Breaking Through.

I realize my posts have been rather depressing lately. So let's have a lighter hearted post today, shall we?!

I have done a lot of thinking since my last post. I realize it sounded dismal and fairly hopeless. And instead of giving into the feelings of despondency the capitalist regime causes me to feel, I refuse to let it drain me of my creativity. Because then hegemony wins. And another artist submits to the machine.  And I won't do it.

There are plenty of other artists, theorists and intellectuals who have written from within far lesser and more decrepit conditions than I. What about Antonio Gramsci, one of the most brilliant yet oppressed intellectuals in the history of Marxist criticism? The man was born with scoliosis, was sentenced to life in prison because he was resisting Italian fascism and, despite these terrible, utterly demoralizing conditions, he did everything he could to get his ideas of resistance out. He wrote on pieces of toilet paper and sneaked them out, literally through the prison bars, to his accomplices and comrades who would then later help him publish The Prison Notebooks--one of the most brilliant treatises on the plight of intellectual  hegemony ever written.

If a man like Gramsci can take those conditions, conditions that are utterly and deplorably worse than mine, then I have no excuse.

In fact, I should consider myself a hypocrite for lauding the work of female activists, poets and writers like Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, Emma Goldman, Margaret Fuller, Adrienne Rich, Susan Sontag, Vandana Shiva (I could continue the list indefinitely) while not continuing in their tradition. Each of these women has confronted the most abject of conditions and has utilized that as a form of fire, as a catalyst to bring forth new thought into the world.

I need to do the same.

The capitalist regime blinds us with a thick layer of seemingly impenetrable hegemonic wool. But we have the shears, we have the tools. It's time to start cutting, deconstructing and using every cell, every tool possible, to remove it and cultivate our own form of resistance and existence.

Let's begin.

Blue Dreams

The only sound that can soothe me right now is that of fire.

I sit here in the Writing Center, where I work part time, trying to maintain some sense of zen, of calm. I imagine my feelings of helplessness burning in the flames, giving way to a death of emptiness and a birth of creative inspiration, buried within the pine cone of sheer despondency.

It's a desperate attempt and I feel as though I am losing the battle. Quickly.

As I sit and listen to a "meditation mix" of calming "nature sounds" I downloaded off i-tunes (an inherently paradoxical act altogether), I ponder my dream and my purpose.

I feel my passion slipping away and here is why: I have 3 degrees. A bachelors, master's and PhD. And I am now making less than I was as a graduate student. I hold on desperately to the adjunct position I have at a non-research university, hoping to one day earn a livable wage.

In graduate school, I studied, critiqued and analyzed, perhaps to a fault, the plight of exploited capitalist workers. My entire dissertation is a study of this logic. And I am faced with the exact same issue. And I can't seem to think, or write, my way out of it.

What is this capitalist machine that drives the world, that utterly devalues artistic integrity and the intellectual mission? These are two things I have always been passionate about and now I am beginning to feel such a level of despondency, I'm not sure what can happen next.

I used to vehemently write about fighting the "man," resisting the capitalist machine and, at all costs, holding onto our dreams. But at the time, I had a spark of hope inside of me that ignited my path. I was a graduate student, a young fledgling learning to fly, being groomed for her flight into the world. The entire future was before me.  Now that I am on the other side, now that I have earned my wings and am experiencing the true dismissal and devaluation of my discipline, my degree, I can't seem to find that light anymore.

I have a healthy CV with relevant and prestigious publications; I have pages of conference presentations, administrative experience and over eight years teaching at the university level. I have won numerous awards for my writing talent; I was one of the top students in my PhD program and all of my mentors believed I would land a tenure-track position at a top research-institution. Or, at the very least, a sound liberal arts college.

I don't say this to show off my abilities or talents. I am offering this as an example of how utterly unfair the American educational system is. I know I worked very hard, I know I am a talented intellect and writer: this is why I chose to pursue my passion. Anyone who worked as hard as I did, and has the level of credentials as I, deserves, at the absolute very least, a livable wage.

But I am not even making that.

I received a depressing email from my Department chair today. He (sadly) let me know that one of my courses for the Spring was cancelled. I absolutely count on that course to scrape by.  Without that course, I will need to pick up a serving job at a restaurant. At age 30, a woman, a doctor, with 3 college degrees and multiple publications will need to start over--as she once did when she was 18.

I know I am not alone in this situation; I know there are hundreds, thousands, of un/underemployed higher education graduates who are in the exact position as I: some worse, some a bit better. I suppose I ought to be thankful that I even have my foot in the door at any academic institution. But my situation is incredibly precarious: as we already see, my class can be eliminated in an instant. If budget cuts hit our department, I will be the first to go.  On the flip side, I am too specialized and, in many cases, over-qualified for jobs outside of academe. I have tried looking into the non-profit sector and other related fields. But my experience and degree does nothing for me.

I realize I should continue writing--now is the time I should channel my despondency into fiery, creative energy. Indeed, some of our greatest writers have written from within that space. But as I lose my economic stability, I feel my creative energy seep out of my cells. I long for a sea change.

On (Student) Apocalypse

The other day, I decided to have my public speaking students (college level) compose and present a speech about what they would do if there were an apocalypse. They were each given a random object and were to present their ideas for innovation to the class.

I gave them 40 minutes and told them to be as creative and imaginative as possible. I told them to envision their future: imagine obstacles, people they may encounter, how they would rehabilitate the land, the earth, using their skill set.

I was excited about the prospect of their speeches. Once I heard them all, I was saddened.

In every single scenario, a student wrote about finding an empty Wal-Mart, Target or King Sooper's. Once entering each abandoned consumer hellhole of choice, students looted what was left and either stayed there or magically discovered a car, which they miraculously hot wired, and drove off to some distant civilization.

Not one student thought about survival skills; not one student considered cultivating the land; not one student considered the environment itself: water, animals, farmland, trees.

This scares me. Even in a post-apocalyptic world, when capitalism has crumbled, when consumer culture has become obsolete, students still gravitate to the remnants, the ghosts of the capitalist world. They would rather pillage an empty Wal-Mart for cans of tuna and insta-mac n'cheese than move to an open space and begin an alternative community, which would involve arduous labor, farming, agriculture.

I don't blame the students for this, I blame the current state of our techno-capitalist consciousness; I blame our education system that prides itself on consumer culture, business, corporate monopoly, and marketing; I blame our American leaders, who propagate false ideals of economical gain, world power and exponential capitalist growth; I blame the West in that it has all but eradicated the importance of the arts and has transformed Hollywood celebrities, political pundits and reality tv stars into modern gods and goddesses; I blame our open acceptance of an easy culture where everything is handed to us, where an ecological ethic is marginalized and pushed aside for those "liberal tree huggers"; I blame free-market global capitalism that imports cheaply produced goods and exploits poor, third-world minority workers; I blame American apathy, in every sense of the term.

As an educator, I feel an even greater responsibility to educate my students on the importance and vitality of the imagination. But in an age in which students are anxious to update their facebook statuses, watch the latest episode of Jersey Shore and tune out the world with their I-Pods, my battle becomes increasingly insurmountable. When I present my students with the complexities of Modernist art, the Dadaist Revolution or the feminist poetics of Adrienne Rich, students roll their eyes in frustration, in boredom. And it pains me, to the core, to see such a sea of apathy rising before me--as I truly believe that art enables the human mind to expand and appreciate the world in ways beyond the sheer limitations of our ego-ideals.

Is there hope for us? I am a dedicated warrior, armed with my passion for the arts, ready to continue my journey. But I can't help but feel saddened, defeated and worn by that which we are faced against: utter human listlessness.