February 9, 2010

Rage over this and that. Rage over the time-gobbling, reductive, redundant process of “assessment” at the university. Fulminate for hours against it in my heart, but the worst it is is a sort of infantile retelling of an old story in words a new and business-obsessed administration can understand. The goals are, essentially, my goals, if set by a process antithetical to the Academy. All the important parts are left out, but the important parts cannot be measured in the way our reductivist colleagues wish to measure, but, I am assured, assumed, so let all that be at peace.

I think, finally, in the ensuing episode of my life I have to leave indignation behind. Like some actors and Shakespeare, I am prone to it, but not very good at it. I do not always know where judgment ends and self-interest begins. I do not always know when someone is evil and when he is simply blundering. I do not always know battles I am meant to fight from those upon which I am meant to turn my back. I wonder if I’ve ever accomplished anything by striding to war in the full armor of indignation except the shortening of my own life. Leave that behind. Practice that smile which can be taken either for serenity or idiocy.

Wordsmyth wants a headshot. I have never had one. Time to obsess about that.

Take up the gavel of Chairman of the Warren Wilson Friends of the Library tomorro afternoon. It is absurd on a number of levels--