I now do nothing but work, and I still need to step it up further. I understand at last those people who say they do not care where they live or how they dress because all they do is work. I am not convinced the lack of recreation will be good for work on a permanent basis, however.
My work focus is on streamlining the part of work that is drudgery and emphasizing the part that is entertaining and leads to intellectual development.
I am unlearning my guilt about work. To work makes me feel guilty and scared for reasons such as these:
+ it is improper to take anything one is doing seriously
+ it is selfish to actually undertake one’s own job assignment
+ it is not hip to put in effort
+ it is not hip not to be disaffected
+ it is unfair to others to imagine one knows what one is doing and to move right on ahead.
Axé.
It is strange, all of this was very sort of avoidant and pessimistic and also arrogant in its way.
I have been doing something similar since I took this job, which I took because it seemed to be what the family would accept. I keep thinking that if I can just get it through to them how unhappy I am with it, that they will give me their blessing to do something else.
I should know not to expect that and that really it is I who want my own blessing to do — anything at all.
Sometimes I really wonder whether all the years academics spend passing tests and seeking approval from so many quarters is a good thing.
And, it keeps going back to Reeducation: you have to repent and mourn, feel powerless, and so on.