Every academic carries a private ache — a quiet, familiar, strangely comforting pain.

It comes from a system they once suffered under as students…

and now silently continue as teachers.

This is the strange tragedy of academia:

a broken system that hurts everyone,

yet survives because those who were hurt learn to live with the hurt.

And then — without malice, without intention, without rebellion — they pass the hurt forward.

Not because they believe in it.

But because they don’t know how to escape it.

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Scene 1: The Classroom Echo

A senior professor sits alone in an empty lecture hall after class.

He runs his hand over the wooden desk — the same kind he sat at 30 years ago.

Same benches.

Same ventilation.

Same pedagogy.

Same hierarchy.

Same apathy.

He whispers to himself,

“I survived this system…

and now I am repeating it.”

He is not guilty.

He is simply trapped in the comfort of familiarity.

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Scene 2: The Staff Room Memory Loop

Five lecturers sip tea during break.

Someone complains:

“The system is broken.”

Another says,

“It was broken when we studied too.”

A third laughs,

“And yet we came back to work in it.”

They laugh — that sad, knowing laughter that belongs only to people who have learnt to live inside their discomfort.

Pain becomes habit.

Habit becomes identity.

Identity becomes loyalty.

This is the comfortable pain —

the pain they know,

the pain they understand,

the pain they have learned to navigate without thinking.

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Scene 3: The First-Year Lecturer’s Shock

A young teacher joins a government college after topping her exams.

Her first faculty meeting leaves her speechless.

Same outdated syllabus.

Same handwritten formats.

Same “committee culture.”

Same “we’ve always done it like this.”

She tells her senior,

“Why doesn’t anyone change it?”

The senior lowers his voice,

“Because all of us survived it.

And survival feels like success.

And success resists change.”

This is how the cycle continues —

not out of laziness,

but out of inherited fatigue.

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Scene 4: The Stockholm Conference Whisper

A professor from Toronto tells his Japanese counterpart:

“We suffered under rigid systems.

Why are we continuing them?”

The Japanese professor replies,

“Because it’s easier to repeat pain than redesign comfort.”

Both look away.

Truth is uncomfortable even when spoken softly.

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Why Does This Comfortable Pain Survive?

1. Familiarity is safer than reform

Reform demands courage, risk, disagreement.

Familiar pain demands nothing — except tolerance.

2. Everyone suffered, so suffering feels normal

Generational trauma becomes a teaching style.

3. New faculty inherit old manuals

They want to innovate but are told:

“Don’t overdo it.”

“Stay in line.”

“Don’t attract attention.”

4. Seniority culture rewards stability, not change

Innovation is suspicious.

Compliance is safe.

5. The system breaks people early, so they stop fighting early

Not from weakness —

from exhaustion.

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Scene 5: A Quiet Admission in a Government Hostel Room

A professor sits with his old classmate — both now mid-career, both academically brilliant.

One says,

“We complained endlessly as students.”

The other nods,

“And now we complain as teachers.”

A pause.

Then the first whispers,

“But the system hasn’t changed because neither did we.”

This is not accusation.

This is awakening.

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The Paradox

Academics know the system is broken better than anyone.

They felt its weight as students.

They feel its weight as teachers.

But somewhere between:

“This must change.”

and

“I cannot change this.”

the system wins.

Not because it is strong.

But because it is old.

And familiarity always beats frustration.

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The Emotional Truth

The comfortable pain is not cowardice.

It is resignation dressed as routine.

A generational habit.

A coping mechanism.

A survival strategy.

Most academics are not protectors of the broken system.

They are survivors of it —

tired, overworked, hopeful, helpless survivors.

And survivors rarely start revolutions.

They focus on getting through the day.

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The Opening of the Underbelly

This chapter sets the tone for what follows —

not anger, not accusation, not bitterness —

but deep, compassionate, piercing truth.

The broken system is not upheld by bad people.

It is upheld by good people exhausted by bad structures.

And that is the real underbelly.

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