Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Tommorrow will be better
Today was not a productive day. One of the many problems of being unemployed for an extended period of time is finding the motivation to do anything at all. No matter how much work I do in a day I will still be just as poor at the end of the month. I am usually pretty good at forcing myself to get stuff done for its own sake. The knowledge that if I do not write about things like Stalin's deportations that nobody else will keeps me from giving up completely. It seems like a moral obligation to counter the likes of Mark Tauger or just simple ignorance. I was kind of surprised last month when I discovered how few people knew about Stalin's ethnic cleansing of the Kalmyks. The total lack of any material incentives that comes with chronic unemployment, however, militates against doing anything at all. After all in such situations time is a limitless commodity. Things can always be done tommorrow and the economic consequences are exactly the same, nada. Today I never got my brain to get out of "manana" mode. Tommorrow I need to remind myself of the various non-material benefits being productive will bring me. I hate losing days because I did not have the discipline to work without financial compensation. By the way for any academics who hate their jobs I am willing to do all your work for $20,000 a year. Which by my standards is an incredible fortune. You can keep the remainder of your salary and all the benefits.
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3 comments:
I once had an idea to offer my research skills as a commodity for sale. Take, for example, the life of a medical doctor. There are mountains of information that they need to sift through and absorb. I love to sift through data looking for relevant material, especially on the Web. I would then gather the information in an easy to read format and present it to the client on a regular basis.
How much would someone be willing to pay for a service that could potentially save them many hours each week? Perhaps this could be an area of exploration for you as a potential interim stream of income?
Another thought was to teach at a charter high school. In many states you are allowed to teach without actually having the teaching license if you are an "expert" in your field. This is what I did the last time I was living in Tucson (two years ago), I taught at a charter school. Of course, I had my teaching license, but I knew of people who were teaching who did not have their license.
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