Seesaw

Once upon a time—in a life far, far away—I worked at a major university which shall remain nameless. A plum research and teaching job with the full trappings of sinecure. Well, not exactly. One had to work, sometimes insanely hard. Not hard as in steel mill hard, but as in eighteen-hour days for weeks and months on end. Almost everyone in academics does that pre-tenure, but for some of us the habit is so ingrained after five, six, or seven years (however long it takes for promotion to come along) that escaping the routine seems impossible. In fact, most never even think of escape.

I retired over three years ago, and still a day doesn’t end without me thinking about the first sentence of the Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…

I don’t know what it is about the academic mind, but somewhere along the line you get trained to view the glass as simultaneously half-empty and half-full. Sounds perfect, right? The corollary of never too high or too low.

In reality, the academic mindset leads to all kinds of perverse behavior. Never being satisfied with the work you do unless you are for a brief period. Feeling like nothing you do or say improves on the current state of affairs (especially in the classroom), until a student you’ve mentored wins a prestigious award.

Constantly being on this kind of seesaw is maddening, and one reason I took early retirement. So what do I do? I take up writing, possibly the only activity fraught with more self doubt and second-guessing than being a faculty member.

Some people never learn.