This past year, I watched a Louis C.K. stand-up routine that had been recorded a few years ago. I also watched the entire Horace and Pete series that he created. I found the latter to be somehow beautiful and meaningful. The former, though, made me laugh not once, smile not once; it seemed like a bunch of immature and insulting potty jokes. One was more about scatology, and the other more about eschatology.Very same artist, though.
I look back and wonder whether or not I have presented analogous personas to my students over the years. There were times when I felt like I needed to appease the students, pander to them, to varying extents. I had to earn a living--perhaps like Louis C.K. did. I wonder if he felt like he needed to take a shower after doing such shows. Did he feel the same regret that I did?
I hope I never again have to do that. I want to be better, authentic. Is it possible to be authentic? Is it possible to be inauthentic?
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be," as one of Vonnegut's characters said.
And Prince said, "Don't talk down to your audience. That way they can grow with you.... You have to challenge them.... You're going to get the audience you deserve."
Yet Prince, it now seems, was pretending. He was telling the world not to use drugs, telling the world that he didn't use drugs. Maybe it was acceptable and good, because he was pretending to be someone "better" than he was?
Not one of us walks around naked, speaking Truth all the time, writing Truth all the time, being Elegant all the time, do we?
I just wonder what I'm supposed to do.
I had a wonderful high-school English teacher. She did such a great job, I placed out of First-Year Comp when I arrived at college. She had a poster in her classroom that had a reworded version of this quote, nevertheless attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. It said:
ReplyDelete“Be careful who you pretend to be. One day, you may wake up and find that’s what you are.”
This is extraordinary good advice for high-school students of all kinds, which is no doubt why she had it posted. It was particularly good life advice to me, since high-school was the period of my life when I had the least opportunity to be involved in astronomy, aside from my own reading. I therefore pretended to be an astronomer, and now that’s what I am.
Impostor syndrome is very common among academics. Probably more than half of them get it. I’m one of the lucky few who don’t. I attribute this to having become interested in astronomy when I was five years old. I simply have too much of my self-image in it. My girlfriend is similar: she’s a professional singer, and got interested in singing when she was three. She didn’t even know what impostor syndrome was: when I told her how common it is among academics, she was amazed.
A problem is that, over the years, this has made me vulnerable to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous bosses (although it hasn’t been a problem since I got tenure). On the other hand, if I do a bad job at something astronomical, I don’t get a flash of panic that I’m not really an astronomer. I know I am one: I just need to do a better job, next time. It reminds me of another Vonnegut quote:
“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.”
Here in Fresno, this is particularly good advice.
A famous professor at Dartmouth, Jeff Hart, used to hate Vonnegut. He may still. I agree with Jeff that Kurt isn’t as good as Shakespeare, but Kurt has his moments.
Yes, it is possible to be authentic. What matters is the work you produce. Inspired is as inspired does, you know.
What an excellent idea for a discussion. I love the example, it makes your question quite clear.
ReplyDeleteI also hate this because I'm cringing thinking of a time I told a joke I shouldn't have because I had a class in a toxic culture and I had become literally afraid of them. While I was terrified in the moment, there's no real room for sympathy because there had been warning signs that the atmosphere was sick and that I might want to go ahead and quit, despite what I feared it would do to my reputation to quit in the middle of a term. The day I felt like I had to say something off color to stop one of them from following me to my car was the lowest moment in my entire career. Seven years later I still feel sick (mostly about myself) whenever that institution appears in the news (which is frequent because it is FUCKED UP).
In a less shameful stream, I have become a character that I don't love, but don't loath. A cross between Miss Frizzle and Lenny Briscoe. A student once said "You're so weird", not in a malicious way, but as soon as the words left his lips you could tell he was sorry, it was like his thoughts sneaked out of his mouth. The whole class was silent and waiting for me to get mad - I just laughed like Quint from Jaws. They stayed quiet and we had an awesome rest of the semester.
I found it hard to be myself the year I was up for tenure. Louis C.K. has had a really wide range over his career (I’ve seen him talk about some of his less funny / successful stuff somewhere). I’m sure I was still relatively close to my authentic self – whatever that is – during my push for tenure, but it was a disturbing time.
ReplyDeleteBut as an introvert who doesn’t seem at all introverted when teaching, what can I say about authenticity? I’m less Prince and more Jona Lewie.
From what I heard, Prince was taking pain killers for excruciating hip pain. Thanks to his religious beliefs, he wouldn't have hip surgery because of the risk of needing a blood transfusion so treating the pain was his alternative. One more example of religion fucking up people's lives.
ReplyDeleteIf I may appropriate the metaphor (or actually hijack the discussion?): the stand-up routine and the tv series seem to be two things for two audiences. And for me, at this point of my career, I see two parts of my job: relationships with my students and with my colleagues. So I am very different with my students than I am with department colleagues.
ReplyDeleteI first started thinking about it a few years ago when a student said in reply to my inappropriate comment before the class started that I am the lone goose in the department "stop: everyone loves you." I had to say, " no, no; that’s not true."
I love teaching, and although I complain about the three or four students out of seventy that drive me crazy, I welcome and enjoy my time in that funky old classroom. I want to believe that there I am closest to the person I imagined myself to be twenty years ago. Not every student “likes” me of course but with them I am authentic, pleased to be with them, to try to engage them, to try to teach them. I never have to fake it.
With the colleagues? I grew tired of faking it. I assume that I now come across as a silverback (albeit a quiet, passive one), the entitled, contrary full professor who's not engaged, who’s plodding along, etc. Why? I no longer can pretend to care about the provost, that power committee, the assessment charts, etc. Privilege allows me to be--that I acknowledge, often guiltily (usually when I see the way this campus pressures “contingency faculty”). I no longer fake it. I no longer say much in department meetings, and other “senior” colleagues demand that I serve my role by taking “leadership roles,” which means have more visibility on campus.
I'm more myself in both spaces. But I will admit that I wish I were able to pretend to care about campus politics, the faculty senate, the dean—who is…I forget.
TPP Thanks for bringing up acting w/colleagues. I was only considering how I portray myself with students. I definitely migrated toward a more authentic me with colleagues. I'm probably too blunt, but at the end of any meeting, large or small, I usually walk away feeling like the no-frills Sally Field "They tolerate me - they really really tolerate me!"
ReplyDeleteI walk away from meeting thinking--no one retiring from a job will ever make everyone involved so pleased as I will :)
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