As this complete abortion of a year winds inexorably onward, I thought it might be time to take stock of my life and see where the fuck I am and what I’m doing.
After years of vacillation and guilt and fear I finally decided to resign from my teaching position earlier this month. Perhaps naively, I believe my trading business has reached the point where it can support me. The final straw was seeing just how poorly all districts in the state have been equipped to handle kids returning to campuses during the middle of a fucking pandemic. Hybrid teaching, asynchronous instruction, performative social distancing… it all grew to be more than I could bear.
Truth be told, I had long-since lost faith in the mission of public education and every day began to feel like a colossal waste of time and effort. Adding to that literally endangering my life for this Sisyphean task and the decision almost became easy.
So, what now? This is a question I’ve been asking myself in one form or another for most of my life. In many ways it’s ceased to have any meaning. During an online therapy session yesterday it really started dawning on me just how inane such a question truly is since it’s core to my personal world view that there is no objective point or design to any of this. So, to a degree, all I can do is say, “Fuck it” and continue living my best life.
To that end, I’m being moderately successful. I’m walking regularly, refocusing on journaling and writing, doing my best to keep entropy in check around the house. I’m in something of a liminal space right now as Kara is working as an election official during early voting. Once that has passed and she’s able to help more at home, I suspect things will fall into a more stable routine. Of course, that very election provides a great deal of stress and uncertainty on its own.
The plan for the remainder of the year is primarily to survive with as much of my sanity intact as possible. I have various tasks to tend to with respect to my trading business, state filings, account management, etc. Beyond that, it’s really just more of the same, which is reassuring in its own way.
