What My Favorite Philosopher Would Say About How Much I Hate Online Teaching

The coronavirus quarantine is affecting all of us in different ways. That is to say: we all have different things we hate most about it.

Lately what I'm hating most is having to teach online, meet online, do author events online, to do everything in my life online. Why do I hate it so? Not because I cherish face-to-face encounters with other human beings (well, that too!), but because I AM ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE AT TECHNOLOGY. I AM THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD FOR ANYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH COMPUTERS.

I will skip my LONG list of things I can't do on computers and give just one example (well, maybe two). A librarian asked me to record a short video sharing one of my books with his students. "Sure!" I said. "But if I ever figure out how to record this short video, how on earth will I send it to you? Videos are too big to send over email." "Oh, just send it via Google Drive," he said. "Umm," I said, "what is Google Drive?" "Don't worry," he said, "I'll send you a video that tells you all about it." Fast forward through two weeks of paralyzing despair about even having to look at a video about Google Drive. Then finally I Googled "What is Google Drive and how do I do it?" Thank goodness we can Google to get information about how to do Google! In the end I made and sent the video. But only after a fortnight of excruciating dread and terror.

Then, for the two courses I suddenly found myself teaching online, I also somehow recorded videos of my lectures and managed to post them on the University of Colorado's instructional platform (only losing two of them into cyberspace in the process and having to record them all over again). When I watched my own lectures, I thought they were good. I was charming, in fact! And witty! And wise! All the good things! I posted them on the course website early because I was on a lecture-making roll. I could do this online thing after all! Lectures on Nietzsche! Lectures on Sartre! Then one student sent a timid query about when I was going to post the lectures. "I posted them ages ago!" I shrieked, via email. But apparently what was visible to me wasn't visible to them. There was this itty-bitty, teeny-weeny button I had to click to publish the darned things.

Okay, that is my rant. But now here is what Epictetus-the-Stoic, my most beloved of philosophers, would say in reply.

Epictetus has much advice about how we should behave toward tyrants, all relevant to my current woes. If the tyrant commands me to hold his chamber pot, I can either comply or refuse. If I hold the chamber pot, I will have submitted to his tyranny; if I refuse, I will get a beating and lose my dinner. The choice is mine. It's clear that Epictetus himself would not hold the tyrant's chamber pot, even if it meant being beheaded for his failure to do so. Epictetus didn't think being beheaded was all that terrible. If the tyrant threatened, "I will behead you!" he would be quick with a snappy retort, "Did I ever tell you that I alone had a head that cannot be cut off?" But the choice - to hold the chamber pot or not - is yours.

He gives less extreme examples, too. If you are invited to feast with a boring conversationalist, you have to decide whether you'd rather have a yummy meal while being bored out of your gourd, or skip the tedium and settle for mediocre fare at home: "Further, there are some morose and fastidious people who say, 'I cannot dine with such a fellow, and bear with his daily accounts of how he fought in Mysia: 'I told you, my friend, how I climbed the ridge - I will start again with the siege.' But another says, 'I had rather get a dinner, and hear him prate as much as he pleases.' And it is for you to compare the value of these things, and judge for yourself; but do not do anything as one who is burdened and afflicted and suppose himself to be in a bad way, for no one compels you to that."

Ahh, that's the crux of it. Do it, and get this; or don't do it, and get that. But either way: STOP COMPLAINING! When someone came to Epictetus and moaned, "My nose is running!" (this is an actual example from his Discourses), he replied, "What do you have hands for, but to wipe it with?!" And when the sniffler went on to ask why the world should have such things as mucus in it, Epictetus told him, "How much better it would be for you to wipe it away than complain!"

Okay, so what does this have to do with how much I hate learning about Google Drive? Or struggling with Canvas for my classes?

If I want to continue getting paid to teach in an increasingly online environment (and the current coronavirus crisis is only exacerbating the already ongoing computerization of everything), I'm going to have to get better at doing things on the computer. If I don't want to get better at doing things on the computer, it's time for me to retire. Ditto for making videos to promote my books. If I want to continue being an author in the world-as-it-is in 2020, I'm going to have to learn what Google Drive is. If I don't want to learn about Google Drive (and actually, it did turn out to be the easiest thing in the world), then I can put myself out to pasture.

Either way, it's better for me to wipe my nose than to whine about how terrible it is that my nose is running.

My tentative conclusion for myself is that I am indeed going to call it quits for almost all teaching at the end of this challenging semester and learn to live on less income each month. But I'm also going to work harder to keep up with the technology needed to continue as an author.

For now, I'm going to "Suck it up, buttercup" (which is NOT a quotation from Epictetus, but could have been.) I'm lucky I have a job generating needed income. I'm lucky I have a way of sharing my books via videos with young readers.

I'm lucky I have hands to wipe my runny nose.