"'You wished to speak to me, Monsieur?'
"Ah, yes, as a matter of fact there were some things I wanted to say to you, but I'm not so sure now whether I shall. As far as you are concerned, I am sure that they could be the starting-point for inestimable benefits. But I can see also that they would bring into my existence, at an age when one begins to value tranquillity, a great deal of time-wasting, all sort of inconvenience. I ask myself whether you are worth all the pains that I should have to take with you, and I have not the pleasure of knowing you well enough to be able to say. I found you very unsatisfactory at Balbec, even when allowances are made for the stupidity inseparable from the image of the "bather" and the wearing of the objects called espadrilles. Perhaps in any case you are not sufficiently desirous of what I could for for you to make it worthy my while, for I must repeat to you quite frankly, Monsieur, that for me it can mean' (he hammered out the words with great force) 'nothing but trouble.'
I protested that, in that case, he must not dream of it. This summary end to negotiations did not seem to be to his liking.
'That sort of politeness means nothing,' he rebuked me coldly. 'There is nothing so agreeable as to put oneself out for a person who is worth one's while. For the best of us, the study of the arts, a taste for old things, collections, gardens, are all mere ersatz, surrogates, alibis. From the depths of our tub, like Diogenes, we cry out for a man. We cultivate begonias, we trim yews, as a last resort, because yews and begonias submit to treatment. But we should prefer to give our time to a plant of human growth, if we were sure that he was worth the trouble. That is the whole question. You must know yourself a little. Are you worth my trouble or not?'"
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 294-295
I know this seems like a conversation that I habitually have with the junior faculty, but in this case it's the words of M. de Charlus who decides to walk home with Proust from the interminable party. It is a bit confusing, but you can definitely tell the difference: I'm not normally much more dismissive of the junior faculty than M. de Gharlus was of young Proust. Having said that, I usually find myself taking a mentoring role with the new hires, which I guess is the appropriate for someone of my years of experience. It had never really occurred to me until I came back from my year in Abu Dhabi and my friend and colleague Chuck said that having me gone made for a tough year because there was no one to look after the new faculty. His point was that while I devote a goodly amount of time to teasing them, I also spend a lot of time helping them with their courses and the political landmine of the college. I thought it was a very nice thing to say, and one that made me reconsider my role on campus. It probably helps explain my role in setting up the Core Talks and the George "Honey Boy" Evans Symposium. Once they see past the normal play-acting of "That is so junior faculty" they figure out that I'm both a good resource and a key part of their support system.
And, of course, it's often most the same way with the students, although it naturally takes on a different form. I'm much more likely to repeated Proust: "But I can see also that they would bring into my existence, at an age when one begins to value tranquillity, a great deal of time-wasting, all sorts of inconvenience." Often students will ask if they can follow me on Twitter, to which I grudgingly agree (as if I could stop them, the little knuckleheads), and then they ask me if I would follow them. That is really when I become M. de Charlus (not entirely, obviously, as we'll see) because I give them one month to say something interesting, and if they fail I dump them.
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