A caveat: I realize these are the problems of privileged white guy in a position of limited power in an institution of power. I don't delude myself to think that they compare to the multitudes' sufferings. However, these things do impact me emotionally and practically--in my work--and as such, I blog about them. Just wanna be clear on that.
The Meditation
I have many things to write about. I do. But, until this past week, I could not seem to get much done. There was an assemblage of attention-sucking destruction (if I want to frame it hypberbolically) taking my time. In fact, it was rather a wicked problem where one situation led and complicated another--life's events just seemed to pile on.
PROGRAMS
For example, part of my job has administrative duties. This means there's paperwork to fill out. When there's a nearly full ocean to bucket out--okay, we're a small school, so it's a swimming pool--and there are a few hours of time, what does one do? I could put all my time into bucketing out the pool. Sure. Then the pool would be full shortly. In the mean time, I would know that I had not achieved all of these other things, that I'd not got this important writing, reading, thinking done. Whatever. But because I perceive my time as having such great value, I attend only to the critical issues in the pool.
However, the guilt or worry about the rest of the pool--which is automatically refilling and generating other issues autonomously--restricts my abilities to write on the academic writing and research that I want to engage in. When I would try to work on my Moodle, Twitter, or InfoSec research, I'd hit a wall: guilt. "Gotta take care of the program; gotta look at the practica." Ugh. But I did not want to. Instead, I made a third choice: escape.
Frankly, this has been working for me for months, and it is not a point of pride. In grad school, I could crank at 120% for days. Never had the writing or attention problems like I do now. Even worse, while I used to use escapist media, over the past academic year, it's like struggling with an addiction.
Academic work/life balance questions are not the only source of stress driving me to Dr. Who or Netflix or Amazon Prime video watching. Complicating matters are issues of D's health. And, over the last couple weeks, searching for a house. It's like a perfect maelstrom where I can generate one of 97 different excuses about why I don't get my work done. Ugh.
Worst part is: I know I can do my work. I know I have got time and I know that my topics are fascinating and worthy of publication. But I feel pulled and inexperienced in how to balance those demands. I look at my colleagues, and I'm in a very different situation and context than most of them. They have kids. They have complex situations. They have outside consulting. They have tenure. They're settled. So, in spite of examining their methods for balance, I have not found something that works for me
At least until the past ten days. Then I found a solution generated by my colleagues.
But you can read about that in my next post.