Figured it out

These past few days I've been sad and unsettled and had an (uncharacteristic for me) feeling that "the good you do is essentially useless; no matter what you do to make things better, it's swallowed up like a drop in the ocean." That the world is bad and getting worse.

I think what got to me, what was the last straw, was learning about a former student of mine. This was someone who had done research with me who apparently did something pretty seriously unethical in their job, and while they wound up paying the price, they got another job somewhere that doesn't seem to care so much about ethics.

And that just makes me sad because I saw this person as a "success story" of our department, so it's shaken me to learn that they chose to do what they did.

And I think also it makes me feel as if "whatever good you might THINK you have done in the world, it can easily be undone and made so it doesn't matter."

I don't know. I will keep trying to do good, because God help me but I cannot do otherwise, but it's unhappy to think that what good you think you did might either have had no effect, or, perhaps, in some cases, had a negative effect.

And yes, I know, as I say many times here: the only person who's behavior I control is my own, and I did not choose for this person to do as they did. But I'd like to think my influence - our influence, as a department - would have done more. (And it's not, like, Jared-level stuff that happened; more like improprieties with financial stuff. Not illegal, but still)

I don't know. I think part of it is that ethics - doing the right thing - is so important to me that it feels a bit like a personal affront to learn about it.

I really wish the colleague who told me about had not told me. The news came after the super-depressing faculty meeting (where we were told about the looming budget cuts and the offhand admin comment about "I wonder how much we could cut faculty salaries before they start leaving") and it's like....I don't know, it's just like everything is messed up.

I've heard some Christians comment that there are SOME elements of Buddhism (particularly the idea of non-attachment and "letting go" of this world) that are in some ways allied with Jesus' teachings, and I can kind of see it. And I know I need to get better at detaching from this kind of stuff. Maybe if I had married and had kids it would have been different; I'd have  been coming home to something other than a quiet empty house and have something else to focus on.

I know I need to let this go but it's going to take some time. I'm still at the "Forget it all" (to euphemise a parody of that song from Frozen that's making the rounds, though "Forget" isn't the precise f word used) stage rather than the "Let it Go" stage - I'm still angry and hurting over this. More than I should be, I know, but for some reason this has really hit a raw nerve.