some other fears I had.
The terrible medical exam?
oh the pap smear I was putting off for years.
I melted down from stress the other day.
I don’t do pap smears – have decided I go to the dentist and it’s enough. Maybe I will go in 2014 because it will have been ten years. I’ve been leaving five year intervals but every time I go the MD turns out to have some form of objectionable behavior. I just don’t think it is advisable to do pap smears in this town.
*
[It is very odd. Reeducation did not take place here but the Reeducator was from this area. He was insane but then lots of men here are. Add to the run of the mill insanity that there seems to be a high incidence here of impotence, infidelity (women’s role, I am told, is to cover up for the sexual problems of men, so you can be impotent and cheating, both at once), and very creepy gynaecologists.]
I had a nice Singaporean female GP, but it was still creepy enough, and I faced it like a dare to spar someone who promised to go easy on me.
On my insurance – the best available, I pay extra for it – the women gynaecologists *still* have no openings.
This, I conclude, must mean they are popular and for good reason.
This was a GP.
Ah, it is unpleasant where you are, I think.
I have seen parts of California that would drive anyone to despair, no matter how life affirming they were. What’s the excuse, I wonder.
I think too many are born into this world without anyone having a plan for them.
“…no matter how life affirming they were.”
Yes, and thanks for confirming that being life affirming does not fix everything!
I’m not sure what life affirming means in this context. Either life is affirmed or it isn’t. If yours isn’t then there is a problem.