IN CERTAIN corners of the Republic perhaps there are some curious institutions that pride themselves on their monastic devotion to austerity, where intellectual labour is performed not in cloistered stillness but in communal chambers reminiscent of well-behaved boarding houses, their perpetual murmur interrupted only by the occasional sigh of a scholar negotiating the science of still air. Here in these places, the pursuit of knowledge unfolds not in comfort but in the carefully calibrated inconvenience of shared desks and ambient disquiet, as though the absence of ease were a pedagogical philosophy in itself. And since inconvenience breeds virtue or so the walls would have us believe, the marvelous architectures are thoughtfully arranged to keep the mind alert by denying the body repose.
The staircases, always welcoming, serve as daily reminders that ascent must be earned. For why should knowledge climb easily when Socrates walked barefoot? And thus, the labour of rising, both literal and symbolic, is offered up as a ritual of merit.
In these sanctuaries of tireless purpose, time is measured not by what one does but by how long one is seen doing it, for presence is policy and absence, even of necessity, is sin. The idea of rest exists more as a ceremonial phrase than lived experience, archived with care beside other legends such as the quiet office, the thoughtful pause or the uninterrupted hour, and every soft murmur of discontent is gently guided toward gratitude while every whispered hope for comfort is met with a lesson in the lives of the ancients, who apparently neither reclined nor complained. After all, Socrates had no chamber and Plato no paid invigilation, and Aristotle, we can presume, reviewed scripts out of pure love!
In this rarified climate, the very act of asking, whether for quiet or for air or for recognition, is mistaken for complaint, and complaint mistaken for ingratitude, and ingratitude mistaken for proof of unworthiness. And if now and then a murmur rises about things as banal as recompense or relief, it is swiftly documented and filed into the great archive of postponed considerations, where dreams are stored until they expire from natural causes. Until then, tea shall suffice, offered daily with such ceremonial constancy that it nearly distracts from the absence of all else, and if anyone dares to wonder whether minds may flourish without care, they are invited to observe the serene efficiency of those whose, with six chalks in hand or seven syllabi in heart, have mastered the quiet art of being many things to many people while slowly disappearing from themselves.
As for reward, one learns to measure it in the dignity of silence, for here the only currency of appreciation is monthly, fixed and rhythmically reliable, as if to say that recognition, like all luxuries, must be trimmed to its minimum aesthetic form and presented as proof that nothing more need be said. If by chance an extra sum should arrive in spring to celebrate the season of newness, it is only fair that such joy should be balanced with restraint on both sides of the calendar, since fairness after all is the first lesson of equity.
The idea that compensation might keep pace with prices is a dangerous modern fantasy, for learning must float above such vulgarities as inflation, and to expect alignment with the market is to suggest that education is a profession, which it clearly is not, given its devotional demands and spiritual rewards. These spiritual rewards naturally bloom best in environments of rigorous sameness, which is why seating must remain uniform in its uprightness, the back unyielding, the armrest unnecessary, the furniture designed not for indulgence but for posture, and posture not for comfort but for discipline.
In fact the entire setting is a master-class in how to do more with less, to breathe deeply in rooms where air moves as little as ideas are meant to, to think clearly amid the opera of hallway echoes, and to write quietly while seated beside forty others thinking quietly too. In these modern manpower-manufacturing-markets, the proof of engagement lies not in what is produced but in the appearance of continuous action, and motion becomes the music of merit so that even when there is nothing to be done, there is always something to be shown.
The list of tasks is never so much distributed as it is divined, accumulating organically across time until it becomes unclear whether one is a teacher who occasionally does paperwork or a clerk who sometimes lectures, and it is precisely in this fertile ambiguity that true efficiency is born. When a request is made, it is heard as an opportunity to test resilience, and when a response is delayed, it is seen as an invitation to grow in patience, and when results arrive often six months later, they are received with the gratitude one reserves for long- lost friends, because what is more moving than a gift whose arrival proves it was never forgotten?
And as for leave, the calendar is generous in its design, dotted with islands of theoretical rest which, when approached, turn out to be mirages, dissolving into half-days that cost twice as much, redeemed only through a maze of permissions that, like myths, are beautiful in concept and improbable in practice. Even time must be accounted for with the solemnity of sacred ritual. A moment away from one鈥檚 desk must carry the weight of justification, and to speak of fatigue is to invite reminders that Socrates once stood still in one place for an entire day in contemplation, although no one mentions whether he was also drafting memos and checking scripts at the same time. The joy of examination lies not in the duties performed but in the duties remembered, and while the ledger remains still, the spirit of service is praised in meetings, where excellence is measured by endurance and applause withheld for the invisible champions who submit to silence as a form of celebration.
There are no complaints in these sophisticated quality-driven institutions. Only confessions disguised as gratitude, and no requests, only reflections on what once was and what might never be again. To belong to such a place is to master the art of expectation management, to understand that fulfillment is not something one receives but something one prevents from expecting, and that in a world where the real luxuries are attention, privacy and the possibility of being missed, the truest praise is the absence of reprimand. And so, the quiet figures remain, not because they must but because something in them still believes that if enough silence is offered, one day someone might hear it.
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Hisham Mohammad Nazer is an assistant professor of English at Varendra University.
