Everything was set until I actually read Mishima666's post about getting unread on OS…..

    Till then I was perfectly okay about the visits and kudos on the 2 pieces that I have managed to squeeze out on OS, in between my more important job search. I am very definitely out of the job that earns my bread and I love.  I have joined the millions in the unemployment lines and will keep my appointment next week at their “job-counseling” meeting, lest they cut it off.

    Heck! I could not even be angry at them for letting me go because “It was not me, it was the economy” they said. The Deputy Director looked at me sadly and said I could use her as a reference, since she recognized the good work I had done. She was nice! I tore up my cards which proclaimed my Assistant Directorship of Proteomics. I came back home got drunk and pulled out the old parchment that actually substantiated my status: Doctor of Philosophy! Just to be sure you know. It is a bit yellow with age but that’s neither here nor there. I digress. It was okay. The president was telling us that one of the long-term solutions to the economic crisis was to keep children at school. I had been there all my life… It would be right! I sang out “No no they can’t take that away from me!” Oh stop! I know the context is different but when depressed, I will take any context. After all the punches I have absorbed, this would be easy. So what if the lesser achieving “boys” had been retained. I refused to go “female” for this. I also managed to suppress the memory of the >400 PhDs in my year alone from Calcutta University, wa-ay back and the many of my fellow-Botanists who become bankers, housewives or immigrated abroad.

    When I was young I would appreciate the leaders of the time Nehru, Kennedy, Indira Gandhi, The Beatles, Ravi Shankar, Satyajit Ray, etc etc…. they were older, wiser and talented. All I knew was that I MUST make a difference. And then life happened. I got so caught up in the daily struggles that there was no time to think of the sand…. forget the footprints that were supposed to be left. I just kept learning, striving and forging ahead in Biology and dealing with everything else that came my way. Now, when there are 20 good years left and I am at the peak of my performance and expertise, the Queen has ordered “Off with her head!” and I cannot even make the bold comeback like Alice and say “Nonsense!”   I slowly accept my mediocrity and change the goalpost a bit and ask myself what “success” is? What after all constitutes the footprints? And how long will they stay anyway?  

    3 months have gone and even though I have been lucky to continue part-time at the Institute ( they simply cannot do without me! Yeah right!) I have not found a permanent taker yet.  People read my resume and raise their eyebrows at the skills, experience, knowledge and background but also at the level at which I was being paid, my title and I am sure, my age. They look appropriately sad and make sounds of compassion and empathy. Blaming the economy, they proclaim their need for someone junior. The more I assure them of my independence and creativity and the evidence from my publications, the more they turn away. At the sad funeral (Flight 3407 crash in Buffalo), spying a potential employer I desperately plunged in and introduced myself. He actually moved away! The stinging ignominy! I deserved that I guess, but my own survival instincts got in the way. My spouse reaches out and pleads with me to retire and save myself the unwanted pain. I was slowly coming to the decision...maybe that is the path I should take? Maybe it was time to make way for the next and simply fade away?

    Then I go and read Mishima666’s post. Its like the Malcolm Gladwell book “Outliers”. They have an actual reasoning as to why things do or don’t happen. Why the Beatles and Bill Gates succeeded or why the new posters on OS don’t get read. Now I am in a boondoggle....maybe the 10,000 hours I put into research still has a chance to lead to that new discovery, or if I write more, it will get better! Perhaps I can beat the odds? So many possibilities so little time!! See what Open Salon will do? This comes to thank you Mishima666, and Gladwell because I am back to hoping and looking ahead!

    I will trim my Bio tomorrow and start again. There’s no giving up in life….no simple fading away. Not yet… not just yet.