Okay, so one of the worst things
that can happen to a person has happened.
The career that I trained for, the doctorate that I traded my soul away
for, it has all been taken away by a broken person, who isn’t smart enough to
compete against my left pinky. She
got lucky and nailed me on a technicality that she wasn’t even aware of, and
that legally she can’t nail me for. The truth is I wasn’t aware of it either or I would have
taken care of it.
In a Just World I could go after
her. But if I did that I would be
scorching the earth behind me like a petulant child, and hurting people who
have been good to me in the past.
It is not, sadly, the right thing to do. Even though it is Just.
It
is seductive to believe in the Just World. That if we are good people who do the right thing and listen to
the teacher when she says not to eat the paste, we will get good grades and be
a good person. There must be a
blueprint out there somewhere on how to do this, right? So many people seem to have gotten
those homework notes. I missed
them somehow. It has never been
clear where I fit. Until I walked
into the classroom, and began to teach.
Until I left grad school with an understanding of how to do research to
understand human behavior. And let
me be clear with this last one, I understand how to do the research, but not all
of human behavior (human behavior surprises me still).
And
if I look at this objectively, this is not the first time I have encountered
the ridiculousness of morality, and not the first time I have been the one in the
room with the least amount of power. I spoke Truth to Power. Usually, this works out well, and I am
appreciated and even promoted for doing this. Not this time.
I
think this is a good thing, even though at first I wasn’t sure of that. I still love teaching and I still
understand how to do research, and I am fascinated by the human computer
interaction. So I am going back
into a grad program to learn more about this and then back out into the
corporate world to use this knowledge.
I am pretty excited for the next chapter, even in my 40s when I am
supposed to be living a settled life and own things I don’t own (like a house). It will be interesting see how this
works out, and whether or not I will ever own a house. (Not that I necessarily want one). And whether or not I will ever understand Human Behavior.
photo credit:lindsetya
