Academia attracts interesting people. Not everyone
in academia is interesting, but most,
and the people who are interesting
are very interesting indeed. Here in
academia I have met many interesting
people. We should support academia because
it allows interesting people to interact
and make the world more interesting.
They add interest to the world.
Like a savings account, or better,
like a diversified portfolio, an investment
in academia offers high interest rates.
But (and I'm currently on strike
from teaching an introduction to poetry
class, where students were learning that
this is called the poem's "turn"
until my employer decided they were
obliged to offer us starvation wages,
far below the cost of living)
academia wants you to forget that
other scenes attract interesting people too:
the arts, the bars, the church,
the living rooms, the spare rooms,
the picket lines, the message boards...
As academia starves you, remember and
revisit these other points of interest.