Out of the Frying Pan, Into the FIre?

It was a slow decision, building up over weeks, months, years. Most of the big decisions in my adult life have been like that: dwelled on, agonized over, circled back around to. That’s how I decided to transfer out of Reed College and switch majors, and, years later, to quit grad school. These decisions were not disruptive; they arose out of changing interests and trajectories. Deciding to learn software development was another decision like this, leading me to a career that combines the skills and values I’ve already cultivated.

In grad school, I was studying for a master’s degree in philosophy and working part time in the production department of my university’s book publishing arm. I loved it. I got to spend all day, every day with ideas: reading them, thinking about them, analyzing them, writing them, talking them over with others, and using technology to help share them.

But then, reality began to set in. I was three years in to my MA program and only halfway to the degree, facing down another three years of taking on yet more student loan debt. Further down the road, assuming I went on to a PhD program with funding, the possibility of having a very expensive education and a precarious employment situation as an adjunct professor was very real and very discouraging. Weighing against all that, however, was the duty that I felt to stay.

See, academic philosophy is a field full of men. Mostly white men. And at the time that I left academia, the conversation about diversity in the field was just beginning, centered on how unwelcoming it is for women. The scope of the problem was still unclear, so there weren’t a lot of solutions proposed at the time. I didn’t think, though, that becoming one of the many women who left the field was going to help solve it. Being one of the ones who stayed and could work to make the situation better for those who came after seemed more effective.

In the end, my evolving interests and practical considerations won out over that compelling reason to stay in academia, and I left. I was at loose ends for some time after that, looking for a different field where I could use the skills I honed in grad school such as logic, analytical and critical thinking, problem solving and a willingness to be a pioneer in diversifying the workforce. Along the way, I spent a few months volunteering at the Mind Research Network working with the Neuroinformatics department learning to use SQL to query the research database. From there, I sought out resources to learn more about programming and web development. And now I’m hooked. Here is where I can use all the skills I’m good at, get paid for it, and, ideally, contribute something useful to the world.


[Cross posted from http://dawncatanach.com/]

On Preserving Faith in Humanity

I spent the last weeks of election season working as a poll official in my county for early voting and election day. The days were very long - we kept the polls open for 12 hours each day, and had opening and closing procedures bookending those hours as well. As exhausting as my three-day-a-week shift was, the job was what kept me sane for the last days of a campaign season that went on far too long. Election day itself I spent still helping people vote and skipped the network-TV-sponsored horserace treatment of the results. Beyond that, however, and more importantly, the thing that really kept me from wanting to move into a hermit’s cell was observing fellow citizens take part in the democratic process. The polling place is one where we set aside differences in order to work toward the common goal of choosing our elected leaders. Now, in the days following what to some came as a shocking result, I hold on to that hope that when it really matters, we can work together even when we disagree. But it’s not easy and it requires seeking that common value worth working together for.

There are the compassionate souls who are reacting to the election by seeking to understand Trump’s supporters’ reasons for voting for him. That is difficult, necessary work, but it’s only half of the equation if we are to truly heal the now obvious divides in this country. Working toward unity requires a mutual exchange of understanding among the different sides. This cannot happen if one side is uninterested in understanding the other. What I think likely to happen is that those extending the olive branch will have it slapped out of their hands. I may be wrong about that, and I hope I am, but I do not yet see evidence that Trump voters are interested in listening to anyone else. Perhaps once they feel they’ve been heard they will be willing to return the favor. I do not, however, expect this.

In his book “Homo Sacer,” Giorgio Agamben seeks to give an account of how we, humanity as a whole, allow monstrous events to continue to happen. The key lies in the existence of Homo Sacer, the sacred/taboo person, the person who has been reduced to bare life. The people others designate as Homo Sacer are not seen as full, agentive subjects with rights to human dignity. They are mere living bodies, stripped of power and autonomy. The people put into concentration camps are paradigm examples. So too, as Agamben tells us, refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean, only to be pushed back out to sea on landing. Their killers don’t think themselves murderers, because they think themselves as having only dispatched a living thing they had no reason to respect as humans, and thus no one’s human rights were violated.

The very real fear among people who dread the Trump presidency is that while he is in power, they themselves will become rendered Homo Sacer in the eyes of the law and authority. This fear is justified; attacks and threats have already begun. There are some who doubt the veracity of the reports of the myriad incidents already being compiled. Are there some false reports, or some things blown out of proportion? Maybe. But this very refusal to believe people when they say others have done or said threatening things to them is already a start to reducing people to bare life. It is telling them that their experiences don’t matter, their thoughts don’t matter, their feelings don’t matter. Keep on erasing, and you get down to: “You don’t matter. Anything can be done to you because you are not human in my eyes.” That right there is where monstrosity begins. That right there is what will make unity impossible. You cannot have an exchange of understanding with someone who refuses to see you as fully human, because they don’t think there’s anything to understand.  

I, for one, vow to fight the dystopian future looming behind the next bend by vociferously affirming the humanity of all those I meet, and I hope you will join me in that mission. It will be hard to do so when it comes to anyone who would rather see me and mine as bare life, because that requires straining against every natural impulse  to do as has been done to you. But it is necessary to build community, and to build a better world than the one we fear.

A Sestina, to Start Off With

Once upon a time, I got people to give me a list of six words, with the idea that I would then write a sestina with each list. As it stands, I’ve finished only one of these, which I post today. I wrote most of it in a cozy little hookah lounge where one subset of my friends would hang out. I haven’t been there in years; I think I stopped going soon after the time I drove past police investigating a double murder in my parents’ normally safe, quiet neighborhood. I don’t smoke, so no great loss. I have no idea if that hookah lounge is still there, but it appears there’s a tai chi studio now somewhere in that same small strip of storefronts.

Since then, I’ve written very little that wasn’t scholarly, but I aim to change that. It’s time to listen to the muse again. She usually speaks in essays, sometimes poems, and occasionally short fiction, so these are the sorts of things I’ll post. For now, here is that first poem from my sestina project.

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In Abject Apology

When I come to know them, I am sorry for my misdeeds.

Though in general I’m not given to contemplations rueful,

Forgive me for not inclining to fine fits of dolor.

Still I know my transgression is not so light as a Strauss waltz.

If I had known it was your birthday,

I would have baked a magnificent cake.

But alas, you have no cake

And I don’t consider this a misdeed.

Even Harmony and her sister Discord have birthdays.

We’ll celebrate with a bouquet of roses and rue,

And full orchestra playing a slow waltz,

Perhaps a dirge, too, to indulge a fit of dolor.

But revel not in nihilistic color.

Instead, both eat and have your cake,

And skate through life as easily as waltzing,

And any other cliche you’d like misdone.

Apologies for giving you reason to be rueful.

How about I make it up to you on an unbirthday?

I, too, know what it’s like to have a shitty birthday.

There was that fateful year that cousin Dolores

Decided, as my present, to teach me to make a roux.

I appreciated the cooking lesson, but i’d rather have her famous cake.

She’s a fine and generous woman, but that was somewhat misdone;

I’m about as graceful in the kitchen as an elephant in a waltz.

Ah, but I digress from our blaming waltz.

Back to the point: I missed your birthday.

Really, you’ve got yourself to blame for my “misdeed.”

If you’d just told me, you couldn’t wallow in this dolor.

Besides, I don’t know why you want my homemade cake.

After all, I can’t even handle a simple roux!

But Even though I routinely manage to mess up a roux,

I still have skills that lie elsewhere, like waltzing.

The valuable things, though, are no cakewalk.

I’ll strive to remember your next birthday

And, to end your lovely bout of extreme dolor,

I admit to, and ask forgiveness for, my misdeed.

Because it’s a terrible misdeed, I know, to ruin even the roux.

But do take refuge in dolor if I happen to falter in the waltz.

And don’t be alarmed if, on your birthday, I manage to burn the cake.