A Fragmented Spirit

It's been a while since I believed in God, but I still can feel that soft reverence when I enter a beautiful, empty church: with the light streaming in from stained-glass windows; the wooden pews, smooth and solemn; the altar, ritually composed. The silence begs for singing.

I experience a feeling akin to this reverence when I enter a library -- but it's tinged with an ecstasy, a hunger. Sometimes I run to Wilson after class and chase after references made in a lecture, or connections I've found in a text. I plunge gleefully into the depths of the catalog, rushing (as quietly and inconspicuously as possible) from floor to floor in the search. Hours later, I emerge exhausted and half-crazed, triumphantly clutching a small pile books, thrilled with the potential of the words in my hands.

It is perhaps the unassuming, modest guise of the capitalist spirit which makes it so difficult to defeat. Yes, defeat -- because if I could, I would stamp it out of my life. It is already easy for me to pretend to be an anti-capitalist, through and through -- because I honestly do believe that it is that hunger for learning, that reverence for text, that keeps me in school. School is where I find meaning. And although I do hope to find a rather comfortable and well-paying job related to that degree, I don't want the job to earn money for the sake of earning money. I like to think of myself as a traditionalist, in Weber's sense -- I just want money so I can have a place to live, and have food to eat, and pay my bills. The reason I want to be a professor is not because of the extra money; it's because of the job itself.

But isn't that the epitomy of the calling? Weber doesn't drag the ideas of identity or self into his concept of the calling, but I think they may be relevant. I remember in middle school and high school taking tests which were supposed to help me find the career I was most suited for -- the job which was the most "me". For those of us who are too sophisticated (and I use that word with humor) to believe in God's plan, or God's calling, we satiate that secret need by pretending that our jobs are a natural extension of who we are. The job is not just a means of earning money; it is "the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling" (19). Moreover, though I insist I am not interested in making more money than I need, there is -- especially since getting married -- a sense that I need to earn more, to save up, "to provide for my children and grandchildren" (32). Even if I don't consciously legimitize the desire to earn capital as an end in itself, the desire for capital is legimitized anyway, because there seems to be no end to need.

There is a darker side to my library story. A professor (and good friend) of mine once scolded our class for not being more dedicated, more meek and driven students. When I was in college, he bragged, we used to spend 6 hours in the library! I remember feeling instantly defiant, because that's a silly and superficial way to measure a student's dedication and learning -- but I was also nagged by doubt, and guilt. And it is a feeling I still have: that if I'm not staying up all hours of the night writing papers, or if I'm not holing myself up in the library during dinner, I'm not fulfilling my duty as a student. I am not playing my role as completely and passionately as I should be.

The feeling is the worst when I get home from one of my library-book binges, realize how tired I am, and set the books down on the table. I know I will not get to them today, or probably even tomorrow. I know they will sit there for two weeks, untouched. My grade will not suffer because of it; my career will remain unharmed. But I will be less of an exceptional student, and I feel that being a worse student will make me a lesser person.

Weber wrote that for the capitalists, "business with its continuous work has become a necessary part of their lives. That is in fact the only possible motivation, but it at the same time expresses what is, seen from the view-point of personal happiness, so irrational about this sort of life, where a man exists for the sake of his business, instead of the reverse" (32). To learn, to be a student and an academic, has become my business -- and it is not enough to pass. I must earn more in every respect -- more knowledge, more recognition, and more skill. I often sacrifice my personal happiness in order to achieve this, and it never seems to be enough. I wonder, though, if perhaps my chosen profession also exists for the sake of me, and my happiness -- because clearly, academia gives me much pleasure. For me, I think, it is often the sharp divide between private life and 'professional' life which causes me the most pain -- and this, arguably, is also one of the effects of liberalization.