Today I realized something.

It is one thing to work in an industry that is “removed” from base-level reality. Most of us in the modern world do. Maybe something like insurance, or sales. You don’t run this risk of having your hand chopped off if you use a piece of equipment wrong, in the case of a metalworker, but you still have to deal with political systems and human nature.

It is quite another thing to work in an industry that is many times removed from base-level reality. The big one would be the government, and its many accessories. Like the university.

Being removed from any sort of physical danger from base-level reality, or even from the practical concerns of people in sales, wraps these industries in their own little bubbles. Absurdity bubbles.

Inside an absurdity bubble, you can go a long time without touching reality and absolutely nobody will notice.

I work in an especially insulated piece of the university.

So today I realized that not only do I work in an absurdity bubble, that bubble is inside another absurdity bubble which is inside yet another absurdity bubble.

(Basically it’s turtles all the way down.)

It also explains why I have a hard time demonstrating value in my job.

If I worked in sales, I could quote sales numbers.

If I worked on a shop floor, I could show you the product I created.

But inside the absurdity bubble, even my best productivity doesn’t create real value.

That, my friends, is crazy-making.