Everyone who is close to me knows a few important things about my biography:
1. Throughout high school, I was a poor, unmotivated student. The subjects occasionally stimulated me, but never enough to drive me to hard work. I did not know what it was like to engage in hard, dutiful work. I possessed no perseverance or endurance. My grades were poor, and I did not think that my future held anything remarkable. I had few close friends and was socially awkward. I was bullied. There was nothing to look forward to. This feeling peaked at the age 16 or 17. I despised this time of life, and I despised who I was. I wanted to be excellent, superior, in theory, but I had no purpose or drive to achieve this.
2. Sometime in the summer prior to my junior high school year, I decided to visit a military recruiter. The Navy seemed like the best fit, for reasons I forget. I thought the military would give me a chance to get away from home, start life anew, and give me a new chance for achieving excellence. Joining as an enlisted man meant that my previous mediocre performance would be disregarded, and that my record and reputation could begin from scratch on day one of my arrival at basic training. I visited the Navy recruiter, but thought I’d give the other recruiters a try as well. First I visited the Navy, then the Air Force, then the Army. Nothing quite grabbed me. All the recruiters told me about the benefits that I’d receive, about the great job training I’d get that could be applicable to the outside world. The Air Force recruiter in particular told me about the apartment-like barracks and superior military base amenities AF personnel experienced in comparison to the other services. He made fun of the other services, and in particular the Marines, who apparently received virtually no perks beyond the minimum whatsoever.
I didn’t know much about the Marines at that point, but I eventually visited the recruiting office. Whereas the other recruiters fell over themselves trying to impress me, the Marine recruiter barely acknowledged me. I wasn’t worth his time. There was a poster on the wall, with a mean looking drill instructor staring at a scrawny, scared recruit. The caption read, “We didn’t promise you a rose garden.” The implication was clear: the United States Marine Corps is here to kick the shit out of you until there’s no shit left. It will be hard. You will want to quit. But if you don’t, you will be a better person.
That was all it took. The other recruiters, particularly the AF recruiter, were telling me how nice things would be. To me, that meant, “you don’t have to change.” But I hated myself, and I wanted to change. I knew I needed something to kick the shit out of me in order to change. There was no doubt in my mind. I was going to become a Marine. I signed up at the end of my junior year, and spent my senior year preparing.
3. During the last semester of high school, I took an introduction to philosophy class. We read some of Plato’s Republic. It was the first time I fell in love with a book. I read as much as I could.
4. By the end of my senior year, I had two purposes: to become a Marine, and to be a philosopher. These dual purposes saved my life. As I spent more time in the Marines, I found myself going back to a couple philosophy texts more and more. I became obsessed. By the time I had served three years, I knew I needed teachers and education. I wanted to go to school, and to do it excellently. I wanted to learn. Once I finished my four years, I left and became a philosophy student at Bemidji State University.
This time, my educational experience was radically different. Using the diligence and fanaticism I gained from the Marines, I turned all my powers to philosophy and school, and I kicked ass. It felt amazing. Looking back, I was happy that I had changed so much since my high school days. I felt like a new person.
5. Then came graduate school. It was far more difficult, and I did not kick ass, but I persevered and completed it. Then I was an adjunct philosophy instructor, striving to earn my keep, though the future looked dim. Teaching fulfilled me, because I embraced the purpose of bringing philosophy to my students. But at another level I was depressed, because I knew that this kind of life was unsustainable. Finally, just as I was about to throw in the towel on education, I was hired for a full-time, tenure-track position, and I was again filled with the purpose of getting a tenured job.
But as my years on the tenure-track progressed, I was pulled further and further from making teaching and philosophy as the center of my pursuits. There was a goal, and I threw myself at it, but that pursuit was supposed to be a mere means to an end.
All the good parts of my life have been due to feeling a strong sense of purpose: and not merely a purpose, but a purpose that felt meaningful. The depressing parts of my life have always been bereft of that feeling of purpose.
Now, tenure has been achieved. I have no further major career goals ahead of me. I’ve “made it.” I have a great, reliable career ahead of me. But there are no major goals being imposed on me like there had been before. I’m feeling a sense of despair, actually, as I don’t know whether or not I have the energy to set my own goals and work toward them. I’ve built myself up by submitting myself to institutions which have imposed goals and demands on me, and I pushed on until I achieved the most worthy goals, and abandoned those I felt weren’t worth my time.
It is like, for the first time since high school, I am looking out into a future where the world is not imposing any challenges on me than mean the difference between my success and failure. This should be liberating, and I hope I feel that soon. But it is also frightening: I have never been good at setting high goals for myself and working diligently toward them to achieve success. I have always aligned myself with an institution that has imposed these demands onto me. The deadlines had an external source. If I wish to continue to grow and find success, I will need to learn to set these goals and deadlines for myself, and continue to work toward them.
Natural Causes 