The End of the World

Another doomsday prediction has come and gone. The end of the world was supposed to occur last weekend and, obviously, we are all still here. This is not the first such prediction and it certainly is not the last. And although we don’t know exactly when it will happen, the world as we know it will absolutely come to an end at some point in the distant future - our science is advanced enough that this is not a mere possibility; the sun will eventually exhaust its supply of hydrogen and it will expand, obliterating the inner planets of the solar system. The time frame is inconceivably long, but it will happen. Furthermore, other cosmic and geographic calamities that are impossible to predict could spell our demise much sooner. It is, however, so highly unlikely that it will happen in my lifetime that it is beyond wise is to continue to plan for the future.

But even with what amounts to a virtual guarantee that the world is going to stick around for a while, I won’t be here to see it 50 years from now. Death is part of life and if I optimistically live into my late 90s, the end of my world will come in 2060, give or take a couple of years. And that is only if everything goes well; indeed, that end very nearly came to me ten years ago. The chances of the world being here for the next 50 years are much greater than mine. But it begs the question: If we all know that we are here for a limited (and, in the big picture, a relatively short) amount of time, why do we do so much work knowing that we will never see the outcome?

We see it in our personal lives as well as our communal existence. We plan for 100-year flood protection, construction plans that extend 25 years or more into the future, research projects that extend over many generations, and hopefully soon, space exploration that might span multiple generations. And those plans project action well beyond some of the designers' lifespans. On a personal level, these questions are perhaps more easily or intuitively answered in the name of creating security for our children and grandchildren. But despite all this, we all face our own personal doomsday someday...

While the amount of knowledge and technological development we have created in the past 150 or so years is unprecedented in scale compared to the total of human history up to the 19th century, it is also true that it did not come out of a vacuum. Great thinkers, scientists and tinkerers alike, laid the groundwork for the road we now travel. They are not here to revel in their genius, but they might have foreseen a world that would benefit from their insights. Driven in part by a quest for a better life and in part by an insatiable desire for knowledge, these now dead visionaries lit the way and each one of them surely knew that he or she would not live forever. Yet they made that contribution anyway. Why?

Obviously I cannot answer for them, but I can say why I do what I do. There is an ever-growing body of human knowledge. It began when we did and will continue for as long as our race does - maybe longer. I am not seeking insight so much because I will find the  answer as much as I am making a contribution to what that answer might be. And like so many perennial “big” questions, there can be no ultimate answer. I can surmise this, however; if we are to survive beyond the death of our world, thinking beyond our own existence is an absolute necessity. Taken a step further, this ability, which is uniquely ours, is the only hope that the rest of the animal kingdom has of surviving the eventual destruction of this world... and they do not even know it. That is what separates us and why our species has been able to climb to the top of the food chain in such a short amount of time. We have a responsibility to continue seeking beyond our own doomsday.

And while the prophets predict, I will continue to seek...

Comfort vs. Happiness

Busy. 

Reading, writing, preparing, grading, and myriad other activities have defined my day-to-day existence of late. Both gratifying and frustrating, this unprecedented demand on my time is nothing I ever expected to encounter, nothing I planned on and, honestly, not anything I ever dreamed I would have wanted in my life. My modus operandi for many, many years has been a quest for leisure, an inherent propensity to relax. To be happy. And though that propensity is still with me today, it is that very drive that had left me so unfulfilled for most of those years. While it is true that through the duties I had acquired over the years – that of being a father, a parent (not necessarily the same thing – a father is something a man is, a parent is something a one does), an employee and other roles that must be assumed as one navigates life – I have absolutely felt a sense of purpose and fulfillment. But those things had an obligatory nature to them; they were defined by cultural norms and historical ideals such that success is expected and only failure noted. And it should be noted that although I succeeded in those roles to an extent, failure driven in part by that same need for comfort existed as well. I thought I was supposed to be happy, but I rarely was.

Today that drive is manifested in my always-reliable nemesis, procrastination. Although I have been able to push through it enough to have succeeded in completing the tasks necessary to earn a bachelor’s degree and everything but my thesis so far in my quest for my master’s, that thesis has proven fertile ground my old friend to flourish. The truth is that as busy as I am, I still waste too much time not working on it when I should be. And the looming work ahead of me has proven to be anything but relaxing. The crazy thing is as simple as it is profound: This is all voluntary. I do not have to do any of this - this is decidedly not obligatory. I could just as easily, indeed, more easily find a regular job and work a nine to five routine and be perfectly content with that. In fact, it would be a step up from my former goal of not working at all, living the “good” life of leisure and comfort. And being a contribution to society in that capacity would be fulfilling in its own right. I know this today…

But it begs the question: Why am I doing this? I can only partially answer that question. It is, in part, because I am intrigued by the intricacies of what I study. I have addressed my fascination with human communication in the past and that curiosity is absolutely some of the reason, but many things that I have not immersed myself into at this level fascinate me. Part of it is a desire to teach and the independence a university professor is afforded in the administration of his or her curriculum; and part of that is the very direct and positive effect I can have on the lives of others. But that is still not all of it – quenching curiosity and vocational independence can be had without earning a master’s degree or (if all goes well) a Ph.D. It could be that due to the change in my perspective from one of entitlement to one of service I feel a need to catch up, but that is not entirely it, either. The missing piece is one that I can only feel… it is impossible to articulate. It involves a sense of purpose that comes from someplace indescribable. It is as through this is what I am supposed to be doing.

So the battle wages on. I don’t want to do this work, but I need to. I don’t need to do this work, but I want to. Though I feel destined to do it, that I am supposed to do it, I also know that I am not obligated to. While it serves me as well as others, am I selfishly fulfilling my own desires or am I selflessly making a real contribution to the world? Quite likely both… and neither. I have said it before and it is still true today, this was not my idea. I never planned to pursue my education to this level – in fact, I never really planned to pursue an education at all. Everything I did prior to about seven years ago was a means to an end and that end was comfort. Physical and emotional comfort. I never achieved it. Isn’t it ironic that, considering the monumental tasks I have completed and even more so with those looming on the horizon, I have never been more at peace? I battle procrastination every single day. That inherent laziness has not left me – it still tells me that it would be so much easier to just relax, but I know that’s an empty lie. There is no purpose in leisure; it is not what I am supposed to do. I am supposed to do the work to realize my purpose whatever that turns out to be. All I need to know is that I have one.

And I am almost always happy.

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Welcome to The 25 Year Plan. This blog was created in December 2005 as a means of keeping my writing fresh during the five-week break in between the fall and spring semesters at California State University, Sacramento. Entering as a 42-year-old junior (journalism major) in fall 2005, I was considered a “non-traditional” student. In fall 2007, I graduated magnum cum laude with my Bachelor of Arts degree - more than 25 years after graduating from high school. The 25 Year Plan is a reflective, inspirational and purpose driven journal of life. It is living proof that anything is possible and it is never too late. Evidence? I am just a thesis away from receiving my MA in rhetorical criticism, a new path that manifested in 2008. I also work at CSUS as a TA, teaching undergraduates public speaking and argumentation. And in the fall of 2011, I will embark on a new journey that will take place in another city in another state. Qualifying for a Ph.D. program at a school as prestigious as LSU was not part of my plan when this blog began just a short time ago, but it has become a reality. Living life beyond one’s wildest dreams requires dreaming bigger than one can. Dream big…

Straight Out of My Head

Getting started. This has always been the hardest part. It is, perhaps, part of the ritual that must take place before anything gets committed to words on a page. Some might call it writer’s block and I supposed if the resistance I experience in getting started prevented me from starting at all, then that would be my affliction as well. But whether it is for enjoyment, advancement, or pay, I write. Although it is my underlying art that drives any number of professions, past and present, writing is at once painful and exhilarating, both the blessing and the curse – and it is a struggle every single time I set out to write anything.

Including this. Although the words are now freely flowing, getting to this point, for this piece, took not minutes, not days, not weeks and not years. It is not only the culmination of every single minute of my own life, but also of those who have preceded me. At this moment in time, this one, single, unique and never to be repeated moment, this is all there is and it is through a collective community of memory that has turned this energy into these words. My perspective has been necessarily shaped and influenced by only what and who has preceded me – from the “Big Bang” to right now, there is nothing else.

I used to believe that my best, most authentic and purest writing came when it was “straight out of my head.” That is, I believed that simply transforming my thoughts - my insights – into words with some compelling style was my forte. It was the sort of writing I found easiest perhaps because it was just the keyboard, my thoughts and the words; I need not bring anything external into the equation. But after regularly running into resistance when attempting even this “pure” writing, it has become abundantly clear that nothing I have ever written has been “straight out of my head.” Nothing. Every thought I have ever transformed into these symbols we call words has to be placed into context with an infinite number of variables that are decidedly not “straight out of my head.”

From the beginning of time until now, this is what I have. These words. This life. A perspective that has been shaped by not only those close to me, but also by those now gone for thousands of years. All of it culminates in the here and now – it always has. We are unique in the animal kingdom – no other species has the cultural memory we do. None other can communicate as we do. No other animal can use, or as Kenneth Burke noted, misuse symbols as we do. When it is all said and done, when I write I am merely making my contribution to the human experience. With all that going on outside my head, is it any wonder that it is so hard to get started?

Revisted

Sunday, 24 October 2010

The rain has been falling steadily for about a day now. This first major storm in Northern California is perhaps early by some standards, but certainly not unexpected or unprecedented. It is a time of change; summer is transitioning to autumn in a cyclical fashion that is as old as dirt. And though every season is different from that which preceded it, it is also different from the one that bore its name the years before. And so it is again, this fall is not the same as the fall of 2009 – not in terms of the weather, the place I find myself in the world and the world itself certainly not the same as it was just one year ago. But like the seasons enough remains that we can recognize the changes and hopefully be ready for them.

This is my final fall semester as a grad student at California State University, Sacramento. If all goes well, I will receive my Masters degree before spring turns to summer in 2011. But it is not the end of this journey into higher education; it is simply a turning of the seasons. Next fall another semester will begin at a different school where my post-graduate journey will continue. Another season, not the same as this one, but in keeping with the cyclical nature that the school life is, there are too many similarities to ignore the changing weather. No longer on a quest to obtain a Masters degree, my new goal will be a doctoral degree… a Ph.D. It is a monumental task, but so was (is) my current quest, and it is nearing completion. The culminating experience left to complete is my Masters thesis, a research project the likes of which I have never attempted – both in scope and in size – and that is just now beginning.

It is of particular note that these are not things I should be capable of doing, at least not in terms of motivation and discipline. Although I have always been capable, I have been equally incapacitated. If I knew the amount of effort that was required going in, I would have turned tail and gone somewhere else. I seriously underestimated the work that would be involved, and that is probably why I am still at it. Had I known what I was getting myself into… if I knew this was going to be a particularly rainy fall, cold winter, balmy spring or searing summer, I might have high-tailed it to more comfortable climes. I left myself with little choice but to weather the storm and though I know it’s not yet over, I also now know that I can get through this and that is more than half the battle. It took more than I had, but I got what I needed along the way.

Sometimes I stop and wonder, “What am I doing here? Who am I fooling? How did this ever happen and when will it come crashing down?” Of course I know it does not need to come crashing down, that whatever I am doing here, there is a reason for it and if I am fooling anyone it is myself. The evidence speaks for itself. Yet this is not within my character – to push myself beyond what I think is possible and succeed. And maybe that’s because I never gave myself the chance to succeed. It was always easier to fail, or not even try because of the chance of failure. Oddly enough, the stakes are higher than ever now and the risks, if measured by the effort required, are equally so, yet I have made it farther than I could have imagined… 

Sunday, 6 March 2011

I set this essay aside 130 plus days ago because I felt it was going nowhere; I was not feeling it, as the colloquialism goes. I usually don’t open these partially written and abandoned works, but when reading the essay that replaced this, Negotiation, I found myself wondering what it was that I thought was so bad… and it no longer was. Since the contexts of any communicative event include every external reality including time and place, it is likely that whatever frame of reference I was in at the time was not in sync with what I was writing. And today it is.

Some things have changed in the past four months. That final semester of course work was completed and the only thing between standing between my MA and me is my thesis. And that has turned out to be more challenging than predicted… which was also predicted. Additionally, that quest for a Ph.D. is materializing as well. Four months ago I had just begun the application process; today I have results. Of the six universities I applied to, two have accepted me (LSU and University of Denver), two have turned me down (Stanford and University of Washington) and I have yet to hear back from two more (Columbia and USC). Though it is not time yet, in the not too distant future I will have some major decisions to make.

Although these are not decisions that can be taken lightly, they are decisions generated by my willingness to do something. Where my life was defined for so long by a quest for comfort, it is now energized by a quest of an entirely different sort. And though I have not a clue where it might lead me, this journey has transformed life from a passive, observatory experience to a dynamic, active one. And it all started by stumbling into a place I thought I had no business being, a place where I have, at best, experienced only marginal and incomplete success. All it took was a little faith and a lot of work. Maybe that’s all there is to success…

Dear Fran...

Some time ago, I somehow got on the email solicitation list for the Long Ridge Writers Group, a subsidiary of Writer’s Institute, Inc. Although I admit that I might have expressed an interest at some point in the distant past, that interest was rescinded long ago - and likely because it turned out to be yet another iteration of the “for-profit” model of higher education that I so despise. Over the course of the past few years, I have received numerous emails from Fran Saunders (the director of admissions) that use a strangely guilt-provoking pathos to reach prospective students. These emails almost have the flavor of a jilted lover… that I have somehow betrayed the generosity of this “school” by not accepting (and paying for) the benefits they provide. After a history of briefly responding to and then deleting Fran’s emails, today I finally decided to write at length… and of course, publish that correspondence here.

Dear Fran,

I am not sure how I ended up on your email list, but it is possible I might have inquired at some point in the distant past. Since whenever that was, I have received from you not one, not two, but several emails with subject lines like, "final chance" (Jan. 29, 2010), "is this our good-bye?" (Jan 10, 2010) and "this is our final good-bye" (emphasis added, Jan 9, 2009)... and those are just the emails that have escaped my notice and deletion. Isn't it interesting, however, based upon just these surviving emails that in the space of one year (2009 - 2010) our relationship went from a statement of finality to one of pining for clarity? And today I have been informed that I have one extra week. Since you appear to be having some difficulty putting this solicited relationship behind you, let me be so blunt: This is our final goodbye. I am not interested in whatever services you might or might not have. I am currently in the process of writing a Masters thesis and have little time to be reading or responding to your pleas to better my writing and myself. It should be abundantly clear just from the composition of these few words that I do not need your help.

As far as qualifying for your course - I suspect that everyone who responds qualifies for your course. The Writer's Institute, Inc. is a for-profit business. The purpose (or "mission", if you prefer) of all for-profit businesses is the production of money. That is what a profit is. There is nothing wrong with a mission of making money except when it conflicts with the mission of improving the human condition, society, charity and other similarly noble missions. Education does not fit the for-profit model (neither does healthcare - but I digress). One is either in it to make money or in it to provide students the best possible education regardless of cost. Those costs, because the educated individual's contribution to society is as valuable to society as it is to the individual, should be largely subsidized by that society... in other words, education should be a money losing (in terms of tuition) proposition in the short term. There is not nor should there be a tangible short-term profit, but the enormity of the benefit to society is indisputable - the fact that the US is the world's only super-power in every sense is evidence enough of not only the power of a public education, but also of capitalism - separated.

To conclude, dear Fran, I am not interested in paying you for the privilege of improving my writing and lining your investors' pockets. I am completing my Master's at a highly regarded California State University campus and continuing my education in one of five public or non-profit private universities. The mission of each is similar and has nothing to do with turning a profit. Yes, parting can be difficult, but be comforted that you have now extracted 30 minutes of my time. That time, however, will be immortalized on the Internet through my blog (25yearplan.com) and by the many republications of it (which is permitted free of charge though a Creative Commons copyright). You see, there is more to our global community than trying to extract money by exploiting every possible dream and aspiration - you could do it the old-fashioned way. You could earn it.

Sincerely,

Michael K. Althouse