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When the future is everything, how do you deal with it being put on hold?

Anonymous — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:20:52 -0800

I tire of the summer hiatus from academia. I live with a very strong work ethic and moral sense of duty that causes me a sort of existential crisis when my life seems to be put on hold. This feeling cannot be ignored, and cannot (seem to) be reconciled. Do you have similar experiences? I'd love to hear stories... I'm a 21 year-old university student, majoring in psychology, with a whole lot of ambition, and a genuine lust for knowledge, transcendence, and the betterment of man.

I spend most of my time during the school year working incredibly hard in academia because I thoroughly enjoy it, and feel it is the best way I could possibly spend my time to meet the above moral ambitions. When I'm not working on academics, I'm working on making money because I am a poor college student with ~$30,000 in debt and I scrape to live paycheck-to-paycheck while putting some away to pay this off. These are pretty much the only two ways my time is spent (I admit to kicking back at night with the occasional movie with my girlfriend who is very much like me, or videogame, or leisurely book).

The thing is, even during the summer when, apart from work (which is a mere 25 hrs a week), I have all the time in the world, I just can't seem put away my tireless work ethic that I've spent the other 8 months living with to the side and relax. I get restless about wasting time, so I spend some of it reading non-fiction literature, and the rest wondering how I should spend my time.

I feel like I'm isolated from the world and contributing nothing to it, which is is partly true because as a university town it empties out during the summer when everyone else goes home, but with my on-campus job I can't do the same.

I'm not looking for psychological advice, or "go see a therapist" comments. This is a completely different matter. Have you been in a similar situation at all? I imagine I'm not the only one who takes the future and academia so seriously. How do you console yourself during the restless period of the summer?

Have you been in this same mental space and read a book that turned your world on its head? I'd love to hear some recommendations or similar stories.

How do secularists deal without the comfort of religion?

giggleknickers — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:33:46 -0800

Religion fulfills certain psychological needs. How do non-believers manage without it? I'm an agnostic and I am constantly finding myself jealous of religious people. I think that religion fulfills many psychological needs and I'm definitely feeling the effect of not having those needs fulfilled.

I long for ceremony, ritual, rites of passage. I want a temple to pray at even though I have no one to pray to. I want to do that thing where the Christians all go down the aisle and take turns eating and drinking symbolic stuff. I have no idea why, but those things just seem to lift my spirits so much and I feel down without them. I was trying so hard not to fall asleep through the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha," but I perked right up when they started talking about making everything into a ritual as a means of making the mundane enjoyable.

They also help tremendously for the sake of focus. I'm tossing around the idea of getting a Wiccan book and doing a spell for any goal I have. I wouldn't actually believe in the magic, but doing a spell to improve my career would make such a difference in helping my focus on the goal and feel good about it.

I want something to cling to. I want some equivalent to "God has a plan" and "The lord will provide." I have heard religious folk saying "The lord gives me strength." Where am I supposed to find that kind of strength? Where does it come from? Where am I supposed to get it? I would love so much to be able to have some idea to concentrate on to help me struggle through hard times.

I want a guide for how to live. I wouldn't follow it blindly on faith. I would certainly do some picking, choosing, and editing of such a guide. But having to come up with it completely from scratch makes me feel so lost and confused.

I want some meaning handed to me. I get frustrated with people who say secularists can't possibly have any meaning in their lives, because I believe that a person should have their own meaning instead of the meaning some higher power handed to them. Still, they almost have a point. Coming up with your own meaning is hard. I want something external to help get me my meaning.

SO, after all that blather, I would like to ask my godless brethren how they fill these holes without religion.

Help me find a new city.

Eddie Mars — Tue, 03 May 2005 14:46:34 -0800

My wife and I are contemplating a move to the North-Eastern US. We currently live in Southern California and know nothing about the area. My wife is an opera singer (soprano) and her career is just starting to take off...trouble is all the good gigs are on the other coast. We'd like to move somewhere that's within an hour or two commute from NYC. I'm a network admin and would be looking for similar work while I finish my degree. I haven't picked a college yet; I'd go with whatever is close to where we move.
We've built enough equity off the crazy housing market here to afford a house in the 200 - 300k range. We're looking for small to mid-size cities, definitely not suburbs, but not Manhattan either.
(Oh, and before anyone asks, we both grew up in the upper Midwest, so weather is not a deterrent. Not much of one anyway)
Help us right-coasters! Where should we be looking? What's a good city for a married couple, no kids, looking for a fresh start?