When I first went to college I had a chip on my shoulder. I was so scared of failing, so scared of having to beg my father for forgiveness that I studied all of the time. I went to practices and studied. In the summer I wage labored. Studying, practicing, and laboring was the extent of my life.
The first year and half of my Masters' program was the same. My parents came down to move me into a dorm (yes a dorm) at the beginning of my second year, and I got them lost trying to find an off-campus place to eat.
I was a zombie. I was walking dead. I had created my reality that centered on studying, eating on campus, fantasizing about female undergraduates, and Internet porn.
It was a sad state of affairs. But I was dead and could not realize how sad it was.
I then got slapped in the face by the ignorance, lies, fear, and ego that surrounds PhD programs and academia in general. I got deeply depressed when I saw the insignificance of my existence. I saw that I was never going to be great at anything, and decided it was finally time to wake up and live. I also met people (like ML and Jeff) who saw the same things I saw but had decided that life was better when you were awake instead of asleep.
Sometimes I want to return to who I was. It was an easy way to live. I was less depressed. My emotional sanity did not go up and down like it does now. But I would rather know that I was miserable than be too dumb to realize it.
Now I see people who refuse to live, people like my former self, and it angers me. I want them to get it.
But you cannot make a zombie live. You cannot make the blind see. I am the only one who can live my life, and that has to be good enough.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
"Catatonic Libertarianism" -or- "Libertarian Catatonia".
A true libertarian deserves a choice.
Kind of has a nice ring to it..
Ironically, I'd also call it 'Philosophical Enslavement'. Is there a difference?
In all cases, the life support system is finite, and often intervention is needed.
Here's a clip from a laymans science article from a web search.
"The real danger is the overburdening of the left-hand hemisphere with too much data, and too quickly, to the extent that the creative side of the brain is unable to function to its full potential. On the other hand, lack of data fed into the left-hand hemisphere could result in the creative side, or right-hand hemisphere, drying up. It is, therefore, desirable to strike the right balance between right and left hemispheres in order for the brain to work to its full potential."
Somewhere along the way I think a woman must've reconnected a few of your circuits. Changed some fuses or something.
In closing I'd like to suggest an alternate title for this blogicle.
"How Jason Got His Grooove Back"
GGM
Here here Choice for Libertarian Zombies!
Post a Comment