Facing frustration over the past few weeks. What is the cause, and how is it relieved? The frustration is accompanied by an inability to think my best, which then limits by ability to teach and lecture. One cause is certainly the presence of papers to grade. Nothing frustrates me more than grading papers. It seems to absorb my mental energy, whereas learning philosophy energizes me. However, I need energy to start learning, so it is not as if I can use learning as a recovery. Instead, when I am in a paper grading period (which is almost all the time after week 5) my mind feels constantly exhausted and uninterested in learning. I must forcibly goad my mind like a stubborn mule, and even when it moves, it doesn’t move with enthusiasm.
Another point of frustration is the number of classes I am teaching. For the third semester, I am teaching six classes, all different. Because of this, I often feel like I do not have the time and energy to devote an adequate amount of time to each class and each student. I am frustrated because I could do a much better job if I had fewer classes– even experienced, full time professors with teaching assistants virtually never teach more than four classes in any one semester. But I am forced to because of money, and even with six, I am not paid enough to give me financial security, which also frustrates me.
But these conditions will not change anytime soon, and I still have my duty to do. So the problem is, how do I reorient those few flexible parts of my life so that I can deal with the inflexible parts better?
Working harder seems barely to be an option. I do not work all the time, but I believe I am working as hard as I can. Perhaps that is not true. I do know that I woke up at 3:30am today to read Hegel, Marx, Clifford and James, draft a review of 18th century philosophy, and organize some papers. I do know that I did not get a lot of work done this past week, but this is largely because I, too, need a spring break in an seventeen week semester. I do not think that is unfair. I do know that the frustration of my conditions hit a little harder than usual, but unfortunately, that is not new– rather, it is everpresent, but sometimes I deal with it better than at other times.
This is the current, and apparently inescapable terrain of my mind. The purpose is to figure out a solution, to understand the mechanism of my will and purpose, in order to shape the terrain of my mind. This is what one must do if there is no free will, if our will is beyond our control, and if we always follow the strongest will…which I believe we always, necessarily do, and we are only lying to ourselves if we think otherwise.
Natural Causes 