February 16th is the eighth anniversary of this blog; February 17th is the anniversary of my feeling it had actually started. February 17th also marks six months that I have been un-depressed.
That was the pre-written post I had planned to have come up now. It is ironic because really I am coming off a bout of self-torture because of having gotten angry because I was tired because I made plans that were too ambitious. Now I am exhausted and behind, and I need to rest, but it is going to could be a terrible week because I am behind and I promised to work all weekend to fix these problems, but really I only went into self-torture instead I went into productive psychoanalysis. I said:
I want to live where I can be happy and do things that are meaningful, but I am so weakened by doing the things I need to do to survive at a basic level here, things that are antithetical to my larger goals, that I cannot get to such a place. Everything in my life is about duty and I am carrying too many scars. Everything is about making it up to people that I was not the person they needed. Had I had other characteristics, they could have been happy. I am trying very hard to become the person desired but it is a failing proposition, and I have nearly finished destroying myself in the process.
I want to be strong and say no I will not do this and not be asking for complete annihilation by doing so. And there is, I discern, something I need to discuss, a trauma I keep reenacting, and I do not have a venue for doing so, not even here.
The reason I do not like to do academic work is that I see it as a torture chamber, fraught with danger. You are tortured in it and you are then tortured for doing it. Of course one does not want to start, if it is that. I have to reenchant it somehow.
Other people think work is pain because they do not like work, or they think work mut be heroic and painful, or they do not like the work they are doing. It is frustrating to me to talk to these attitudes because they are not the reason I think work is pain. I think it is pain because I have worked with torturers and because I have been tortured for working.
I do not want to start working because I do not want to start self torture, or do anything to bring the attention of the torturers to myself. I have to reenchant work somehow.
#OccupyHE
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
My feelings about teaching are identical to yours, but unlike you I did not give it my all. It wasn’t worth it, I figured. I kept hearing that it was something about me that was “off,” but I didn’t buy it. The fact is, there is nothing insecure people enjoy more that trying to bring other people down, and it is very easy to become a target. The academic world is the worst. Nowhere are you likely to hear so much about the deficiencies of others.
Sorry for dumb sounding post. But it’s really how I feel.
Oh, I am not “off” for academia or actually a problematic teacher. I would not fit in at Reed, though, too precious, and I would be pissed at PSU, too evil. But I am perfect at a big public school that is serious. And it seems most people are not, they are the Reed and PSU types. The way in which I might be “off” is that it is not the only thing I can or could do.
But you are right about the insecure people. And deficiencies of others, academic world, yes. The whole thing seems to be built around finding deficiencies, it is really irritating.