I certainly will concede there is a self-destructive aspect to this constant throwing-away / self-reinvention of myself, that I do. I quit one career – the whole database programming / computers / business intelligence reporting thing – that in some respects was going quite well. I take up another – teaching – which at the moment isn't feeling particularly successful.
Some people who know me have characterized this process as a manifestation of a sort of "fear of success." What this means… might be true?
I feel like I'm being a pretty bad teacher, right now. There's that aspect, which I was never in denial about, where the students all seem terrifyingly ungrateful for (not to mention, existentially uninterested in) what I'm trying to do. No, I never forgot about that. Little ungrateful twerps, they are – not so much as a "thanks for your efforts." Of course not. Did I ever properly thank my excellent teachers in high school? Not really.
And so as I walked home last night, for the first time since being here feeling a little bit underdressed for the chill in the air, I meditated on this: do I deliberately sabotage my successes so as to make my life more difficult? Why? Because I deserve difficult things? Because I feel I will only grow and become a better person by confronting difficult things? Working for HealthSmart was plenty difficult – I could have stayed there. Why do something differently and newly difficult, diving into an alien culture and language and taking on a job I was never sure I was very good at, anyway, only because I feel I "should"? Why deliberately revisit old ghosts – the "Korea" ghost of my military service here, the "teaching" ghost of my epoch in Philadelphia – which will present unpleasant challenges and memories?
The last question is easiest to answer: I can only assert a positive ownership of my own historical narrative by revisiting these old ghosts and putting them properly to rest. This was a central, conscious component of the choices I've been making for the last year or so. And it may be all the answer that's needed. Still…
Is this changing of contexts and situations really just about running away from myself? Lots of people would say, oh definitely. I would say it myself. But it's not that – I really don't think so. Or… not just that, anyway. We all have a fear of failure. But I think I may also have a different fear which is even more compelling: fear of boredom. Honestly, I may prefer serial failure to boredom. Obviously, success would be great – I don't know that it is really right to say, simply, that I fear success. But given the option between "failure and interesting" versus "success and boredom," I will always opt for the former over the latter. This is probably a defect?
This whole little blog entry is a meandering, repetitive failure at meditating on what I'm trying to do with my life. Plus, it's boring. So… argh.