enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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FEELING THE LOVE

**I only have two minutes at home now as I have *two* dates tonight (see two entries back :)), and no web access at work. I am posting this bit that I wrote as I was struggling to commence work at work this morning. I totally need to update this later though because, among other things, my boss was decent to me today (and spoke about my forward options). In fact, today was all about the love. It was one of those rare days on which the *love* was heaped on me, not the least through an unexpected email from a precious friend. (Of course some of the love received today was landlord love--though the inconsequential bit--so it was not all peaches and roses. :))

So sometimes I get to work these days and believe that I should write to myself, since I am having difficulty getting started on the tasks at hand. I�m at that difficult, dark phase in a project, in which I can�t seem to see the way forward. This is where I generally get mired in my work�a repeating pattern, shall we say.

I started writing my personal statements for my teachers� college applications last night and the process went horribly. My brain was lethargic and inefficient. I�m usually able to write some tripe without much effort, so my inability to complete this simple task was rather surprising. I think part of the problem is that I might actually believe that I should be a teacher. Sure, I am capable of doing decent math and writing publishable articles about family employment and child well-being in Canada. Any sensible person would likely say �continue with that�it pays better and taxes your faculties.� But I�m not sure that I have the patience for endless days of statistical programming and a sequence of seminars that lead ultimately to a retirement photo and brief description emailed to several thousand people who simply click, �delete.� (I swear, the French word, �retraite� much more delightfully captures what it should be about�I want to drop my weapons after a battle well-fought, or simply drop in the saddle�)

If I were to sum it up I would have to say simply that I feel lost in this place. In part it�s the pomposity�not to mention isolation from reality-- of the people who also do research. In part it�s that numbers don�t smile back at you when you think of something interesting to say. :)

Gah. Retirement. I need to earn my fortune first, since I don�t think I�m going to get that inheritance from my paternal grandmother after all.

Speaking of things paternal, yesterday was my dad�s birthday. I was doing something distractedly�like going for a coffee, checking my hair in the mirror in the bathroom�when I realized it. I mean, it�s a stretch to say that my dad and I were close. The last time I saw him I was probably 14, so a good 22 years ago. There was a closeness there when I was a child, though; as much as he could muster. Every time November 22 rolls around I think of him, what it means to be here, what it means to be gone. He�s been dead now since February 1989. I count the years until I will be the age at which he died. I see his face�especially his nose, regrettably�looking back at me from the mirror. I remember that JFK�s assassination coincided with his nineteenth birthday party.

I was listening to something interesting on the radio the other night, about epi-genetics. The idea behind it is rather beautiful (and useful, from a research perspective). It turns out that many scientists believe that exogenous events that occur to people during their lives leave a physical and not just psychic mark on subsequent generations. We carry experiences physically forward, in other words. It�s kind of delightful to think this way. If this is true I carry forward not just someone else�s recollection of marching as a suffragette or shitting one�s pants in the tail of a war plane over Germany, or staring into the unyielding space of a new frontier, but the experience of these things in my genetic code. This is sad and horrifying, too, of course, because we bear brutality and hardships forward as well. A straightforward example is of the Dutch women who experienced famine in youth and so had smaller babies�who went forward to have small babies themselves, etc.

It�s very believable to me that the physical being of a human is more rapidly malleable and adaptable, more mutable than we had thought. We are so in our behaviour, to be sure. One of the comforts that I find in my work�though few in policy-making like to see it this way�is that in designing incentives for people (tax, for example) we are chasing moving targets. There will always be unintended effects to policy, because people are wily. This comforts me because�in spite of all disenchanting evidence as to its actual use�wily can be used for good as well as evil. It is frequently used in heroic acts of survival and of great love. I think it�s why consciously changing your thinking can turn meager belief into a corpulent, meaningful kind of hope.

So, that was a long tangent. Back to work! I don�t know what I should be doing with myself, but I don�t think it�s this. That�s about all I can conclude. And certainly I don�t want to be doing �this� in an environment in which my boss has little respect for�or at least willingness to deal with�me. I at least need to be part of a team.

OK. That sort of worked. The mental juices are flowing sufficiently�and my ego is adequately self-inflated-- that I think I can go back to analyzing statistical results. I am propped up. I have a coffee by my side. No need to hesitate about beginning. Dive into cold water, my dear.

6:09 p.m. - 2006-11-23

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