The Engine of Waking Life
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Anhedonia
15 min read
The author explicitly describes their depression as 'principally anhedonic' and spends significant time explaining the experience of numbness and inability to feel pleasure. Understanding the clinical concept of anhedonia would deepen readers' comprehension of this specific depressive experience.
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St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe)
15 min read
The author describes attending this distinctive liberal arts college in New Mexico that focuses on reading and discussing great books, which shaped their intellectual trajectory before becoming a teacher. Most readers won't know about this unique Great Books curriculum institution.
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Wassily Kandinsky
12 min read
The article opens with a reference to Kandinsky's 'Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2' (1913), suggesting the author chose this abstract expressionist work deliberately to frame their essay about depression and perception. Understanding Kandinsky's theories about art and emotion would enrich the reader's appreciation of this choice.
I don’t want to write about teaching high school English. But I need to write about being depressed. And for me those experiences cannot be neatly cleft, like conjoined twins whose shared skin shelters so much blood.
I once worked as a kid actor and kept at it until I was 23. I felt burnt out, lost, and useless. I filled my days with reading, using my newfound time to try to brute-force my way through a classical education. Then I read a charming essay by Salvatore Scibona about St. John’s, a small liberal arts college in New Mexico focused on reading and discussing great books. My wife and I visited classes and I felt at home, so we left Los Angeles and I started studying. The money I saved from five years of regular work on television was quickly immolated by tuition. After graduating, I didn’t feel my niche resume qualified me to work any job — but, as liberal arts graduates know, there is always teaching. And the state of New Mexico desperately needed teachers. After a few months of classes, I got my license and a job teaching English language arts to high schoolers at a charter school focused on “expeditionary learning” (that is, going outside). I went in with big plans and ideals, high on theories of pedagogy, believing my classroom would be an oasis of respect in a desert of inhumanity. I knew on paper that I could burn out and knew that many teachers quickly did. But I took the job anyway because I needed the money, respected the work, and would be working with adults willing to pretend again that I knew what I was doing.
In most American schools, new teachers aren’t provided much help. I was given a rough description of what my predecessor did, an outline of state standards, three days of training, and a lanyard. The school had lost its lease on its prior campus and now rented out half a megachurch on the south side of town. The workday’s basic structure was this: Wake at 5:45 a.m., carpool with another teacher at 6:30 a.m., teach class for six and a half hours — punctuated by a short lunch break and hour-long prep period — then carpool home and grade assignments. I had made up some
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