I like the structure and predictability and security of academic life – and it also bores the shit out of me and I find myself hating all my nerdy, cowardly “colleagues”. I wish there was something equivalent to working in advertising, but that more intellectually demanding, rigorous and purposeful.
I’m beginning to wonder if I have ADD – I am a voracious reader – but I get incredibly impatient with the pace of things and the “red tap” and the social morons and the pompous asses. I want to be around smart, creative people. Part of the appeal of academia is the community. But I am really starting to hate these people. They aren’t interesting, and they are totally full of themselves or some kind of lame “political” savvy – that wouldn’t hold water for two seconds in a different kind of competitive environment. I think I just like the idea of being “Doctor” and having a career path.
The fact is, I always loved school, except when things got boring – and I was always smart enough to do well. I don’t think I’ve been really bored until working with my current advisor, and it is living bloody hell. I just can’t stand him, his mind, his pathetic character, his spineless – or the fact that I have to pander to all of the above. I just hate the guy.
And now I’m around all these people I would never have had anything to do with under any other circumstance, and I know it has quite a lot to do with my discipline – which attracts some real lame-ass twits. I’m guessing the level of pretense in my department is nothing at all what it’s like in Philosophy, or even the English Department. There are a lot of intellectual light-weights walking around that have nothing interesting to add to the conversation.
So that’s my kvetching, and I don’t know if I feel any better after unburdening. The fact is, I need to be honest with myself, and make some good choices here. I doubt this would be one of them.
