“The third approach is tougher, but just as valid. It is followed by people who have recognised the limitations of any form of engagement with mainstream employers, and who have created their own outlets for their work. Most countries have a number of small alternative papers and broadcasters, run voluntarily by people making their living by other means: part time jobs, grants or social security. These are, on the whole, people of tremendous courage and determination, who have placed their beliefs firmly ahead of their comforts. To work with them can be a great privilege and inspiration, for the simple reason that they – and, by implication, you – are free while others are not. All the money, all the prestige in the world will never make up for the loss of your freedom.
So my final piece of advice is this: when faced with the choice between engaging with reality or engaging with what Erich Fromm calls the “necrophiliac” world of wealth and power, choose life, whatever the apparent costs may be. Your peers might at first look down on you: poor Nina, she’s twenty-six and she still doesn’t own a car. But those who have put wealth and power above life are living in the world of death, in which the living put their tombstones – their framed certificates signifying acceptance to that world – upon their walls. Remember that even the editor of the Times, for all his income and prestige, is still a functionary, who must still take orders from his boss. He has less freedom than we do, and being the editor of the Times is as good as it gets.
You know you have only one life. You know it is a precious, extraordinary, unrepeatable thing: the product of billions of years of serendipity and evolution. So why waste it by handing it over to the living dead?”
Ahh, this is so good. Everybody is focusing on the economics and politics of the current crisis and pulling on the visible levers of subsidy, more money, nationalization and the like. Its the easy thing to do. What people (at least with tiny exceptions) are not considering is that a lot of the current troubles lay in the nature of work in large contemporary organizatons, how professional advancement is structured. Modern organizations are new and aside from some sociologists and others the impact of organizational life is not understood and severly underappreciated. They will futz around with all the usual suspects but if and or until people are left alone and organizations are more intelligently organized (they are creakign and groaning under government regulation, stupid fads, diversity mandates, technology solutions, harvard MBA’s, total quality management, ad infintum). The real big elephant in the room with respect to current “crsis” many well paid professionals don;t do anything at work–meetings, emails and writing reports that go nowhere. Lots of time spent fighting IT systems that don’w work and filling out compliance. I was a highly paid organization man once and on a good day I would do 90 minutes of work…..such is life in the necropolis. Now? On my own have more fun, earn less money but am living…50 years from now nobody will care if you put in 60hours a week for 15 years at middle brow consulting inc….but hey you got plaques and recognition–ha, ha…ha….actually not funny very tragic for so many….
It’s amazing isn’t it? All the jobs I’ve ever had involved actual work (teaching, music, research, editing, analysis), so I’ve never been an organization woman but I’ve had the same experience.
One reason I walked away from my PhD program was just this. I realized I wasn’t writing what I wanted to write. I was writing x to impress y with my ability to master z, which might then get me into journal z1 which was necessary for tenure track hire in department y3. After several years of that kind of cogitation, I found I had a migraine everytime I went on campus. I wasn’t writing or thinking. I was politicking.
And it dawned on me that in order to succeed academically, I would probably have to do a lot more politicking.
I then quit and taught school for a few years, which was marginally more productive. But I soon realized that what I was really doing was baby-sitting, counseling, administration, and trouble-shooting not educating.
My real life as an educator (not just a professional educator) began when I left the “education industry” and began writing on my own.
My real life as an investor began when I started ignoring the “investment industry” and started trading.
And I became really healthy when I began ignoring the “medical industry” and started self-medicating.
My! You hit the nail on the head. I left both consulting and academia at a fancy shmancy place for many of the reasons you list. Same with respect to health and the like. Had I been smarter earlier I would have walked away from the PhD as well. Oh well. Better late than ever. Its nice to know there are a few of us out there! We should coffee in baltimore! For heatlh I love what both Taleb and Devaney do–love the notion of complex adaptive systems adapted tohealth and fitness. Anathema to many but works for me and for everybody actually…Now learning to trade–have to unlearn what I learned in PhD Economics racket….