I am angry. I am angry most of the time anymore. Some of it has to do with kids at home, some of it has to do with the rampant use of chatgpt as work that students are turning in for credit, some of it has to do with the state of the world, some of is is about getting old and being old in a world where everything I interact with trends younger. There is probably more–discontent with my levels of success and debt to name a few–but the ones I mention live at the forefront of my imagination because they are problems that I have to find peace with not being able to change. Just before I started the blog for the day I was grading thesis statements which were ostensibly about personal matters in students lives. Many of the thesis statements, however, were pure AI. It was in the construction of the work. It was in how they blended out the personal. I cannot change these things. I can deal with them or not deal with them–though both cause varying degrees of stress. It feels like most of what surrounds me brings me stress as opposed to joy and that is just not a healthy way to live.
Balance. That is a healthy way to live.
I plan to spend the next 30 days discovering (or rediscovering) a sense of balance and learning how to maintain that in the face of the many many things that disrupt me in this world and in this life. As I said, I cannot change the things I cannot change. I find it very hard to accept them, but I must find a way to live alongside them; to exist in harmony with what I find unharmonious.
It may be time to bring back the singing bowls. Sound, always a powerful force in my life, is a source of harmony. Perhaps through that I will learn ways to exist in this space.