Where I am going
I've been blessed/cursed with a number of epiphanies in the last few days. Strangely enough, this has been coupled with relatively little as far as quantifiable occurrences go. By and large, my life has been pretty inane and unremarkable ever since returning from Europe. I guess I've reached a period in my life that is best described as entropic. Cast out of the orbit of academia, I'm now floating--rather mindlessly--through a whole lot of nothing. There's nothing exerting any real pull on me. This was a source of angst for a long time, but I'm realizing that it's in this environment, free of the usual pressures, where I can truly take some time and figure my shit out.
I realize now that I am passionately interested in academia, particularly theory/philosophy. My job as a TOEFL exam factory requires that I pump out work at a 12th grade level. I'm finding myself hard-pressed to actually limit the scope of my ideas enough to actually put out work requiring that degree of simplicity. Writing on neo-Marxist theory, I can't explore the relative problems that arise when the superstructure affects the base. I can't expound on the glorification of the subjective in folksonomic systems. Quite plainly, I've grown fond of operating on an intellectual level above and beyond the usual. When I'm forced to break out of that mold, it's exhaustingly boring. This, more than anything else, makes me realize that academia is where I should be, at least at this point in time.
Additionally, I was asked to be a groomsman in my girlfriend's sister's wedding yesterday. This is a big deal because, when you take a step beyond the obvious, you realize that I'll be eternally put in her family's picture, both literally and figuratively. People will look back on these pictures and their memories of this event and I'll be there--not just in the background, the boyfriend of the maid of honor, but a serious figure in the entire ceremony and subsequent celebration. This is reassuring on a frightening level because I know that they've considered all of this. I knew that they ran this by Natalie. And I know that she approved. This is getting serious.
So here I am, waiting impatiently for life to happen to me and I'm realizing that it finally is happening to me. It's rather unsettling.
I realize now that I am passionately interested in academia, particularly theory/philosophy. My job as a TOEFL exam factory requires that I pump out work at a 12th grade level. I'm finding myself hard-pressed to actually limit the scope of my ideas enough to actually put out work requiring that degree of simplicity. Writing on neo-Marxist theory, I can't explore the relative problems that arise when the superstructure affects the base. I can't expound on the glorification of the subjective in folksonomic systems. Quite plainly, I've grown fond of operating on an intellectual level above and beyond the usual. When I'm forced to break out of that mold, it's exhaustingly boring. This, more than anything else, makes me realize that academia is where I should be, at least at this point in time.
Additionally, I was asked to be a groomsman in my girlfriend's sister's wedding yesterday. This is a big deal because, when you take a step beyond the obvious, you realize that I'll be eternally put in her family's picture, both literally and figuratively. People will look back on these pictures and their memories of this event and I'll be there--not just in the background, the boyfriend of the maid of honor, but a serious figure in the entire ceremony and subsequent celebration. This is reassuring on a frightening level because I know that they've considered all of this. I knew that they ran this by Natalie. And I know that she approved. This is getting serious.
So here I am, waiting impatiently for life to happen to me and I'm realizing that it finally is happening to me. It's rather unsettling.