Existential Work Search

I’ve been searching for a full-time teaching position for a year now. I have sent out over a hundred applications and completed a dozen interviews. I have subscribed to several job hunting programs and get job alerts like this:

German and Patient Care Director are further down the page. WTF. I teach film, literature and philosophy. And these are my options?

I’m thinking it might be time to move on to something else. My latest idea is to go back on the road with The Dead and sell t-shirts. My best idea as of now: a silhouette of Phil Lesh with his trademark red, white and blue wrist bands, with a Wall of Sound background. The text: Turn Up the Bass, Phil.

Any takers?

Cixin Liu’s “The Three-Body Problem”

Like other great works of science fiction, Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem is flawed in its writing and yet notable for conjecture on the human condition:

Humans have surely invested more than $45 billion in saving species near extinction. And probably more than $450 billion has been spent on saving the environment from degradation. But what’s the use? Civilization continues to follow its path of destruction of all life on Earth except for humans. It’s impossible to stop the madness of humanity. (311) The most surprising aspect of the Earth-Trisolaris Movement was that so many people had abandoned all hope in human civilization, hated and were willing to betray their own species, and even cherished as their highest ideal the elimination of the entire human race, including themselves and their children. (317) The Trisolarian plan focuses on emphasizing the negative environmental effects of scientific development and showing signs of supernatural power to the population of Earth. They will also attempt to use a series of ‘miracles’ to construct the illusory universe that cannot be explained by the logic of science. After these illusions are maintained for some time, it’s possible the Trisolarian civilization may be a target of worship here. (360)