change of plans

Didn't go to DC this week, but will be in Tampa from June 2 to 9. In Milwaukee tonight, will blog more later.

anti-isolation

Trying to keep up with the blog a little better.

Doing well, overall. I need to get myself absorbed in something, though. I have a tendency to get absorbed in relationships, but I think I need to get absorbed in something more 'independent.' Something like a project. Or a community of friends. I'm always looking looking looking for things to get involved in, but I never actually dive into anything, because I never find the perfect thing. But I will likely never find the absolutely perfect thing (just like I might never find the absolutely perfect person), so I need to find something that I can throw myself into for now, or I need to make something happen. Create my own project. I suppose this is what my dissertation is, although I feel very isolated when it comes to this project. But it doesn't have to be that way, does it? I need to be sure I'm sharing my ideas with others who are just as passionate about the topic as I am--I've probably tended not to like conferences because I just haven't cared enough about the topic/field (and I have enjoyed the sessions at conferences that align more with my interests...I think the truth is that I'm just not that interested in philosophy of education as the field currently stands...which perhaps is fitting, since I didn't come here to do phil of ed anyway, I came here to do religion and education, then found that there really wasn't a program in it)--and there is a certain community, I think, that would be interested in my topic (and I'd be interested in theirs).

Whatever projects I do need to involve other people who I like, with whom I share passions. So I need to make this happen.

come and go

A rainy day in C-U.

I would like to be on top of things. I have this plan: spend the mornings keeping up with religion, education, and world news; spend lunchtime emailing people; spend the afternoons working on my dissertation proposal; exercise; dinner; then spend the evenings emailing, reading, watching movies; bed by midnight. Up at 8. That sounds nice, doesn't it?

If I told you the number of times I've made up a schedule for myself and then proceeded not to follow it, your head would explode.

Time to stop planning, time to start doing. I am so good at figuring out what I should be doing, but so bad at actually making those things happen. Maybe this is because doing what I know I should be doing means breaking some old habits, and this can be a rather difficult thing to do.

I am on the Religion and Peacemaking email list of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and yesterday I received an email advertising a job opening, dealing with (guess what) religion and peacemaking. And you know what? It sounded like just the kind of thing I'd like to do--and they were actually looking for somebody with a PhD! So I'm thinking that I should spend these next couple of years preparing myself for these kind of positions, which means bringing myself more in touch with what's going on in the world, and trying to gain some experience with interfaith groups locally. There are these dialogue institutes, too, like one at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and I think I'd enjoy working for one of those.

The main thing here is this: I am not cut out to be a scholar. This is in part because I'm not particularly good at it, and in part because I'm just not that into it. I have thrived when I've been working with others, on projects that matter to us...I think of Student Life at CMU, I think of the Religious Studies Club at USF, I think of teaching...these are the things that make me feel most alive. I do not feel most alive when I am sitting by myself, trying to write a paper that hardly anyone will read. I like writing, but I don't really enjoy writing academically. I don't enjoy being a scholar for its own sake--I can only do it, I think, if it's directly in service of something 'practical.' I'm not knocking scholarship here--some of it is important--but it's not for me. I am surrounded by people here who actually should be scholars--fellow students, faculty--people who are good at it, and I can just see that it's not me.

And you know what? My mentor at USF knew this, 3 years ago. I remember him telling me that I shouldn't get a PhD--that I should go into something like politics, because my talent is working with people. He knew it. He knew I wasn't a scholar. He knew me better than I knew myself.

I think much of this past semester--maybe even this past year--has involved me coming to terms with who I am, in a number of ways. And part of this has been coming to terms with the fact that I've been on a path for the past 6 years that isn't exactly the best for me. I have always seen myself as a professor, a scholar, but why? I don't think I ever really stopped and considered whether it was really really what I wanted to do. I finally did this year, threw myself horribly off-balance, got awfully depressed more than a few times, but every time I felt hopeless, I think I brought myself closer and closer to the kind of life that would fulfill me. It's like I've been chipping away at the life I'd expected but didn't necessarily want, and building the life that I actually do want. It's a process, but I think I'm on the right track.

shattered

I have not posted a blog in over a month--that's probably the longest I've gone since I started this. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't had much to say lately, or if I've just been feeling too busy to actually sit down and reflect for a few minutes. Perhaps it's just because I've been fairly content lately, and when I'm content, I tend to flow along with the stream of life without occasionally stepping onto the shore to see where the current is taking me.

But lately, these past couple of days, contentment has fled, and I've been left feeling a little shattered. (How does one feel a 'little' shattered? I don't know, but 'shattered' seemed so harsh.) Everything had seemed to be going so well, but these last few days, I feel like things have been falling apart.

And so yesterday and today I've been depressed. That old familiar feeling that I've blogged about before, where I can't get excited about anything, where my life seems hopeless, where I feel like I've made some wrong decisions but now it's too late to change them, where all I really want to do is sleep because it shuts out the world, where I feel like I'm constantly on the edge of tears...that feeling. Perhaps you'd think I should call someone, but I just feel so negative, filled with resentment and bitterness, that I can't imagine a conversation with anyone would go very well. Even after talking to my mom, I feel like a jerk, because all I can do is listen half-heartedly and then talk about how miserable I am.

I've been through this enough times now where I have some perspective on it, I think. I realize it's just a two or three day thing that I go through every so often (not so often now, it seems, thanks to the pills), and there's really nothing I can do about it, besides ride it out. Just wait for it to pass, the way you'd wait for a cold to pass.

An effect of the depression is an incredibly strong feeling of being alone.

I do not think I made the right decision by coming to C-U. Aside from a few wonderful people I've met, I feel like my time here has been a wash. I mean, three years now, and I still don't really have a group of friends here. I still don't feel any sense of community. I just can't believe that. Is something wrong with me? Have I become such a resentful person that I can't make friends anymore? In Pittsburgh, in Tampa, I felt loved. There were groups of people who loved me, whom I loved. Here, there are a few individuals, but nothing like a group. This is probably because I haven't become involved with a group of people 'like me.' I've hardly connected with anyone in my academic department here--I don't think I get on well with many people who are absorbed in academia, at least in the humanities--and the social groups I've flirted with just haven't felt right to me. I know there are people out there that I can connect with--I've felt it when I've gone to visit friends in various places--but for some reason I can't find these people here (except, as I've said, for a few individuals). Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough--maybe I need to join a group, or start a group--but it's always been relatively easy to find these people. Not so much anymore.

I know that this is a large problem, a cause of my occasional discontent. I'm not enamored with the program here (it clearly wasn't right for me), and since I don't have a group of friends, I often can't figure out why I'm actually here. I've heard it said that you come to C-U for the university, for the academics; but if I don't get much satisfaction out of the academics, then...there's not much of a reason to be here, you see? And it might be getting worse--a friend is leaving, a friendship seems to be fading--the future here is not bright, to be honest. These past couple of days, I have been wishing I could just pick up and go, but where to?

I wrote a Mother's Day card to my mom recently, and as I was writing it, I had this insight that I hadn't owned up to before: I wrote that she has been the one constant in my life, the one constant source of love, and that she has been a major source of support, especially over the past six years, since my father died. I knew this, but the insight was that, as I wrote in the card, I've really been drifting ever since Dad died. I was driven at CMU, and felt I had a clear path ahead of me, but after Dad passed away, I lost some of that focus. What might have happened is that Dad's death caused me to give up on Ultimate Meaning. I couldn't really believe in religion, and without religion, you've got no ultimate meaning. But once you give up on ultimate meaning, you have to accept (I think) that we all have to make meaning for ourselves, since most of us (if not all of us) need to feel that our lives are about something in order to feel content. However, since I realize this--that any meaning is essentially manufactured, a sort of psychological trick--then all meaning becomes tentative to me, and this makes it meaningless. I don't know if I can live in a world without ultimate meaning.

So, since Dad's death, there's been this underlying sense of pointlessness to things. I can rise above it from time to time, when I can feel some meaning--when I'm with dear friends, when I see a beautiful movie, when I'm at a great concert, when I'm absorbed in a book, when I can get excited about my work--but it seems to take such a force of will to feel this meaning, and sometimes I just can't keep it up. I get tired. And the meaning explodes, and I'm flung back to earth, to the realization of meaninglessness.

I suppose I have centered my 'work' on meaning in education because I don't want other people to go through what I have been through. I want students to learn how to handle questions of meaning in such a way that they can find contentment. But maybe this means that my work is just a form of therapy for me. And if this is the case, then I'm not going to make it in academia.

I guess the bottom line is that, tonight, I feel like my life is a mess, and I don't know what to do about it. The fact that I go through this every so often is a sign, I think, that I can't just let myself get caught up in the stream of life again, since that stream is not actually taking me where I should be. I need to live differently if I have any chance of being content. I can't keep on making these sorts of bold pronouncements, however, without actually doing anything about it. This is my fatal flaw, I think--translating lofty thoughts, words, values into action.

There's more to say, but I should get to sleep.