Thank you for writing this! Having been on both the academic and private sector sides in multiple countries (mostly US and East Asia), it does feel like this is reality in many places. Is there any place that isn't like this? Is it just our own mentality?
Sounds excellent and witty! But this project will probably take work to complete. We are so embedded in our work regime (our life indeed) that cutting off all responsibilities is unlikely for anyone, even activity imitators. Work in the academic field sucks like a swamp; no one sees 80 percent of its results, no one has read any one of colleagues for a long time, and there is almost no pleasure in communication. So, the idea is lovely, but volunteers to finance and participate in the competition may not be found.
I’m not in academia but I love this idea as well. I completely burned out a few years ago after working as a prison librarian, and since then I’ve worked (for money) the absolute minimum amount that I have to do that I have time & energy to read, draw, write and rest. That’s the idea. Yet I still harass myself constantly for not producing *enough* art and writing, telling myself that’s the whole point of minimizing the time I spend working. So I feel myself on the verge of burnout again! A year of producing nothing would kill me or… or would it??
Oh no so many people are in your situation. We're all running on empty, and nobody can give themselves a break anymore. What would be needed is a radical rethink. Of how work goes. It's strange to think you need to get to retirement to get anything resembling this fellowship, rather than e.g. options of paid leave during one's working life.
Yeah, definitely. And one problem with the minimal approach is that it’s often gig or contract work which makes one even *more* mentally alienated from one’s work in the process of trying to do more meaningful work *outside* paid work. Not to mention the lack of benefits since medical care is tied to our jobs! An overhaul is needed for sure!
Really love this idea, I’m in the processes of applying for grad schools now and I already feel burnt out and anxious from all the pressures of academia. The ability to have a full year after getting a PhD where I don’t have to do anything feels freeing
When I was feeling burnt out and bitter as an adjunct applying for permanent academic jobs, I started volunteering with a local farm whose CSA I was a part of. Everything about it was the opposite of what I was doing as an academic struggling on the job market - it was done for its own sake; not for some further end; it was deeply physical and visceral; it's purpose was clear and its fruits were corporeal; I was doing it on my own terms, not the terms set by my exploitative employer; it was outside rather than inside; I was living my values instead of merely contemplating them;
I'm not saying that's for everybody, but I encourage you to make room for something outside of the academic striving that is burning you out. Remember that academic positions and institutions are the means to certain goods and activities, they are not themselves the end.
This is a lovely fantasy, Helen, and I say that having lived a version of it during my year-plus of unemployment after leaving my last academic post. I spent time talking on the phone with and visiting my mom during her brief remission from lung cancer, and during the final stages of that illness. I grew my garden. I expanded the volunteering I was already doing at a non-profit farm and at a local food bank. I continued and expanded my volunteer work with the local chapter of NAMI providing free education and support to the family members of those living with serious mental illness. When talking to (other?) academics, I described it as a self-funded sabbatical, with an indeterminate mix of irony and sincerity. It was glorious, despite the associated economic and existential stress of needing to apply for jobs and trying to make a career change well into my 40s.
Thank you for writing this! Having been on both the academic and private sector sides in multiple countries (mostly US and East Asia), it does feel like this is reality in many places. Is there any place that isn't like this? Is it just our own mentality?
Sounds excellent and witty! But this project will probably take work to complete. We are so embedded in our work regime (our life indeed) that cutting off all responsibilities is unlikely for anyone, even activity imitators. Work in the academic field sucks like a swamp; no one sees 80 percent of its results, no one has read any one of colleagues for a long time, and there is almost no pleasure in communication. So, the idea is lovely, but volunteers to finance and participate in the competition may not be found.
I’m not in academia but I love this idea as well. I completely burned out a few years ago after working as a prison librarian, and since then I’ve worked (for money) the absolute minimum amount that I have to do that I have time & energy to read, draw, write and rest. That’s the idea. Yet I still harass myself constantly for not producing *enough* art and writing, telling myself that’s the whole point of minimizing the time I spend working. So I feel myself on the verge of burnout again! A year of producing nothing would kill me or… or would it??
Oh no so many people are in your situation. We're all running on empty, and nobody can give themselves a break anymore. What would be needed is a radical rethink. Of how work goes. It's strange to think you need to get to retirement to get anything resembling this fellowship, rather than e.g. options of paid leave during one's working life.
Yeah, definitely. And one problem with the minimal approach is that it’s often gig or contract work which makes one even *more* mentally alienated from one’s work in the process of trying to do more meaningful work *outside* paid work. Not to mention the lack of benefits since medical care is tied to our jobs! An overhaul is needed for sure!
Really love this idea, I’m in the processes of applying for grad schools now and I already feel burnt out and anxious from all the pressures of academia. The ability to have a full year after getting a PhD where I don’t have to do anything feels freeing
When I was feeling burnt out and bitter as an adjunct applying for permanent academic jobs, I started volunteering with a local farm whose CSA I was a part of. Everything about it was the opposite of what I was doing as an academic struggling on the job market - it was done for its own sake; not for some further end; it was deeply physical and visceral; it's purpose was clear and its fruits were corporeal; I was doing it on my own terms, not the terms set by my exploitative employer; it was outside rather than inside; I was living my values instead of merely contemplating them;
I'm not saying that's for everybody, but I encourage you to make room for something outside of the academic striving that is burning you out. Remember that academic positions and institutions are the means to certain goods and activities, they are not themselves the end.
This is a lovely fantasy, Helen, and I say that having lived a version of it during my year-plus of unemployment after leaving my last academic post. I spent time talking on the phone with and visiting my mom during her brief remission from lung cancer, and during the final stages of that illness. I grew my garden. I expanded the volunteering I was already doing at a non-profit farm and at a local food bank. I continued and expanded my volunteer work with the local chapter of NAMI providing free education and support to the family members of those living with serious mental illness. When talking to (other?) academics, I described it as a self-funded sabbatical, with an indeterminate mix of irony and sincerity. It was glorious, despite the associated economic and existential stress of needing to apply for jobs and trying to make a career change well into my 40s.