Thirty-Five : Why Carry A Cross Silently? 

Well, I was awake at 2:30 this morning, a bit of a switch. Actually I felt pretty good since I had gone to bed earlier. I drifted back and forth between sleep and useless ponderings until I went in the Jacuzzi about 5:30. Then back to bed to drift and ponder until I got up and went for a run. 

This nearly useless examination (and the useless resentment that tends to go with it) about the lack of support in personal and professional life is ridiculous. I might as well take fine-grained sandpaper and use it to try and build a desk.

Still, with a sense of humor, many useless endeavors are transformed.

For instance, I spent over three of my life-hours yesterday working on a software program that is supposed to facilitate classroom record keeping. My official guess is that the software company has a huge stake in the pharmaceutical industry, at least it seems to me that the two would go hand in hand, though I’m not sure there are enough pills available to cure the health problems incurred in dealing with this software. 

The simplified version, which is user friendly, doesn’t work that well anymore; too many faculty running too many tests with too many staples and/or paper clips through the scoring machine. I suppose a really user-friendly program would remove the staples and paper clips. Apparently an education reduces one’s larger focus to only that concerning a discipline area. Still, why aren’t we fixing the machine with the simplified software version ?

The cost I’m told is prohibitive.

Do we have a service contract?

No, the cost was prohibitive.

Ahhh, economics at work. I get paid a certain amount, it is not cost prohibitive to have me work on a system that doesn’t work very well. The time out of my life is not money out of the institution’s pocket. 

There is clearly much to be done. How can anyone get a good night’s sleep with all this work ahead of us and no clear path about successfully accomplishing it? 

It is a bit of a problem, not exactly like starving or dodging bullets, but I’m in favor of upward rather than downward comparisons. I have enough trouble trying to keep up with a fraction of my own discipline much less all of the new software programs designed to “simplify” our lives. And that doesn’t even include all of the other possessions in our lives, possessions that really own us. And, it doesn’t include a personal or social support system. 

It seems like it could be a bit easier, my internal navigation system is clear on this point. I could avoid the aggravation by a number of routes. I could quit, but that has its own set of problems. I could complain, but there’s more negative energy. I could buy my own program, but that would be like buying an airplane; it is clear that timeshare is the way to go, at least in these things (there’s a good relationship joke somewhere here). I could meditate, get a massage, practice the Lamaze birthing technique, or some other form of distraction or “going beyond” method. 

Nah, the best energy alchemy for me is engaging in under-the-breath, and not-so-under-the-breath caustic comments. Nothing much seems to change anyway and I’m not much of a silent cross-bearer; it just doesn’t go with my suit. But, I could learn to be more peaceful about it, my internal navigation system is clear on this point as well. 

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