Musings

Monday is my new FAVORITE day because I’ve blocked it off on my calendar to focus on learning about animals. It certainly helps that I have a course to keep me on track (I have to stay on top of things), but the mere fact that I’ve been able to reduce my workload in order to do so, has been incredibly helpful.

Was it easy to go contract and stay with the same company, especially when I was needed? No. It wasn’t. It took over six months to get to the point where I could—to come to an agreement and sign a contract I was happy with that still allowed me to work in the industry with others if need be. I had to give my manager an in-depth understanding of what I did, of what each team member did, of the gaps that would need to be filled with me stepping back, and of what I wanted to/intended to keep doing with them. I also had to do this multiple times. I think it was very hard for my both my manager and HR to wrap their heads around my request given I had a good position in an industry that was also my passion.

Still, in the end we got there and though I may no longer have healthcare, a 401k with contributions, a higher paycheck, and the title that made me seem like “someone,” I have what currently feels more valuable than anything: freedom. The time to create, learn, experiment.

In spite of being a remote employee (and perhaps even because of it), my life had become nuts. I worked all hours of the day, counter to what many people think remote employees do, and I felt like I was expected to do this, in spite of what people said. Everything was always urgent and important to the higher-ups that had all the control. I burned out, hard. I’ve only had that happen once before, a decade ago when I was working for a software company and grappling with personal issues, as well as unrealistic expectations from seriously type-A bosses. This time it had everything to do with working too long and too hard, with not setting boundaries (or even feeling allowed to have them), with taking on too much responsibility, and with dealing with systems and processes that felt like they doubled my workload. I hit a point where even though I had a good job (not a bad salary, my passion industry, big travel perks), I wanted to quit.

The thing was, I used to love what I did, probably even worked so hard because of this. The job had made me pivot on it though. This hurt more than anything else. It made me nihilistic. It made me question what the point of it all was. And yes, while I should have taken an absence of leave, my previous boss (they changed my boss every six months), had done so and I didn’t feel I could do it too. Going part-time or contract was a solution I slowly came around to. It wasn’t honestly thanks to me, but rather thanks to friends and family who were perhaps more than a little surprised by my desire to just quit it all.

And yes, could I still be let go? Certainly. In fact, much more easily than before. But, I have time now to recover and begin working on the other things I want to immerse myself in, all while still receiving a paycheck.

The hard part is the days that I have to work. Those are still rife with stress and expectation. I think it will ease up as we get further away from specific events that make it more stressful but the big question then will be how it changes. I’m sure the company will eventually replace my role, though I’ve advised they should do it a little differently given what i know about the role, the organization and the team’s real needs. Hopefully this is taken into account.

All this to say, if you, like me want to pivot and have a security blanket (my partner works and pulls in a good salary and supports what I’m doing) I suggest you start thinking about that conversation I had. You never know, maybe they’ll go for it too. Buy yourself healing time and freedom like I did. It will be HARD at the start but even a couple of weeks in you’ll begin to feel better. Or at least I think so…

And, if you think that conversation was easy for me to have, think again. I put it off multiple times. I almost cried during it. I probably did cry during follow-up requests…it was hard but it was worth it.

I have become fascinated with eyes after finishing the chapter on spookfish in Jackie Higgins’ boo, “Sentient” and after learning more about scotopic vision, how it works for us, and its relation to where rods and cones are in human and animal eyes, especially in so far as they’re different.

The author is smart to have so closely connected animals and humans as what better way to illustrate how miraculous each of our senses is, as well as our physical bodies that process inputs like photons, sound waves and so on.

If, like me, you’re now curious about how vision works, this video does a good job of explaining things. It even mentions the pirate eye patch theory I talked about in my last post.

Once I’d learned a little more about the remarkable way our eyes work, and indeed how eyes of creatures that rely on seeing in the dark work, I began thinking about how awful scuba divers really are for the underwater world. Were we to dive with biology in mind, surely we wouldn’t do half the things we do?

For example, fish often have far more rod photoreceptors on their retinas, which means they’re very sensitive to light. Why then do we dive with focused beams and intense lights? Yes, we need them for night dives and murky cold water areas, but surely we don’t need the intensity? Surely a flood on low would be much better? No diving organization I know of advocates for diving a primary light that is a flood light because it’s better for the fish. Always the focus is on what’s best for the human (the pinnacle of evolution, unless of course you ask Justin Gregg, author of “If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity” in which case really we’re probably at the pinnacle of stupid). Never mind all the divers and underwater photographers and videographers who film fish and other invertebrates using strong video lights. Notice all those squinting octopus you see in underwater photos? Yeah, they’re not happy. Ever seen a cuttlefish do everything possible to try to get away from your light? Or perhaps an eel recoil? And, on a night dive, what about a sleeping fish, a shark, or a turtle jerk awake thanks to intense light, then smack into a rock as they’re temporarily blinded.

Unfortunately, it feels a bit to me like we bulldoze our own way of seeing the world into other worlds, when really we should be the ones adapting. If that underwater world is indeed light sensitive, let’s change the way we dive. Low floods, critter inspections from peripherals, and, if you’re going to take photos, use strobes so the poor fish aren’t blinded. I’m sure there’s more to learn in this realm.

It’s not just the underwater world that’s affected either. As I’ve moved on to the next chapter in Sentient—which is all about owls and our sense of hearing—I begin to wonder about places like the raptor center I visited in Eugene, Oregon. If an owl’s sense of hearing is so exquisitely sensitive, why weren’t there signs everywhere letting people know to whisper, or at least to be quiet? Surely for these animals kept in cages, it’s torture to hear kids running around yelling, or even loud conversations from adults? Never mind the fact that many of these centers don’t provide hide-out spaces for the animals so those not interested in seeing humans can get away. Truly I don’t feel like we build spaces that take an animals umwelt and innenwalt to heart. It’s time for us to change, not for the animals to change for us, not if we’re the ones rehabbing them, keeping them for science or conservation purposes, or indeed as companion animals.

One of the things I love about being in the greater Raleigh area is that Amazon deliveries come fast. Living in Wilmington, NC and Fort Walton Beach, FL was a nightmare as Amazon deliveries showed up a week later. Now, it’s next day or even same day.

Capitalism gripes aside, this morning I ordered a couple of packs of pastel-colored post-it notes, pastel-colored highlighters, and a set of 0.5mm Pilot Precise V5 pens. Yes, I’m a stationery nerd.

I wanted to have supplies to highlight my textbooks and add thoughts to them that wouldn’t ruin them. The highlighters are gorgeous and they’re double-sided, with one side being a pen and the other the wider highlighter nib.

I also intend to take some of the courses in my to-do list and write them on to the post-it notes, then stick those on my wall so that I have a real-life kanban board of sorts. This helps me easily keep track of what I’m working on and what I have on the backburner.

Right now I’m trying to keep it simple, though I’m dying to start some of the other courses on my list.

I’m just doing the Codecademy R class, the Qualitative Research Coursera class, and soon, the Animal Behavior class with UW (starts in a few days time).

This is all, I think, only possible because I’ve “gone contract” with my employer. It took months of planning to get to this point (sometimes I wish I’d just quit) but I’m hoping it will tide me over so that I have some income but reduced hours in order to allow me to focus on learning and studies.

I forsee next year being the start of my Masters, likely in England, and possibly after that, a PhD. But, at 38…it all feels like I’m chasing the clock…

I’ve started this blog in a somewhat secret manner. By secret I mean it’s not attached to my social media accounts. If readers stumble upon it fine but really it’s for me and I hope to keep it that way for now so that I can write honestly and openly. I want a space to catalogue the things I learn without the pressure of turning them into polished articles that are thematically appropriate for the site. This is the catch-all space intended to track my journey from one career trajectory into the next. Namely from a career in marketing to one in animal behavior and ethology. Perhaps even with a bent towards fish behavior and cognition.

I knew I wanted to make a pivot somewhere back in 2017 or 2018 but one thing or another kept me from getting started. First it was not wanting to take out additional student loans. Then it was knowing I’d have to take the GRE, a standardized test I don’t believe in. Then (and this one stuck for a long time and was perhaps most insidious) it was wondering what on earth I’d do with a degree in marine biology or animal behavior once I got it. Marine biology is an incredibly saturated market with every other scuba diver having a degree in it (so being a diver and even a dive pro doesn’t even make me stand out).

Finally, once I’d figured out that it would be best to apply for animal behavior programs given my interest in animal cognition and as most marine bio programs do not truly study fish behavior and cognition outside of marine mammals, I had real trouble finding programs that studied cognitive ethology. In fact, this is still a problem I’m dealing with. I think I’ll likely be best served to study animal behavior and then possibly also study marine biology and then (yes, another then) go on to formalize with a PhD and study in more depth.

So far the U.S., where I’m presently based, is looking pretty bad in terms of programs. Most programs related to animal behavior are supported in part or entirely by the agricultural industry, an abhorrent and abusive industry I want no part of. Help people figure out how to raise, feed and manage animals so they can be better slaughtered? No thank you.

Though I know animal welfare is an important sub-sector of animal behavior, it’s not where I want to focus given it’s close relationship to the ag industry. I know we need the people to make conditions better for animals in those situations however, so kudos to all those studying it. Hopefully one day we’ll live in a vegan world.

Rather, I want to focus on furthering what we know about animal cognition and behavior in natural settings, or indeed in relationship to humans. I do not want to focus on animals as widgets for use by humans. I want to help advance the science, help animals become recognized for the incredible conscious beings they are.

While I am finally registered to take an Applied Animal Behavior certificate through the University of Washington to truly dig into whether or not I want to pursue this course at the Masters level and possibly further, I still have a lot more to learn and to refresh. I need to bone up on my psychology research methods, need to take a statistics course, and need to learn R programming. I’d like to hit the ground running next year if I decided to go for it and do the Masters.