Saturday, January 12, 2013

Questions with no answers

Yesterday, I found out that I had not made the shortlist for a tenure-track academic position that I had interviewed for about a month ago, and which I was, frankly, pretty excited about. In his email to me, the hiring manager (that's really not his official title, but I want to try to keep things vague here, so we'll go with this) was quite diplomatic: He told me that although I had not made the shortlist, nobody is really out of the running yet, since there is no objective way of knowing whether they will like the people who are now on the shortlist. But really, I think we know how these things go; who are we kidding?

When I first got the news, many, many not-so-positive thoughts went through my head, but they all boil down to a few very simple words: Why? Why me? (Or rather, why not me?) For the past few years, ever since I got my PhD, academia has been like this big ship that is sailing on stormy seas, and I am like somebody who is just clinging onto the side of the ship with the skin of my nails, just a hair's breadth away from being washed overboard. Which brings up another why question: Why can't I find a more secure position on this ship? How much longer do I have to stay in this precarious position? Or perhaps the better question to ask is: How much longer can I stay in this position, before even my nails give out?

Some people have suggested to me that objectively speaking, what I need to do is to make myself more attractive to employers. At my stage of the game, this basically means getting stuff published in peer-reviewed journals. Well, I'm working on that, but it's not always the easiest thing to do when you have to move every couple of years (or less), and to teach a whole bunch of classes to pay the bills when you're not on the move.

A few people here and there have also suggested that maybe a career change is in order. Well, I don't know about that. What else can I do? Teach yoga? Now, don't get me wrong: I have the greatest respect for all of you yoga teachers out there who are making an honest living while contributing to the physical and emotional well-being of many people around you. But the whole idea of running from one studio to another and teaching classes that people want me to teach (which may or may not be Ashtanga classes) just to pay the bills seems to me to be, in the end, simply the yoga version of what I am already doing right now in the academic world. I'm just not sure I want to jump out of one pot just to land in another frying pan, to put it very bluntly.

Moreover, on a more immediate level, I'm not sure how I can continue to stay in this country if I'm not in academia (there's a whole bunch of employment-visa-related stuff that I don't feel like going into right now). I suppose you might ask: Why do you want to be in this country? Aren't political boundaries simply man-made constructs? Shouldn't you be able to make good wherever you go, if you are a good person?

All these are good questions and valid points, and I'm not sure I have good answers to them. Suffice to say that having spent the majority of my adult life here, I went through a lot of important life experiences here. Moreover, I'm actually pretty sure that I wouldn't have formed the connection with yoga and practiced it the way I did (much less write this blog) if I had never come to this country. I know that none of these are ultimately decisive reasons for wanting to live in these United States rather than anywhere else. But when I ask myself: Where else would I rather live? I find myself not having an answer to this question.  

Well, I'm sure you can already see that this is not a very uplifting post. I can go on and on about this (because I actually do go on and on about this in my head all the time when I'm not on my mat), but all this will do is bring up a whole bunch of questions, questions which I don't have any good answers to at this point in time. So I guess I'll leave things at this.

But here's another way of looking at all this. Perhaps I have to grapple with these questions in the same way in which I have to grapple with, say, Karandavasana on the mat (or in the same way in which somebody else might have to grapple with Mari D or Supta K, or with whatever challenging asana there is out there). Just as the way to master Karandavasana hasn't opened up for me yet, perhaps in the same way, the answers to these questions haven't opened up for me yet. So the only thing to do is to keep forging forward (or hanging on with my nails) just a little more, and wait. And wait. Not that it makes things any easier...    

18 comments:

  1. Nobel,

    This post kind of hit me fairly deeply. Currently, I am a master student in Philosophy trying to figure out what the hell I am doing, or even if I will get into a PhD program. What is currently happening to you is one of my greatest fears, being tossed around in the ship during the storm. This post both calmed and enhanced my worries. Hope everything goes well.

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    1. Hopefully, I calmed more than enhanced your worries ;-) I don't know what else is going on in your life, but it's really not all bad, especially if you take things day by day, and not worry too much about what's going to happen or what's not going to happen (sounds like advice I should be giving myself here...). In any case, if you are still in grad school, you don't have to worry about the job market just yet (no amount of worrying will help, anyway). So enjoy what you are doing, and do your practice.

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  2. Nobel,
    You will have an epiphany one day that will bring all of these answers to light. Until then sit back and enjoy your life. If your always thinking of the "what if" and "why?", you might just miss that big realization. ;)

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    1. Thanks Jen. As a matter of fact, I am going to sit back and watch a movie after I finish this comment :-)

      Great blog you have, by the way.

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  3. My heart goes out to you because I know what an impossibly difficult, frustrating, and discouraging situation that is to be in.

    On the crass side, I'd encourage you to work your contacts in the field, as having the right backers and recommendations can definitely tip the balance with jobs. On the more elevated side, I'd say don't lose faith in yourself because you're in a bad situation.

    What's happening to higher education is terrible, heart-breaking, and dangerous, but it is much bigger than any of us. In other words, just be really clear that your struggles are not the result your own individual inadequacies; they are the result of living in a time when higher ed budgets are being cut to the bone for any subjects that aren't cash cows. If you were on the academic job market at a different time you would be having a completely different experience. I know this is not very comforting - but I also know that most of us have a tendency to blame ourselves for situations that are beyond our control, and that just makes everything worse.

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    1. Thanks for the kind and wise words and thoughts, Carol. It is always good to hear from you.

      Well, on the crass side, I don't consider myself an expert at working my contacts, but I am at least A-okay at interacting with people and finding tings to talk about (and hopefully, sounding at least a little bit intelligent in the process). So I can definitely work on this aspect of the "crass" side.

      On the elevated side, no, I won't lose faith in myself. I agree with you about higher ed budgets being cut to the bone for anything that isn't a cash cow. I can't go into the details here, but I've personally seen decisions about whether to create new positions made on the basis of whether the new position in question will be "cost-neutral" or "value-neutral." There seems to be a confusion between the question, "Will this position make money for the university?", and the question, "Will this position add to a more well-rounded educational experience?". I think one sad result of running educational institutions on a business model is that administrators don't seem to be able to understand that these two questions are very different questions. Or maybe they don't *want* to understand...

      Anyway, I can go on and on about this. But it's always great to hear from you. Thanks for all the great work you are doing. I need to go read "Yoga PhD" soon.

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  4. Hi Nobel, Sorry your going through a challenging time with your career. We never really know what the future holds, sometimes we just think we do. You may find this book helpful. http://www.ashtangayogaliverpool.co.uk/blog/living-beautifully-with-uncertainty-and-change-by-pema-chodron-a-book-review/

    I hope you don't mind me sharing a link to my own blog in your comments but if you look at the quote, I have shared on the post, you will hopefully see the relevance. Good luck.

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    1. No problem with sharing links to your blog, Helen. I'm always happy that more people get to read your thoughts about things.

      I read the quote you shared on your blog. On one level, I see the relevance, in the sense that it is definitely true that our existence is always in flux. To relate it to my present situation, even if I were to fall off the ship of academia, so to speak, and get tossed into the rough seas, I will probably find a way to land on my feet somewhere.

      But this is where I think the analogy ends. Nobody can live and function effectively in this world without having some kind of solid ground to return to. This is true on an emotional and psychological level, and it is also true on a physical level, since without a physical dwelling place, the emotional and psychological dwellings cannot stabilize and take root properly. I mean, even surfers have to have something solid (i.e. the surfboard) to stand on...

      In any case, I probably haven't read enough of Pema Chodron to know exactly where she is coming from. I'm just responding to the quote as I understand it. But I can only work with and respond to what I have before me.

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  5. What Carol said. Also, in retrospect and looking back, I have always found that I dodged a bullet when I did not get jobs/admission/invites to certain things I thought I wanted desperately, because it would have been a direction that would have taken me way too far from where I am today, even with it's imperfections. I know that it sounds like the fox in the fable that says that the grapes are unripe and sour, but a quick inventory of your life trajectory will show you very few dead ends and many perceived road blocks which turned out to lead to a better path. This also sounds very much like when the teacher says "breathe deeply" while you are being adjusted into a really deep twist...

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    1. Thanks for your kind words, sf. I certainly don't think we are being like the fox in that fable (although even if we are, that's not entirely a bad thing; I seem to remember Sartre saying something about how the fox in this case has effected a "transformation of his world"). But in any case, I like your twist analogy. I will keep breathing and moving on.

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  6. I can sense your frustration, and having gone through the immigration machine here, I totally empathize with the whole visa situation. Perhaps this is a chance for you to find equanimity in uncertainty, in situations where your desired outcome seems so remote? Your frustration is valid, but don't let it cloud your thoughts. As SF said - breathe and move on, one step at a time.

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    1. Thanks D :-) I'll work on being clear-headed and clear-hearted.

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  7. It's a funny thing Nobel, from what I saw of academia, getting the tenure track position pretty much amounts to 7 years of servitude, at the end of which you might or might not get the coveted prize. That's a long time and an awful lot of political maneuvering/ winning over or not winning over the right people, etc.. Ugh! So much suffering.
    There's no easy way out, that's clear. Of course, at this moment, you are in this country, you do have a job, and a yoga practice. Perhaps spend this year working on the next brilliant paper to publish and then apply again. Meanwhile, keep practicing! Which is exactly what I need to do right now, before my kids wake up and it's time to make lunches, be a school bus, go to work, come home, be a school bus again, coerce beg and cajole 3 children into doing their homework, make dinner, get them ready for bed, pass out myself, and try to squeeze some extra reading or a moment to think about my next group of paintings in between somewhere, along with the dishes and the laundry.

    See, it could be worse. It could be raining. (favorite line from Young Frankenstein)

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    1. Hello Deborah,

      "getting the tenure track position pretty much amounts to 7 years of servitude, at the end of which you might or might not get the coveted prize."

      You are not the first person (and probably won't be the last) to make this observation of tenure as effective servitude.

      I sometimes think of it in more medieval terms. When you are a grad student, you are a page who is being ordered around/used as cheap labor by knights (professors) as part of your apprenticeship. When you get your PhD (or whatever the terminal degree is in your field), you become a knight. And then you try to find a lord (a university or college) that you can serve for a certain number of years, who would hopefully not be too despotic and over-bearing. And then, if everything goes well, at the end of seven years, you get a fiefdom (tenure), and you become Lord So-and-so, or Baron Such-and-such.

      Of course, if you don't get tenure, or haven't found a tenure-track position, then you are a wandering knight or a ronin (wandering samurai). Which kind of sounds romantic, actually :-) I feel better about myself already...

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  8. Hang in there Nobel! It's rough times in academia these days. As a biologist (staff not faculty), I've been shuffled around between 3 different faculty bosses (read: 3 completely different sets of unrelated projects) in 6 years based on who has funding. I've written 13 grant proposals in the last year and a half alone. Twelve have not been funded and we're waiting to hear on the last one. Every year I wait to see if the funding will run out for good. None of the instability in academia is easy to sit with for me, so I hear you on the frustration! Hope it all settles a bit for you at some point and you get to catch your breath. :)

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    1. I'm hanging :-) Thanks for sharing your situation, Christine. I have friends in the sciences who are stressing out about getting grants, so I think I can feel some of the uneasiness that you are experiencing. But let's keep breathing and practicing and ride this wave together!

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  9. Nobel, I hear ya. My husband has a PhD in philosophy, I was working on mine in German until the kids came along. I was not well and miserable when I was working on my dissertation, and I was happy to let the children distract me from writing and nursed myself back to health. When we started out, my husband held a non-tenure track position for three years at an expensive private university in North Carolina. Then we found out that our second child was on the way and decided we didn't want to face the uncertainty anymore or be forced to move from a temporary position to another hoping for a tenure-track position in near future in a place where we didn't really want to be. So he took the plunge and took a job at a community college. Then I was lucky to be hired to teach there as well. Sure, the pay is less and there isn't as much prestige, but we are much, much happier. We have plenty of time to spend with our children and we are able to concentrate on teaching, which is our true passion. For us everything worked out great. As for solving the visa problem, you need to fall in love!!! Good luck to you.

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    1. Thanks for your kind and encouraging words, Yuna. Philosophy certainly isn't the best field to have a PhD in, career-prospects wise. But I do my best with what I have right now. Thanks for the suggestion about the visa problem :-)

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