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8 comments
I’m going in to watch the “Boy and the Heron” by Studio Ghibli today. Denmark doesn’t get many anime movies, but at least the theatres have enough sense to make space for Ghibli. I’m so excited
I have two very imminent work deadlines coming up, one of which will massively reduce my chances of being out of a job at the end of the year and being deported back to the UK with no further income (and also increase my chances of being able to take my money wherever the hell I want in the US and have the freedom to choose my employer).
But here’s the thing. I really need to put the work in right now to not miss my deadlines, but I just can’t. Be arsed. At all.
Over the past year or so I’ve been asking myself how I’ve become so demotivated, both in and outside of work. I’m in one of the most well-renowned institutions in my field in the entire world. I’m working on a really interesting and rewarding project that I’ve been trying to get on for years. My working relationship with my boss is great. Sure, I don’t get that much paid time off, but it’s not like I’m being overworked or anything. There are some very annoying rules I’m forced to follow, but under ordinary circumstances I should be able to handle them and work around them. My office has no windows and is just generally an extremely unpleasant environment to be in, but I can find other places to work in that are much nicer. Sure, LA’s not the easiest place to like, but it’s a big city with lots going on and there’s fantastic nature nearby. And yet, despite all of that…
I recently came across a video by [Adam Something](https://youtu.be/ZPzxgymvK_M?si=cfG2xG5LFTzfvwYo) that described my situation pretty well. The way my lab’s managed is indeed authoritarian, repressive and corporate. If you do this thing that’ll make us take on even the slightest amount of liability, you’re fired. If you try to get around that completely pointless piece of bureaucracy that massively decreases your productivity and only serves to make us liable for something really minor, you’re fired. We’ll tell you your computer’s bugged and we’ll make the rules deliberately contradictory and impossible for you to follow, so that if we want to fire you for criticising us or joining a union, we can find a way. And if money’s tight, we can always just fire hundreds of randomly-selected employees, only giving them about an hour’s notice before they’re even denied access to their emails. We have absolute power over you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
But I think there’s also a second aspect to it. You work hard at school, so you can get into a good uni and increase your chances of getting a good job. You work hard at uni, so you can either get a good job or get into a PhD program. You work hard on your PhD so that you can call yourself Dr and either get a fulfilling or high-paying (or ideally both) job out of it.
But now what’s the end game? I work hard on this project, so that I’ll be financially secure for another couple of years? Where I then need to work hard to be financially secure for another couple of years on top of that? Then what? I’m in my early 30s now, when exactly do I get to enjoy my life? Especially since I might only be in this hemisphere for a short time in my life and should use that time to actually travel around this hemisphere. The usual answer to this is that I should find purpose in life outside work, but that’s only easy to say once you have some level of financial stability and besides, if your life at work sucks it’s going to affect your life outside work too.
*Sigh*. This really feels a bit like a whiny third-life crisis rant as most people even in namby-pamby European countries work far harder and live far more difficult lives than I do. But oh well.
The big boss of my university department is away all week this week, which might be a positive thing for some but isn’t really for me.
It just means I have more administrative stuff to deal with, and if anyone has problems at work I need to try and sort them out.I don’t mind doing that but it negatively affects my own work,as I can’t dedicate as much time or thought to that.
Anyway hopefully it will be a quiet week without major issues!
Last night I went to see a jazz trio lead by this Panaman pianist Danilo Perez. The main reason I went was one of his sidemen, John Patitucci, who is a truly legendary bassist from the jazz-fusion scene in the 80s and 90s. The trio sounded great, it was a fun set, and seeing Patitucci play live was a great moment for me that I won’t forget.
The venue it was in is really cool. I’ve been to it once before, it’s in this very small old [factory building](https://glivelabtest-bucket.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files/icons/glivelabtre-info-image1.jpg) downtown. Great size for a jazz concert, as it’s so intimate. It’s honestly such a nice spot, it has these cute semi-circular windows and a ton of old ass brick everywhere.
Tbf, half the city is old factory buildings made of red brick.
Do you have a “I love this song but I hate the lyrics” song? I was listening to Billie Holiday the other day, and “My Man” is definitely my top choice in this category. It’s a great song and Billie Holiday is a queen anyway, but the lyrics are so fucking annoying. Like, talk about a victim song.
And a second question! When you start a new project, what do you find the most difficult? The beginning, the middle, or the end? I think for me it’s the end. Sometimes, especially with long-winded projects, it is hard to keep the interest and motivation till the last minute.
Do you ever get tired of seeing the sun come out? I’m quite glad my lab has no windows because this day and night rotating shift thing makes me want to shut the outside out to not think about what time of day it is.
For the past couple days I’ve thought a bit about the trope of telling kids that they were adopted, either as a cruel joke or something that emotionally scars them and/or sends them on a years-long journey of self-reflection and finding their roots. Maybe I’m just misunderstanding something, but I wouldn’t imagine being devastated if I found out I was adopted, even at a young age. It wouldn’t really change anything, I’d still have my same family and I’d love them all the same. idk but to me the whole big to-do over finding out one is adopted seems like an overly exaggerated dramatic trope and/or a trait of someone who’s overly obsessed with “preserving bloodlines.”
I recently delved into the history of Pitcairn Island (thanks largely to a video on a YouTube channel I follow), and I have to say it’s really creepy, like something out of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies…