A case of the Hmmmmmmm's
Couple things bouncing around my mind today, as I sit here revelling in the miracle of flex-time and awaiting the induction of Tivo into my life.
Existentialism
Last night, I was gripped by the occasionally recurrent feeling I have of general heebie-jeebieness. I tend not to get this feeling about much of anything, but there's one set of issues that always causes it to rise.
First, I think about death. What is it? What happens to us when we die? What will our experience be like?
Then, that always leads me to the thing that truly freaks me out. What is life? What is existence?
Getting the heebie-jeebies even now.
I've tried, unsuccessfully, to explain this whole gut-wrenching thought process to various people in my life. My mom, when I was a kid; my wife now. I'm not able to put it into words. I find myself foundering even now.
At the outset, I'm a Christian. As such, I have a true faith that, after I die, I'll go to heaven.
But faith is not reasonable, is it? It's my mind that I grapple with, even as my soul tries to be calm.
Because, what does it mean to live forever? What is this conciousness that's living now? Will I always be the same conciousness? If not, what will happen to the me that I know? What am I?
Do these questions resonate with anyone? I think if my dad were alive, they'd resonate with him. My dad was always someone who suffered the dichotomy between reason and faith. He spent many years researching Christianity, reading books about it, trying to figure out what it meant in the scheme of what he knew, or what he kne he didn't know. He died having expressed faith in the words in the Bible, but having still not wrestled his doubts into submission. He died, I think, with the same heebie-jeebies that I sometimes feel. Only, now, he knows the answer. I don't.
I remember philosophy classes in college, going through the works of some of the early philosophers. I was taken with Descartes, who found himself, I think, trying to resolve some of the same issues in his mind. What was existence? What did the fact of his being represent? Was it all an illusion? If so, who, or what, was being deceived, if anything?
He settled on the decision that he simply had to accept that he was, because no matter how silent he tried to make the world, he couldn't fight the fact that there was something pondering it all, and that something was him. "I think, therefore I am." I don't know that he ever settled the question of who the "I am" doing the thinking was, or resolved the significance of that thought in the eternal scheme, but at the very least he found something that grounded him when the heebie-jeebies hit.
Last night, not content to ponder what was bothering me any more than I had (thus spurring the knot in my stomach), I placated myself with a half-bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and my X-Box, then fell asleep petting my pooch. Not sophisticated, not a resolution, but it worked nonetheless.
Job Dissatisfaction
My wife, struggling with the various down-sides of pregnancy (fatigue, nausea, the occasional headaches), is starting to wonder how much she erally likes her job.
My wife went to nursing school with the desire to be a community health nurse, or perhaps to teach, or to work with kids. After nursing school, she launched herself into a fine opening career salvo by taking a job in the Pediatric ICU at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, up on Pill Hill. A year of that, and she was fried. The daily grind of going to where children were dying or near-death, working to comfort them and hoping to heal them, and coming home questioning herself on whether she'd forgotten the slightest detail which might cause a patient to die overnight, all combined to break her down. She spent nights crying herself to sleep. She had bad dreams about her job once she got to sleep. She woke back up again, in a panic, and often had to cry herself back to sleep, if she could achieve sleep at all.
She hated her job.
Her friend, JLowe's wife, had worked in Pediatric Oncology at Doerbecher at the same time, and burned out on that within a year as well. She jumped ship to the Red Cross, and my wife soon followed, both relieved to find a relatively low-stress vocation compared to what they'd had, but both knowing that they didn't want to settle in forever.
JLowe's wife jumped ship a month ago. My wife is now questioning how long she wants to stay, maybe spurred by the departure of JLowe's wife, but certainly with other reasons for looking. One thing is the schedule. Red Cross nurses are scheduled to work 40 hours a week. On average, they work 50-60. This is fine when you get the big paychecks, but when you're pregnant and having difficulty sleeping, the irregular hours and the long days don't go so well. Further, the job is not very taxing mentally. The wife has always felt a little guilty, thinking that she's wasting her education. I've always told her education is for opportunity, and as long as she's in a place she's happy, she needn't feel guilty. However, she's no longer happy, and that spells trouble.
What to do? Well, realizing that financially we're in no position for a shake-up, she's currently just trying to find a way to work an actual 40 hour week so that she can at least feel good physically. But she's also wondering about other stuff to do. She's thinking about ditching nursing all-together.
Not exactly what I want. One of the things I appreciate about nursing is that it's one of the few professions that primarily grew as a women's field, and as such there are generally many family-friendly nursing jobs out there. It's just a matter of finding one that fits. And, since she's the one that wants to, somehow, pare back her schedule, I'm hoping that she can find something that allows that while still bringing in the type of dollars that we need to keep us afloat (law school loans + nursing school loans + mortgage + car loan + dog + baby = ugh!).
I'm actively soliciting ideas, both nursing-related and not, for something that she can either replace her current job with, or use to supplement income while cutting back to part time. Feel free to comment.
Anyway, Tivo's still not here, dog is anxious to hang out, and I'm tired of typing. Off to enjoy my flex-time, keeping in mind the quiet knowledge that I'm paying for today's fun with a long, hectic tomorrow.
Catch ya later.
Existentialism
Last night, I was gripped by the occasionally recurrent feeling I have of general heebie-jeebieness. I tend not to get this feeling about much of anything, but there's one set of issues that always causes it to rise.
First, I think about death. What is it? What happens to us when we die? What will our experience be like?
Then, that always leads me to the thing that truly freaks me out. What is life? What is existence?
Getting the heebie-jeebies even now.
I've tried, unsuccessfully, to explain this whole gut-wrenching thought process to various people in my life. My mom, when I was a kid; my wife now. I'm not able to put it into words. I find myself foundering even now.
At the outset, I'm a Christian. As such, I have a true faith that, after I die, I'll go to heaven.
But faith is not reasonable, is it? It's my mind that I grapple with, even as my soul tries to be calm.
Because, what does it mean to live forever? What is this conciousness that's living now? Will I always be the same conciousness? If not, what will happen to the me that I know? What am I?
Do these questions resonate with anyone? I think if my dad were alive, they'd resonate with him. My dad was always someone who suffered the dichotomy between reason and faith. He spent many years researching Christianity, reading books about it, trying to figure out what it meant in the scheme of what he knew, or what he kne he didn't know. He died having expressed faith in the words in the Bible, but having still not wrestled his doubts into submission. He died, I think, with the same heebie-jeebies that I sometimes feel. Only, now, he knows the answer. I don't.
I remember philosophy classes in college, going through the works of some of the early philosophers. I was taken with Descartes, who found himself, I think, trying to resolve some of the same issues in his mind. What was existence? What did the fact of his being represent? Was it all an illusion? If so, who, or what, was being deceived, if anything?
He settled on the decision that he simply had to accept that he was, because no matter how silent he tried to make the world, he couldn't fight the fact that there was something pondering it all, and that something was him. "I think, therefore I am." I don't know that he ever settled the question of who the "I am" doing the thinking was, or resolved the significance of that thought in the eternal scheme, but at the very least he found something that grounded him when the heebie-jeebies hit.
Last night, not content to ponder what was bothering me any more than I had (thus spurring the knot in my stomach), I placated myself with a half-bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and my X-Box, then fell asleep petting my pooch. Not sophisticated, not a resolution, but it worked nonetheless.
Job Dissatisfaction
My wife, struggling with the various down-sides of pregnancy (fatigue, nausea, the occasional headaches), is starting to wonder how much she erally likes her job.
My wife went to nursing school with the desire to be a community health nurse, or perhaps to teach, or to work with kids. After nursing school, she launched herself into a fine opening career salvo by taking a job in the Pediatric ICU at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, up on Pill Hill. A year of that, and she was fried. The daily grind of going to where children were dying or near-death, working to comfort them and hoping to heal them, and coming home questioning herself on whether she'd forgotten the slightest detail which might cause a patient to die overnight, all combined to break her down. She spent nights crying herself to sleep. She had bad dreams about her job once she got to sleep. She woke back up again, in a panic, and often had to cry herself back to sleep, if she could achieve sleep at all.
She hated her job.
Her friend, JLowe's wife, had worked in Pediatric Oncology at Doerbecher at the same time, and burned out on that within a year as well. She jumped ship to the Red Cross, and my wife soon followed, both relieved to find a relatively low-stress vocation compared to what they'd had, but both knowing that they didn't want to settle in forever.
JLowe's wife jumped ship a month ago. My wife is now questioning how long she wants to stay, maybe spurred by the departure of JLowe's wife, but certainly with other reasons for looking. One thing is the schedule. Red Cross nurses are scheduled to work 40 hours a week. On average, they work 50-60. This is fine when you get the big paychecks, but when you're pregnant and having difficulty sleeping, the irregular hours and the long days don't go so well. Further, the job is not very taxing mentally. The wife has always felt a little guilty, thinking that she's wasting her education. I've always told her education is for opportunity, and as long as she's in a place she's happy, she needn't feel guilty. However, she's no longer happy, and that spells trouble.
What to do? Well, realizing that financially we're in no position for a shake-up, she's currently just trying to find a way to work an actual 40 hour week so that she can at least feel good physically. But she's also wondering about other stuff to do. She's thinking about ditching nursing all-together.
Not exactly what I want. One of the things I appreciate about nursing is that it's one of the few professions that primarily grew as a women's field, and as such there are generally many family-friendly nursing jobs out there. It's just a matter of finding one that fits. And, since she's the one that wants to, somehow, pare back her schedule, I'm hoping that she can find something that allows that while still bringing in the type of dollars that we need to keep us afloat (law school loans + nursing school loans + mortgage + car loan + dog + baby = ugh!).
I'm actively soliciting ideas, both nursing-related and not, for something that she can either replace her current job with, or use to supplement income while cutting back to part time. Feel free to comment.
Anyway, Tivo's still not here, dog is anxious to hang out, and I'm tired of typing. Off to enjoy my flex-time, keeping in mind the quiet knowledge that I'm paying for today's fun with a long, hectic tomorrow.
Catch ya later.
posted by Rusty at 12:59 PM
3 Comments:
Cindy is a pediatric nurse at St. Vincents. She only works 2 12-hour days a week but makes very good money. Would your wife consider going back into that field of nursing?
You will love your Tivo. If you do the month to month service and then call them like you're going to cancel it (listing price as the reason) they will knock your monthly sub rate to $6.95/month.
I understand your heebie-jeebies. That's all I can really say.
I understand your heebie-jeebies, and sometimes I can get caught up in them, too.
I am a Christian, as is my father. I talked with him about it. What he said made sense to me and made me feel at ease.
Denise's Dad: I believe your soul lives on after you die. I believe in Heaven as a place where you are an individual, but also part of a larger body of knowing. If you believe in God then you have to believe there is a Heaven.
Denise: But aren't you scared? Scared of not knowing for sure? Does it ever bother you?
Denise's Dad: No, it doesn't because if there are only two alternatives. You either die and your soul travels on or you die and cease to exist. With the first I'll hopefully go to Heaven, with the second I won't know any different anyway because I will cease to exist.
Although it helped me with a lot of my questions, I then of course thought about the realization that my parents are human and someday will die. Losing my parents is my source of heebie-jeebies.
That and rodents.
Denise
And So It Goes
"Rene Decartes was as drunken fart. I drink, therefore I am." (from Monty Python's "Philosopher's Song")
What about doing the Mr. Mom thing to take some of the childcare pressure off your wife? Sounds like it might be possible since you have flextime.
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