Or, A Prelude to How to Have an Existential Crisis
I recently was hired to teach two courses next semester.
I am thinking about quitting and I haven’t even started yet. In fact, I have pretty much already decided to quit, I just can’t be bothered to get around to it.
I’ve decided not to teach for a couple reasons.
One: Although I am generally unable to decide to do anything right now, I’ve decided one thing: not to do anything that doesn’t involve bullet points. Students essays are quite often written in paragraph form, I hear.
Two: If you are in the midst of an existential crisis, probably it isn’t a good idea to drop in as “class expert” in the middle of 40 other e-crises.
Stupidity 101
Because, the thing is, I can’t even LOOK at my alarm clock in the early morning hours, these days– a digital thingy with the date on it– and not wonder about time passing through the space continuum, and whether work matters at all, and what discord all this writing plays on our souls, warping and twisting my grey matter to ponder the ultimate question for the self-confidence-stricken: what is this so-called audience for, anyway?
Blah friggin Blah.
So to make use of this bloggish space in a determined way, here’s my bullet point list, per requisite. Enjoy and don’t say I ever claimed to be class expert
How to Have an Existential Crisis (Without Spilling Your Coffee)
- Kill the first fly you can find, then stare for about 12 minutes at its gooshed body, thinking whatever comes.
- Ask every friend you know for a referral to a good counselor. Write down the names on separate sticky notes and stick them to the mirror until you are completely obliterated.
- Hand your bills to you cube mate and say “Here. Your turn.”
- Go to beginners night Ballroom dance lessons and make a detailed account in your mind of the single men (or women) and their moustaches/chin hair.
- Avoid Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love” because your friend said she adored it and “thought of you the whole time I read it, the entire time!”
- Make a list of dream careers, then make a detailed plan (each) for how to become a “rock star, architect, jockey, Olympic marathon runner, Hot Dog cart guy in New York but not in Winter.”
- Call your favorite “Cheer Up” friend, then realize as you hang up that you haven’t cheered them up in ages.
- Eat cheese. Ponder meanings of “good fat/bad fat.” Repeat.
The answer to the question, by the way, is no.
