Does Working in Academia Suspended People in Adolescence?

Letter Thirty-Eight: Dear Academics in Suspended Adolescence

The life of an academic, whether you are in a liberal arts subject, medicine, or beyond, is rife with rejections, being underpaid, cruel comments disguised as feedback, a manufactured sense of urgency, and an instability for funding, for courses, for tenure, for location.

I can’t say those conditions bring out the best in anyone.

In fact, one could say, those are conditions that activate people’s fight/flight/freeze systems and color the world as less safe and the people around them as more dangerous. And what happens when people don’t feel safe and the world feels dangerous? The answer is certainly not know how to navigate relationships, power, and repair with a sense of maturity, kindness, and accountabilit