"Whatever I do, I want to be able to do it well. 98% of all academic employment will bar me from being able to do that. For the most part, the academic system itself necessitates mindless mediocrity. I just can't live with that all of my life."

Mulling this one over. This is the most comprehensible account he's given me yet. Not that his other explanations were crazy or anything - far from it. It's just that my personality didn't relate to them very well. I'm a fighter by nature, so the concept of difficulty doesn't always evoke a sympathetic response, no matter how much I want it to. I almost always regard every trial as an invitation to a duel, no matter how long and no matter how impossible it may be to win. Moreover, the claim that I don't understand how it is to undergo some particular tribulation doesn't help me to true sympathy, either, because in all honesty, given the same circumstances, I'd probably NOT feel the same way. I'd still be in the middle of it all with both fists swinging, lashing everyone with my tongue, loosing my wrath on all who stood in my way - - in short, giving people nightmares. Now, mitigating the severity of these personality-driven shortcomings is the knowledge that this part of my temperament can be good, and it can also be very, very bad. I am not typically at all lacking for spiritedness, but often it escapes the mean of courage and goes over into the extreme of wrecklessnes, trampling Christian charity and undoing all the good I may originally intend to work for.

Now, back to the above account, this does seem rather reasonable. Why risk dooming oneself to a life of academic mediocrity, or, dare I say, academic ineptitude, as it ought to be conceded that most standard-model academic institutions are far worse than mediocre? Most institutions fail of their purpose entirely - - teaching nothing, learning nothing, publishing ever increasing mounds of printed blather and never, even remotely, pursuing She who is called "Wisdom". Surely, one could draw much greater fulfillment out of doing something practical extraordinarily well? I always thought this when I was young, (sarcastically, you think, "When you were young? Pray tell, what are you now? OLD?" . . . okay, by young I mean "When I was seventeen.") bravely defending my theory that even the humblest farmer should be a philosopher. I was never disproven on this point, just distracted from it, and I still find it necessary to hold that every man, of every employ, should philsophize - not merely because he wants to further the progress of some academic field (whatever that means), but simply because it is the perfection of his human rationality to contemplate higher things.

I have observed in the past that my husband can really enjoy everyday work. Practical labor doesn't bore him at all, surprisingly enough, for all of his intellectual talent. However, there is no debating the fact that he is uncommonly gifted - his powers encompass a beautiful balance of the best virtues I ever observed in my classmates. He has similar powers of retention to those of Dr. Phil, as well as a similar depth, or penetration, to that of the fittingly-named wise man. Moreover, he possesses a quiet, soothing logic similar to Anna's (that is, if you are docile enough to be guided - his patience falls short of the saintly lady to whom I refer, but whose doesn't?). In some ways, it chafes me that these talents may go unheeded by the world, but then again that's very vain of me. My husband is not ambitious, although lately I've been forced to admit that maybe I am, and in that realization I must admit that I really am a very silly girl, indeed.

Terence, the Assitant Director of the library where I am currently employed, sympathizes with my husband's disappointments entirely. Terence has been a very interesting co-worker to associate with. He is uncommonly well-educated, having several degrees in mathematics, classics and medieval studies from some well-respected institutions in Canada (the University of Toronto and PIMS, to be specific) during their "golden ages" - i.e., a good long while ago. He likewise asserts that sharing and pursuing wisdom on an everyday level will likely be a million times more effective than attempting to do so in academia, where flattery and pointless publishing are sure to devour most of your time and energy, forever removing you from true leisure, which is a necessary prerequisite for real philosophy. "We work so that we may not-be-at-work" is a long-forgotten concept in Kantian academia, where even the intellectual life is thought of as a fever of dutiful and difficult productivity.

So, in short, I am reconciling myself to the changes that are most certainly coming, and coming soon. There is no doubt that they are the will of God.