Zombie and Foster,
I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you say. Were it not for this board, I .... well, I don't know what I would do.
But remember that you have seen pretty much the good side. The Wade as he's been striving to release both his inner priest and his inner dickhead, the Wade who's been striving to stop listening to the values and advice of third-raters, to stop worrying far too much about what "they" say and start putting my non-mainstream beliefs and ideas out there.
They say you learn more from failure than from success, and I tend to agree. I'm convinced that without some rather spectacular personal and professional failures, I would be just another pretentious asshole full of himself at a third-rate school, and, most days anyway, I'm glad I've had the tempering those failures have given.
Without that tempering, I would not have ever seen my shortcomings, and without that tempering I never would have had the courage to go forth as much as I have the last five years in putting my unPC and unmainstream ideas out there.
But when you've spent most of your life being a wuss wanting to please "them," you also relapse with some frequency. When you've let yourself wire your house their way, you're always discovering pieces of the old wiring. One bad habit is tough to break. I've got as least a dozen.
Its a tough process.
And, unfortunately, those failures didn't just come with tempering, they come with negative consequences for future possibilities. When you've made choices for a couple/three decades that have excavated a big financial and mental and physical and professional hole, you aren't going to dig out in a year or two.
Take that blog zombie refers to. I'm proud of that blog. I think it has some of my best thinking and writing. But I really struggle to keep it up to date, because of the demands of the day job and the mom and because of the consequences for mental endurance of having gotten myself so physically out of shape.
And I've discovered that in some cases, not only did I develop bad habits, I've failed to develop some basic social and political skills.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why my employer gave me tenure. My student evaluations are at or below average; and even though I think such things grossly overrated as a measure of teaching competence, they are the major component in promotion-type decisions here.
And its been increasingly obvious that, with one or perhaps 2-3 exceptions, my colleagues have very little respect for my ideas.
Which is one of the (many) reason this place is so special for me. People here respect my thinking. I'm supposed to be in a profession where people value alternate opinions and the examined life, and its all so much bullshit: there is no place more conservative in its (lack of) intellectual openness than higher education. (Well, maybe the media or the halls of congress.)
But PackersHome defines openness and mutual respect for me. I've spend a couple decades with people who talk the talk. You guys walk the road everyday.
Foster said I was kind. But the real kindness is what people here seem to do as a matter of course -- the kindness of listening, the kindness trying to convince (rather than "make") people change their mind, the kindness of actually being open to people who disagree with you. The kindness of paying attention, truly paying attention, to what others say. If I come off as kind, I'm convinced a big part of the reason is that I spend time here with a bunch of kind people who have been giving me an example.
You've shown me that "smart" and "kind" don't have to be mutually exclusive values.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)