The Little Prince and the Fox

Be it a birthday celebration, a trip exploring and enjoying the outdoors with friends, or a physics class, Arys can inspire, transmit enthusiasm, ignite passion, and even be loved — if they are well and in the right, nurturing environment. 

Arys realizes that both of these are huge, profound and far-reaching insights: one is about their own natural skills, talents, and even character; the other is a very important, fundamental condition. Putting the two together means that Arys could not only achieve a lot for their own career but also give a lot to those around them, provided the right circumstances, the right environment. But without the right environment, or in a toxic environment, Arys shrivels up and goes into “survival mode”. They are resilient, so they will survive and eventually make it through, but at what expense? And how much does every new round of “survival mode” drain them? 

Certain events of the past week or so have particularly shown Arys how they can inspire and motivate other people and light passions by sharing their own. Arys has come to the realization that this is one of their great gifts and talents. But now the harder, practical question remains: how can Arys harness this skill and use it in a way that leads to a sustainable professional career and a more constant source of joy/well-being? 

How can Arys kindle this fire so that it can keep burning, giving light and warmth, without just being a seasonal wildfire?

A few random thoughts and insights from Thursday & Friday last week that I still want to record and share…

• What I need now is the space and time to re-examine, clarify, and heal my own relationship with Science & Physics without the extra responsibility of teaching physics to other people (which inevitably skews my feelings or distorts my vision of it).

• Today for the first time I used the gender-neutral, or all-gender, changing room at the swimming-pool and it felt so good! It just felt right, like I identified with myself and the situation more fully and comfortably. 

Funny how something so seemingly small can actually be so meaningful… 

• While running, I saw another runner wearing a T-shirt with the following quote/logo (in what looked like Nike font): “Boycott losing”. 

Maybe I’m misinterpreting it, but it seems like quite a toxic message to me… what does “losing” even mean exactly?

It seems that one of the causes, or aspects, of depression is excessive self-reflection that gets not only the mind but also the physical brain stuck in certain patterns or groves or neurological paths which can lead, among other things, to a sense of separateness or detachment from “other” (our “true self”, loved ones, nature, the world, our job, a meaning in life, etc.). So a way to ease or reverse depression is to get the mind and brain “unstuck”, out of these limited groves, even at a physical level (chemically and/or neurologically). 

I’ve been taking an antidepressant for four weeks now, for the first time ever in my life and on a very small dose. It’s hard to say if that alone has helped improve my general mood or if the recent events in my life, opening up new opportunities and adventures for me, have played a major role. 

Anyway, I have noticed a difference in my dreams lately (and I’ve also been sleeping better). 

I’ve always been able to remember my dreams, and I often enjoy doing so or rely on my dreams to help me better understand situations and/or feelings. But in the past few days I had two dreams which really stuck out as being very different from anything I’ve ever dreamt before. They were both very brief, more like feelings, but very vivid and intense in a beautiful yet powerful way. 

In one, I felt — no, “I” wasn’t actually there, it was as if my “ego” has dissolved but there was something/someone that could still feel. And the feeling was of interconnectedness with the whole planet and an intense awareness of its vulnerability and the danger it’s in as an interconnected ecosystem. The feeling was at once of wanting to help or save the planet while also being part of it and therefore vulnerable and in need of being saved — everything together. 

In the other dream also “I” wasn’t really present but “I” just saw DNA: “I saw” the bases combine, the A’s with the T’s and the C’s with the G’s, and “I” could hear in my mind the words “adenine”, “thymine”, “cytosine”, “guanine”, although it was more like a deep knowledge or awareness than actually “hearing” (note that I am a physicist so these would be only distant memories from high school science!). It just felt so beautiful — somehow “right”, as if it “fit” or was explaining something profound and full of truth, but also delicate, maybe vulnerable. 

I wonder if these dreams with these feelings of interconnectedness and profound truths are due to the antidepressant, if they’re a positive symptom of the antidepressant working and actually helping my brain out of its “stuck patterns”, rewiring it in a healthier way. 

Whether it is or not, I find them fascinating anyway and worth remembering (and sharing). 

I used to love my job, really love it, and I know that I used to bring that love into the classroom while teaching physics and the students felt it and benefited from it and reflected it back to me. The three semester from Fall 2018 through Fall 2019 were particularly gratifying — quite wonderful. Almost magical. But then something broke. The magic is gone. 

The pandemic put everything on hold for three semesters and going back into the classroom this Fall I was hoping some of the magic would come back for me. I knew it would never be as before, as “pre-pandemic”, and it’s definitely better than teaching online; but it’s still broken for me. Because the circumstances have changed since the year 2019, but also I have changed A LOT since then. I’m almost a whole other person. 

It really feels like the end of a relationship. I’m feeling in a similar way to how I felt towards the end of one of my longest romantic relationships, when I couldn’t feel any magic at all anymore, no matter what I did or how hard I tried, when “coming into myself” or just evolving as myself was at odds with the other person in the relationship. But still I tried and hoped and persevered, wondering what had gone wrong, what I might have done wrong, how I could fix it, feeling guilty for not feeling the love or magic anymore, and feeling guilty for not being able to fix it. 

I am feeling in a very similar way about my job now. 

I am not the same person as two or three years ago. The circumstances around me have also changed and the opportunities and limitations in this specific job are much more clear and evident to me now. 

Should I still hope and persevere? Should I still try to “fix” things here? Or is it time for me to go?

Is being unhappy and feeling that something is broken, or that the magic is gone, enough of a reason to leave? 

And why should I feel guilty, anyway, if I feel differently towards my job from how I felt two or three years ago???

In the end, today turned out better than I was expecting — as the simple fact that I’m showing up on the page and writing here shows. 

My “to-do” list not only got me through my day, but I even managed to get more done and in a better spirit than expected. The sun coming out of the clouds this afternoon and my being able to go for a run helped. And I managed to get more prep work done and felt less anxious/stressed about it than I was this morning. 

I’m still tired, though, and the thought of going to school tomorrow is tough. It gets harder almost by the day. 

I used to love teaching, and I still enjoy being in the classroom and transmitting concepts of some of my favorite topics to the students, explaining, answering questions, sometimes maybe even inspiring extra curiosity in some of them. But every evening & morning before school I dread the idea of having to go in. I enjoy those two hours in the classroom, as I get lost in the moment, teaching; and I truly enjoy re-reading the topics and preparing the lessons, especially since I’m teaching some of my favorite topics (fortunately!) — at least when I have the time to do so without being in a rush or stressed out. But most of the time I feel overwhelmed, carrying a huge burden, overshadowed by tiredness and the thought “I can’t do this anymore”. It’s taking me so much more of an effort than it used to in the past — in the past, it didn’t feel like an effort at all, actually! Now it feels mostly like a burden with some brief, rare moments of lightening up. 

So this effort or fatigue with respect to teaching is one of my main feelings now. 

The other one is the desire to be a boy. I don’t know in what sense, exactly. All I know is that the other main thought that goes through my head very often now is, “I want to be a boy”. 

Today I’m feeling tired and hopeless. 

The only thing I’d like to do now is be out in the mountains on a nice long hike or trail run. But I cannot do it, nothing even close to it, because I have so much prep work for my classes tomorrow. 

Hopefully a “to-do” list will get me through this day. 

And hopefully some sunshine will peek through these rain clouds… 

You know those moment when the Universe seems to be pointing clearly in one direction for you? 

Well, I feel like that might be happening to me now. 

I’m an atheist, or maybe a “spiritual or naturalistic or universal atheist”. Anyway, I certainly don’t believe in any God or destiny. But sometimes it feels like all events around us seem to point or lead in some direction, maybe toward something that we’ve been pondering for a while and all of a sudden that “something” could become real, more than a dream or fantasy, and we’re faced with the real decision of “do we go for it or not?”. 

And now I could have the chance to go and stay in Colorado, with my friends/host family where I stayed and had such a wonderful, healing time this past summer: I could go stay there anytime as early as this December through all of next summer… 

The thought of asking them for hospitality for a few months had already been playing through my head for a while now, maybe even months, but I was envisioning it happening after next summer, as of autumn 2022, after wrapping up the academic year and a few other practical things here. However, they actually invited me to stay at their place now. 

It all happened this week. First, at the beginning of the week, I got an email from my supervisor for next Spring 2022 semester which entails a worsening of my work conditions to the limit of making them unsustainable for me. This of course caused anger, frustration, disappointment and even concern; but from the practical viewpoint it only confirmed or anticipated frustrations and concerns I already had about my current professional position lacking growth opportunities and being unsustainable for me for much longer: it basically transformed this “much longer” into “next spring”. Then, on Wednesday, in one of my rare phone conversations with my parents, my father spontaneously, out of the blue, reminded me of some financial funds available to me that he could send me anytime, if I needed extra money (I hadn’t mentioned anything, I swear!). Then yesterday, I talked to my PhD advisor (who has known me and been one of my most important mentors for over a decade) and was telling him about my professional frustrations and concerns, including the fact that I’m overworked and stifled so I cannot pursue a professional project which really interests me (and for which I have signed an agreement outside of school); and he said to me, “Can’t you go stay with someone — family, friends — for a few months, so you don’t have to worry about rent, take time off from work this spring and summer, and just focus on that other project of yours and get your textbook published, which will provide you with the satisfaction and professional growth that you need?”. And finally, yesterday afternoon, my friend/host in Colorado called me to tell me they will be traveling back and forth between Colorado and Europe for the next six months and asked me if by chance I’d like to stay at their place to house-sit while they’re away, working from there, and just being all of us together when they’re here in the U.S.?

All of this after months of troubles and concerns with my current living situation, that is unsustainable in the long run and will have to change for sure by next summer at the latest (I have to move out by then). 

Doesn’t this all look like the arrow is pointing me to Colorado for the next months? 

It feels like things are opening up for me there, even if only temporarily, while getting harsher for me here… 

As a real adventurer, I am ready to pack my bags and go in January. 

However, I have three concerns. 

Firstly, my friends here. I have a couple of lovely old friends here as well as some wonderful new friendships I’ve been building over the past few months and which all mean so much to me… I’d really miss them. 

Then, there are two practical aspects. On one hand, quitting my current teaching job between semesters isn’t ideal: no matter how soon and diplomatically and professionally I do it, it would probably entail never returning to teach at this particular school, or at least not teaching some of the fun, interesting courses I have built up to in these past four years. And I would have no idea of where I would be working as of next fall, no idea of where I’d be living even. So if I take this step now, I need to accept the idea that I’m leaving a lot of certainties behind (no matter how frustrating or stifling or unsustainable they might be) and heading into BIG uncertainty. On the other hand — last but not least! —, there’s the practical aspect of benefits, especially my health insurance: although my current job pays an unsustainably wage, it does offer me good benefits, including a good health insurance. If I quit my job, or am unemployed as of January, what happens to my health insurance? Would I have to pay a health insurance all out of pocket, while not earning any money, for at least six months, maybe more — and without a new job lined up anywhere in the near future? Is that sustainable, or even reasonable, for me to do???

So am I pondering a leap of faith, here, or a crazy jump off a cliff???

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/23/1048723012/life-kit-how-to-better-manage-your-time

In this report on NPR about “time management”, it was also being suggested that when making our decisions on what to “fail at”, it would be better to not always or necessarily choose to do what makes us happy in the present moment but rather what allows us to grow. 

I think this could be a helpful way for me to look at my own nagging question about what ball should I, or can I, drop now? What can I put on the shelf now, at least temporarily? Or vice versa, what do I choose to pursue now? 

It would be really good for me to choose the things that make/help me grow: if any of the things that I’m already doing provide this growth, great, pursue them! If not, go for something else! 

Sure, the question still remains of what is it exactly that helps me grow? — really not an easy question. But at least this viewpoint gives me a healthy perspective and a direction in which to move — and one that resonates with me since I’ve been feeling stifled, as in “lacking growth opportunities”, for a while now (at least professionally)… 

My 5-mile run yesterday evening was a struggle: I felt exhausted, physically tired, with low energy and short/shallow breathing, and mentally fatigued. I was really frustrated by the shortness of my breath — which is still unclear whether it’s an effect of my having been sick with COVID in March 2020 and/or due to anxiety or stress/exercise-induced asthma with some other cause. On top of that, I was also struggling to get out of my head, as all the small aches and pains, some old some new, made themselves noticed and I started wondering whether some of them might be due to the antidepressant I started taking ten days ago. If so, they might be dangerous, so I might have to stop the antidepressant but then, I thought, that’s not something I can do all of a sudden — and what about curing my depression in the first place? Then I started thinking of next semester, of the even heavier workload I’ll have then, how will I manage it? But could I financially or even legally afford taking time off? Etc. etc. etc.

I got into this loop of negative thoughts where everything seemed like an unsolvable problem, and then I heard it. That thought forming in my mind: “I just want to —“. But I stopped before completing it. And then I said to myself (all this dialogue is going on inside my head while I’m running!): “You were going to say ‘die’, right?” —  “Yep” — “Okay but now you’ve got this 5-mile run to finish”. And I stopped ruminating. I just finished my 5-mile run. And then hung out a little longer at the beach to enjoy a beautiful, beautiful sunset and take pictures of it. 

At that point I felt a quiet, grounded happiness mixed with a touch of melancholy. 

When I got home, the melancholy got stronger, but instead of fighting it or ignoring it or trying to escape it, I embraced it, I let myself feel it and understand where it was coming from. And indeed, I understood its causes and named them out loud, speaking them out loud to myself as well as telling a close friend about them in a voicemail. 

And then I took good care of myself: I skipped a meeting that would have stressed me (is this one of the balls I can drop?!?); I made myself a hearty dinner and enjoyed it; I relaxed with a movie. 

By the time I got to bed last night, my melancholy had abated: it was still there but having acknowledged it and knowing its cause exactly (and possibly a solution for it) made me feel tranquil and grounded both about that specific emotion and about myself in that moment, in that specific “here & now”. And for the first time in weeks, I went to bed feeling that I wanted to be with myself; that instead of drowning or quieting my emotions with a guided meditation from the Calm app, helped by an external voice, I wanted to actually be with myself and my own feelings, let myself be and enjoy being myself even if I wasn’t as happy as I would ideally be: I still felt grounded and somehow serene. But most of all, I felt I was in the moment. And that that moment, just like those last couple miles of my run when I finally stopped ruminating, was the only thing that counted then. Like each little step on my run, each little step that I struggled and dragged myself through yesterday evening. Each little step counts and that’s the only thing that really counts in each given moment. Here & now. 

Not quite a full bounce back from depression, yet, but maybe a nice little hop back nevertheless!

Last night I happened to listen to this report on NPR about “time management” with tips that are quite different from the usual ones of “task optimization”: 

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/23/1048723012/life-kit-how-to-better-manage-your-time

It’s basically suggesting we admit our human limits, our mortality, the fact that time isn’t infinite and that we cannot do everything, so they suggest choosing what we want to “fail at”, i.e. what we can or must give up, even if just temporarily, for a while, and make peace with that.

For me this was quite a serendipitous piece to listen to, because one of the major causes of my anxiety and stress lately is wanting to do too much, and do to it all perfectly well.

I just cannot. 

So now the question remains for me: what ball do I want to drop for the time being? What am I willing to put on the shelf, or to “fail at”, at least momentarily?