The road less traveled: from academia to escapism
The more I learn about myself as I get older, the more I realize that I’m just regressing into the silly ten-year old version of myself. I’d like to think I’m more emotionally mature now and that I now know why the sky is blue, but all my interests shifted away from my childhood ones during my middle and high school years, only to come back as an almost not-teen.
This is something I noticed especially while here at Brown. I throw myself into work, into labs, into everything until it feels like I can’t breathe anymore, and it seems like everyone does the same. And it sucks. Sure, you’re keeping yourself busy so that you don’t have the mental capacity to worry about the mental health issues you never dealt with, but this is by no means a good coping mechanism.
I go to class. I do my work. I kind of understand what I’m doing. I take a midterm. I don’t write papers because humanities are hard. I only learn the concept after I’ve taken the midterm which was supposed to show how much I learned. I go to Handshake, LinkedIn, see what I can do to propel myself into the future.
It feels like this endless cycle of working and resting, growing too numb and eventually going to CAPS to ultimately discover...that you’re not satisfied with your life. Which you already knew in your heart. But it took someone else to tell you that, because you didn’t want to admit it yourself. So you pile on more things, hoping you’ll find something that just clicks. Finding your dream job, your ultimate passion that you can do every day, all day is definitely just a capitalistic scheme to get people to produce things while under the impression that they enjoy every moment of their life.
I do really enjoy being here. I love the community, I love what I’m learning, and I love the new skills that I’m picking up. I generally just love learning and doing and I’m excited to be a real functioning adult. Kind of.
It’s only when I step into the BDW that I kind of feel at home, though, the sensation that you feel most in your element. And even as cool as all the saws are...I’d even prefer just taking a knife or axe and carving something out of wood. Because truth be told, while I do love studying chemistry here, nothing brings me more joy than actually doing hands-on physical work, working on a craft.
It’s why I’m so willing to work in a lab. The academic, publication part of it? I absolutely detest it. Academia is inaccessible, both financially and especially in the way scientific papers are written. My graduate student mentor knows how I feel about this - she knows I care about the work I do, but that I hate how pretentious some of the papers have to be, that it doesn’t feel like it serves to educate and spread information, but rather to elevate the status of some person so that they can “be successful.”
When I step into the BDW, the aroma of sawdust and machine oil swirls me and takes me to another dimension. Sure, it’s kind of dusty and my eyes water a little, but the moment I get to handle materials and craft something...it feels like I’m finally calm again. No more of my neurotic tendencies, none of my social anxiety.
It’s not that I’d necessarily want to quit academia—it’s just that academia needs a huge overhaul, as does our entire economic system. There’s something noble in setting out to think deeper about something, about discovering something, about getting to answer “how” and “why” about the way life is now. But at which point does academia go from being a noble cause to something pretentious and useless that does nothing but make us feel smart? Why must we modify so much of our language—our words and our soul— in order to “fit into” academia? Who are we trying to impress? Why is it impressive? Why not simply be honest and have conversations about the knowledge we’ve acquired instead of feeling as though we must all compete with each other?
The answer, of course, is just capitalism. We need to impress The Man so that we can get a job so that we can earn enough money to feed ourselves and those we love—assuming we haven’t lost touch with our human emotions by this point—so that we can survive.
One of the key ideas behind capitalism is that competition between two products spurs innovation. We’ve gone far beyond simply trying to innovate and rather, we’ve gotten to the point where billionaires create whole companies dedicated to space innovations mostly to flaunt their money instead of dealing with healthcare issues that plague us all. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re not learning about how to be successful people, and rather equipping us with the way to game the system and teaching us that how well you game this system is how “successful” you are.
Lately I’ve found myself daydreaming about a parallel universe where I’m just a humble mechanic or craftsman, spending my days working to do woodworking, welding, or fixing up vehicles. It’s honest work. It’s down to Earth. It’s art. It feels human. Natural. Instead of being a cog in the machine, churned out in yet another factory, you understand and build the machine yourself. You take pride in each cog you oil, each gear that you’d manufactured, each joint you’ve welded. It’s...satisfying.
Heck, I dream about being a blacksmith in some medieval village more often than I’d like to admit. Or even somehow getting stranded on an island. Yeah, it would suck and I'd probably not survive, but at least my last days weren't spent in soulless corporate life.
I talk nearly every day with my friends about wanting to run away to the woods and live there, relying on nature and our practical skills (or lack thereof) to sustain a life. None of this capitalism bullshit, none of this stock market shit, just me, my friends, and the woods. Build a little log cabin, grow a small farm, go foraging, go explore streams and live unpestered by The Man. Carve little figurines, use the clay by waterbanks for pottery, make rope out of tree flesh. Figure out how to make a furnace, smelt some metal ores. (Don't call me out on the realism of this, especially with climate change and pollution fucking up literally everything in nature.)
Being mature and returning to childhood hobbies aren’t mutually exclusive. They absolutely shouldn’t be. Why does maturing mean losing passion, losing a part of your soul to this endless cycle of work and (lack of) rest? That’s not maturing. That’s dying.
It’s not uniquely a Brown thing. Yes, the things I get involved in are a lot of work, but it’s actually because I’m here I can “dick around” and do things that are emotionally satisfying. I don’t know where I’d be without this kind of release. If my life was solely school and working towards my academic career...that’s no life at all. Literally every school is like this.
Alas, we must carry on and fulfill the duties that capitalism has assigned us. For now, there is no full escape, but maybe I can slow down the whittling of my soul.
Image via.
