In all candor, here are the factors:
An institutionally and personally divided family, some of whom apparently work in confidential service for the government. I have no connection with such institutions, nor would I ever collaborate with them after seeing what, in all probability, they did to my family members.
Three careers shut down by corruption (as described in the two-page addendum to the online CV).
Even after the top-tier law degree with strong grades, many years in which the physical circumstances were as difficult as they can be for someone in the first world -- unsurvivable for some, the equivalent of the physical difficulties described in literature from the gulags of a century ago. Almost all of it in the fishbowl of midtown NYC. Present difficulties are substantial.
I realize that discussing these things publicly likely makes me a less salable prospect, but frankly, I'm a bit concerned about what they might do next. I intend to try to find a life in a more neutral place, and will fight to the utmost to retain the ability to leave the country.
I work out daily, spend my days looking for work and studying philosophy, and have maintained the mens sana in corpore sano. I attend daily Mass on weekdays, and spend some time each day composing a written meditation on the readings. Teetotal, of course, when there's nowhere to stay, and I don't use illegal (or recently legalized) drugs. I've put together some research projects on the early history of the American corporate form and some aspects of American philosophy, and I am working on them every day the libraries are open, when I'm not doing piecework for academic presses in order to get sufficient money for things like food and laundry and the discount gym.
It's possible that this isn't a corrupt country, but if that's the case, I'm at a loss to explain the things that have happened to me. It's certainly a very prosperous country. But there are serious problems.
As for me, I'm trying to work, read and think -- and I'll fight as hard as any caged lion to keep doing this, and to get to a place in which I can have a minimally sufficient life while doing so -- even if it means I can't practice the professions in which I've trained and studied, or enjoy the prosperity that is usually associated with such work.
I remember, many years ago, sitting in this room, on an impulse, I filled out a card (in the days before computer requests, when there was a lit board on the screen in the middle of the room to let people know when their books had arrived) for the Shaker Roll, and quietly read it, a propos of nothing, from cover to cover.
We exist to testify to the truth. This is why we came into the world.
One goes on. Specifically, I go on.