Spinning my wheels
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I was looking over my list of essays I'm working on and articles I'm planning to write and it occurred to me that I've wasted a lot of time this summer and fall and all of them could have been finished by now. On further reflection, its probably just as well. Almost invariably, every one of the items on my back burner is something I've gotten some recent insight on, or have expanded into something bigger. In a preface to "Of Human Bondage," W. Somerset Maugham tells the tale of how he had originally written the story that became "Of Human Bondage" when he was a young man. If I remember correctly (I can't find my copy of the book at the moment) his publisher rejected it. His point was, writing much later in his life, that with a bit of maturity and distance, the story became something much different, and considerably more complex than what he had originally written. Although I am not in any way comparing myself to Maugham, I hope that something akin to that process is occurring with my back-burner essays. Of course, it could be just that I'm intellectually lazy and don't want to expend the effort... by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, October 24 2003 09:57:46 PM

Site problems
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I just noticed the archiving problem has popped up again. It only seems to happen when I have a week where I didn't make an entry. I've checked the discussion boards at the software source, but haven't been able to find a remedy. It probably doesn't matter. I don't like un-indexed archives anyway, so I may scrap the whole thing and do something a bit more labor intensive. I've been contemplating a web site overhaul, so I may just add that to the project.by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, October 23 2003 10:05:52 PM

Belated tidings from the Ratlands or: Time to Bail
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As I sat down to write tonight, I noticed that it has been two weeks since I last wrote anything. That is, perhaps a measure of how unsettled things have become here in the Ratlands. It is also a measure of a creeping depression that has begun to set in. I've been through some bad times at work, but I always said that if I wake up in the morning and just can't bear the thought of going to work, I have a problem. I also said that if it got to the point of me feeling that way 3 out of 5 days in a week, I would resign and look for something else to do. I've managed to plug along for nearly two decades because below all the extraneous noise on the surface I really believe that what I do for a living is a good thing. We do make a difference. We do make things better. If we weren't in operation, things would be worse than they are. So I've kept going through difficult times and have been able to do so because I work with good people who also believe in what we are doing. I learned a long time ago not to take what individual clients do personally. I don't take credit for their successes and I don't feel responsible for their failures. We are in the business of providing opportunities and when we do it right, sometimes good things happen. Sometimes they don't. It depends on the individual client and whether or not they choose to take advantage of the opportunities. But, when we have done a good job, we have identified the most important issues and have provided the appropriate opportunities and more often than not, clients choose to make positive steps. We have now entered a period where doing a good job is becoming increasingly difficult. On the surface, things look pretty good. We have been together for quite a while. We are as much on the same page as any 8 individuals can be. We work well together. But under the surface, we are starting to fall apart. It isn't a matter of not doing a good job. My people are doing an outstanding job with the clients we have with the resources available. The problem is that they simply can't keep up the level of effort they have been expending for much longer. In the past, when we were presented with new challenges, we went looking for new resources. In general, it was stressful until we identified the available resources, got comfortable with the providers, and then the process sort of settled down into our regular routine. (I'm not sure that makes any sense. It does to me, but I'm not sure it will be clear to anyone reading it, but I don't know how else to describe it...) Now there are 4 basic areas of focus (sort of): We deal with issues of criminality. We deal with issues of substance abuse and addiction (which overlaps significantly with the criminality). We deal with the special issues of sex offenders (also an issue of criminality, but the attendant risk to the community and the necessity of specialized treatment programs put sex offenders in a class by themselves). And we deal with issues of mental illness (the clients, not the staff...). What is killing us is that increasingly, the resources necessary to successfully work with our clients just aren't out there. We don't have the funding to provide them ourselves and the community resources who would have provided them in the past are in as bad a shape financially as everyone else. So to get anything done, it takes more work, more effort, more persistence, more time, more energy. While we know what we are doing and how to do it, and manage to continue to do amazing things with our clients, my staff are getting worn down by the frustration and effort involved in getting necessary treatment and opportunities for our clients. And I don't have any answers for them. I can't fix the problem. I mostly don't seem to able to do anything helpful. So when I woke up this morning, I was miserable. I didn't want to go to work because I knew it would be more of the same. I had a really bad headache and I seriously considered calling in sick. I didn't, but it took 2 cappuccinos and an hour of feeling guilty to talk myself into showing up. This is four mornings in a row now, and I have passed the benchmark I set for when it was time to get out. I've had a draft of a generic resignation letter on my computer for several years now, but I didn't use it today. I'm not really sure why. by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, October 23 2003 09:03:07 PM

... and then depression set in.
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A few years ago (or rather, several years ago, now that I think about it) I went to a Phish concert. We were in the stands on the right side of the auditorium in direct line with a stack of speakers. It wasn't the loudest concert I've ever been to, but I had never been that close to a stack of speakers. The sound was a tangible wave that I could feel against my body (and no, I wasn't smoking the same green botanical substance most of the other Phishfans were smoking). The sensation of being able to feel the sound on my skin was almost synesthetic (except that it really isn't a sensory crossover). The reason I mention this is that I am currently experiencing something very similar, except that instead of sound it is emotion. I'm just getting wave after wave of depression and the sensation is an almost tangible pressure. Something like facing into a gusting wind. I don't really know how to describe it, and I don't think I've come anywhere close. And, in the grand scheme of things, it really isn't important. The only reason I'm writing about it is that when I stop to write about it the sensation goes away for as long as I'm occupied with the analysis. (Hey, we all need a break occasionally, right?) I haven't written too much about it, but I have had an ongoing problem with depression for at least 25 years. Please note that I'm not using terms like "battle with depression" or "fight against depression" or "chronic depression". I'm trying to avoid hype and melodrama and the sort of daytime, talk-show, personal crisis verbage that is so popular in our culture. I'm not a victim. I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. This is just who I am. It kind of sucks, but that's the hand I got dealt. It could be worse. I'm not a "heroic figure engaged in a noble struggle against incredible odds," or any nonsense like that, I just deal with depression. So anyway, the mental vacation is over. Now I need to get back to working on a proposal for work. by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, October 09 2003 09:20:26 PM

New Link
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I am not an enthusiastic linker. You won't see dozens of links in my sidebar, because I am selective about what I recommend to others. But, I have added a new link on the left. It is to a website called Front Line Voices and it may be the most important link I have. FLV is a web site that consists of letters from soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is important. Read these letters (especially this one) and tell me we didn't do the right thing.by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, October 04 2003 09:51:27 PM