Too much change!
Walt wants to know what’s truly life-changing and what isn’t. I tell you what, graduating school, moving cross-country, and starting a new job is bloody life-changing, that’s what! I’ve had so much change happening lately it’s almost painful to think about more.
But I’m usually up for a thought-experiment, so let’s see.
Publishing a book or keynoting a conference would earn me dinner and some job publicity, I think. The book thing keeps almost happening—the part where the publisher says “Hey, wanna write a book?” anyway. Haven’t gotten beyond that part yet, but I may, someday.
I would blog with bemused snideness about nomination to Who’s Who or an honorary doctorate (which I would decline, and y’all may hold me to that on the extraordinarily remote chance it should happen), and then I would fixedly ignore it. I can’t help what other people do to publicize it, but I can certainly refuse to assist with its publicity, and I would do so as much as possible.
A big honkin’ library award would get the cash honorarium spent on a party, because why not? And of course job publicity’s a given there.
A MacArthur grant? Excuse me while I howl with laughter. Just not going to happen.
Winning the lottery would make me step back and think a bit before going public, but not so much because I’d want to change my life completely as because I’d want to figure out how not to. I like what I do. I like the people I work with. I like the problems my work poses me (yes, I do, as much as I whine about them), and I like the impact what I do has on the world. Metric tons of money would do their best to disrupt what I like about my worklife, and I don’t want that.
So I’d keep my mouth shut, if possible, until I had a plan in place.