June 16, 2011

Bloom’s Day. Bright and coolish today, washed last night by the most welcome and prolonged rains.

Recent days have been hard. Last night I was in bed by 8, worn out by depression and sadness, which are more debilitating than any labor. I was prepared to lay out my cry to heaven, but now that I’m actually behind the keyboard it seems too exhausting, too pointless. The tragedy is for the moment out of it, and all that’s left is whining. What I can say is that my life-long resilience has been a form of idiocy.

A more immediate foe is the university accounts payable system, which makes the Cambridge trip problematic. In its own mind it is not doing so, but merely making sure the funds are available only in what they imagine to be good time. The very fact that their delusions in this matter go uncorrected shows the inadequacy of the system. I don’t deal with the financial side of the institution very much, but when I do I am astonished by two things. The first is that the system is a kind of mystery religion, Masonic, hierarchical, autocratic, obscurantist, superstitious, forgetful of its own actual original function. The second is that otherwise reasonable people allow it to be this way. One’s complaint is acknowledged as valid, but then one is told that the “rules” dictate the situation, and however contrary to reason those rules are, there seems to be no way of countermanding them, nor, it seems, has anyone asked. When one inquires who made the rules and how they may be approached, nobody rightly knows. What they do manage to say is the exact secular equivalent of “God wills it” with the exact same measure of superstitious acquiescence. The hierarchy is mystical and invisible; the one causing the trouble is never present to be dealt with. That this is meant to be an educational experience would not be guessed by an outside observer. Actual delivery of curriculum is never mentioned. Anyone would assume it’s all about how an institution keeps money from being misspent, how it assumes everyone is going to steal if given their head. What they want is to send along one of their accountants to carry the credit card and make all the financial decisions, and I would be perfectly happy for it to be that way. But they do not commit to this scenario. They are instead forced to pretend that they trust the faculty, while throwing every possible block in their path. Like many compromises, it is worse than either extreme would have been.

Late afternoon: limpid light on the garden, a few birds going cheep. . . cheep. . . as though mumbling in their sleep. Concert in three hours.