I think that since I've left home I've realized how academia is in some ways static and possibly stale. There is no doubt that the life of an academic is a good life, and not necessarily without the proper measure of labor, and certainly not immoral, and definitely not contrary to a calling in service to the Lord. But it is often unfulfilling and pedantic. It makes you smarter (much smarter) but rarely wiser.
I idolized the old academic heroes like Kant, Barth, Chomsky, Niebuhr and so on. But really all they did was write a lot and make people think differently about very specific, very hemmed-in things. There is a disconnect between the practice of academics and the utility of their time. In my job as a waiter, there is no difference between the work I put in and the result of that work. This is not to say that everything we do ought to prioritize efficiency above all, or that we always must work for tangible outcomes. But we should always work in such a way that we expect the outcomes to really benefit other people in a recognizable way.
The good side of academia is that it trades in pedagogy, or teaching. I think that life is simply a process of God teaching us, which gives life all its charming mistakes and mischief along with its breathtaking beauty of redemption and turning to the good. Redemption is pedagogical, I think. And I admire a career in which teaching is central to your daily work.
Nevertheless I am tired of reading jargon and writing papers, and I've only been in grad school for a month. I see the exhausted and simple labor of my three-job coworkers at the pub and I admire it, though I don't desire it. I don't want to want to be a professor because it's easy. Shouldn't I want to do it because I think I'm supposed to do it? You might say no. I think that's what a "calling" is.
Simplicity, diligence, fruitfulness, affinity to vocation. These are the virtues of a good job. I need to find a career where I can live simply, work diligently, bear good fruit, and fulfill my vocation (that is, calling from God). It is very possible that that job is in the academy, but it's at least as possible that it's not.
I've been thinking a lot about owning my own business--but what sort of business would it be? A down-to-earth restaurant? I think that would be great. Maybe an Internet business with a good mission; here I think of emulating TOMS shoes, giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold.
Maybe I could become a skilled laborer, like a carpenter or mechanic or something. But this is unlikely. I don't really have the skill set for that.
Something in the out-of-doors would be great. I'd love to be the career equivalent of a park ranger or something like that. But at the moment the job that most captures my attention is starting a business of my own. How American! How noble!
Well thanks for listening, I just felt like I needed to get all that stuff down.
