Breathing again

Some years ago, I was awarded tenure. This is not quite the ironclad guarantee of employment for life regardless of one's worth or work that many people believe it to be, but it is probably the closest thing to lifelong job security that exists on the planet. Like many honest academics, I'm sure (I hope!), I remember feeling some ambivalence about this. It wasn't so much that I felt that I didn't deserve it. I worked hard for it. It was more that I wondered whether anyone had that kind of worth. After all, given the kind of work that most academics do, we don't really need the kind of protection for which tenure was designed. Originally, the idea had been that universities (and society at large) did not want to have their thinkers fear job repercussions for any of their views. In short, we don't want academics to fear speaking the truth because they might lose their jobs. Now. Honestly. Can you imagine a scenario in which I might lose my job for asserting that animals use a certain kind of visual information to judge distance? Or that prey animals might communicate with one another to help avoid predators? It seems unlikely. But lives change. Ideas evolve. One never knows.

Nevertheless, I was pretty sure at the time (late in the last century) that though I was incredibly grateful for the gift of tenure and all of the freedom and opportunity it gave me, I would never have to use it, so to speak. I couldn't imagine having anything so controversial to say about visual perception that those in power would want to fire me. It seemed absurd. So, to thank the gods, feed my karma, salve my conscience about the fact that most other residents of the planet are not in a position to know what they're going to eat next week let alone where they're going to work next decade, I made myself a promise. I promised that if I ever had a chance to use my position to influence people, change minds, do good for the planet then I would. And if such a chance arose, I would use it to the hilt.

Today, I seem to have been given such a chance. I've been able to convince a very good publisher to undertake a firm commitment to shepherd my book through the editorial process, to promote it (and me) in such a way that I could bring some of the ideas that I've been carping about in this blog (and to my friends) to a wider audience. They're completely behind my effort to use my paltry ideas to promote environmental activism. To try to wake up a few more minds. If I can work hard enough to seize it, I've been given a chance to change the world, only by a little bit, but a little bit in the right direction. I can't begin to describe the feeling. It's a combination of euphoria and panic. Mostly euphoria. I feel as though I've been kissed by the universe, but I'm not sure whether I'm up to returning the kiss. I'm going to try. Soon, I'm sure, I'll be jaded. I've already been warned that there will come the day when I'll wonder why I ever thought any of this was a good idea. So I want to just sit here in silence for a few more minutes and listen to my pulse in my ears, feel that warm buzz in my belly, and let the tears fill my eyes.