Maybe the situation is 99% my fault.
But what could I do? In Scandinavia I could have lived on my own and pursued my interests – they have good unemployment benefits. But what could I do here?
So do you work in a family business then, getting paid “pocket money” rather than a wage?
Is that why your previous attempts at leaving the nest failed, as you mentioned ?
Get a real fucking job like everyone else. I don’t usually participate in this threads, and when I do, I’m generally quite sympathetic, but if you can hold down a paid internship you can hold down a proper job and become a productive member of society.
Right now, you’re sabotaging yourself. You have been coasting along, content to do as little as possible, while rationalizing that someone, somewhere should support you. You are going to have to make the decision to do whatever it takes to get out on your own and actually support yourself. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be fast. But every day that you continue to coast along is another day closer to dying before you’ve ever lived.
Yes, your life would have been different if you’d studied something else. But as others have said, you can’t change the past. All you can change is the present and the future. And you won’t get different results unless you act differently.
All of us have done things in the past that we wish we could change. The main question is whether or not you’ll do something different.
After all the energy I hve spent getting my PhD, I should start from a blue color job? Thanks but no thanks.
Given that I only “work” few hours a day anyway I have planty of time to pursue my hobbies and talk online.
All good then.
Or you could, you know, get a job which actually requires a Ph. D.
I’m completely unclear on what the issue is, then. So take your Ph.D. and use it as a basis to write a few meaningless intern-grade contributions for your modest stipend, and pursue your hobbies with the rest of your time.
It really sounds like what you want is some lavish pension to fall on you so that Herr Doktor CCitizen can pursue his hobbies and hang out online. Not real likely to happen, even here in the land of opportunity. Merely hanging out in university classrooms and offices for 20 years grants no such reward.
If the OP meant it to be a hypothetical, the answer is a simple yes/no. If the OP meant to solicit advice? That requires a much more involved answer.
However, $500/month hardly qualifies as a high level job. That’s below minimum wage - by a lot. Even with rent and living expenses included as provided by the parents, unless he’s living a “Bruster’s Millions” lifestyle, it’s not exactly a “high level” lifestyle.
Why not a post-doc? Why not a consultant? Why not seek a position at a college as a professor? All we know for sure is that the OP is not satisfied with his intern position. The possibilities beyond that are endless.
Also. the OP’s demonstrated disdain for “blue collar” work guarantees that he will be (metaphorically) one of the first against the wall when the (metaphorical) revolution comes.
It’s really hard to succeed given that my disgust for mathematics is hard to hyde.
What are you talking about? Please explin.
I can’t see that you’ve spent that much “energy” in getting the PhD, given that’s all you’ve accomplished in twenty years. At least a blue collar worker is contributing something meaningful to society.
Is there anything for which I should be greatful to the American society?
I don’t think it’s your disgust for math that’s held you back but rather
a) your lack of motivation (Jewish or not, disdain or not, you are not productive)
b) your lack of imagination (Social sciences require math as well)
c) your inability to write properly
d) your lack of ambition
Okay.
When the Workers of the World unite and throw off their chains, it is expected that the parasites of society will be purged. Those who demonstrate useful skills, such as farmers, foundry workers, mechanics, etc will no longer need to tolerate the capitalists who feel entitled to live off their labour.
It had been common to the point of cliché to have this expressed by pseudo-Revolutionaries as “(particular example of the privileged classes) will be the first against the wall when the Revolution comes!”
I was using it metaphorically, as I do not believe a literal Marxist revolution of the proletariat is likely in these modern and decadent times. Television is a more potent opiate for the people than Marx ever imagined, and all class consciousness and revolutionary fervour have been bred out of the masses, leaving us with televised sports and Honey Boo-Boo.
I am Russian, Jewish and part of “Jewish intelligentsia”. I know lots of people who can be described that way. Not one of them lives with his parents all his life. Don’t blame that on the culture.
Is it possible to convert to Intelligent Judaism?
First of all, the word is spelled “grateful.” Those of us not in the so-called “Jewish intelligentsia” manage to learn to spell simple English words correctly. You might try it. Second, I said nothing about being grateful. I simply mentioned the fact that although the work those blue-collar workers (or blue color workers as you put it; spelling again) do is beneath a PhD such as yourself, they at least contribute something to society. You can tell they’re contributing something because someone to whom they are not related is willing to pay them money to do so.
I don’t get what your question is.
You want to be unemployed, so you get more than $500 a month spending money?
Or do you want to go back to school for a social sciences degree?
Find a meaningful (although, heaven forfend, not a demeaning blue collar job) line of work using your current degree?
It seems like you are approaching middle age, have long-term depression which is not being adequately treated, have always lived with your parents, never had a “real” job, have no friends and spent a shit load of time and money getting a PhD in a field that you’re not actually interested in.
You can’t do anything about the first and the last, but you can (if you choose) start making changes going forward.
I’d start with re-evaluating the treatment you’re getting for the depression/anxiety. /armchair diagnosis