Spending too much time with others.

I sometimes do editorial work for a publisher of schoolbooks. Their books will be on a single topic, and I'll have a couple of weeks to get the book checked and cleaned up. I'm not always interested in the topic, but I don't mind the work. The publisher pays a fair rate, pays promptly, and the experience is quite educational. 

Alas, there is one thing about the assignments that bothers me. Simply put, by the end of the two-week period, I am so sick of the topic that I wish I'd never heard of it. 

Let's say that the publisher wanted to put out a book on Frederick William III of Prussia, one of the better known Fredericks. This would not happen, because no American schoolbook publisher will ever want to put out a book on Frederick William III of Prussia, and in fact most dead white guys are not getting so many books these days. I use it for an example because it is not going to come up.

Here's ol' Freddy Bill Trois now.

At first I am fascinated by many of the things I did not know. Reigned for almost 43 years! Was a shy kid! Wouldn't use personal pronouns! Was a fiscal reformer! Attempted to unify the Protestant churches of Prussia under royal control! Got his heinie kicked by Napoleon! Married a woman named Auguste, who was born in August! What a fascinating window into the progress of Central European political life concurrent with the early days of the American Republic. 

After the first week, I've had about as much of Prussia and its kings as I think I'll ever want. 

So now I'm discovering that Freddy B never lost his fear of Jacobinism taking over as in France, and that while he was willing to reform the high levels of the civil service was dedicated to holding on to royal privilege, and I'm starting to wonder what I ever saw in this project. The king is thought to have suffered from an inferiority complex, and I'm beginning to find it justified. Sucking up to the tsar never works out the way you think it will in the long run. As week 2 progresses, the book's subject begins to feel like an overnight guest who thought he was invited to stay the summer, and I have to find a way to get rid of him short of murder. 

The final days before deadline are the worst, as I go back to deep-dive for the information I had trouble confirming on the first passes, only to find that the book's author took them from biographies of Frederick William II or Frederick William IV by mistake, and now I'm perfectly content to kill the author along with the king. If they do not get out of my life at the deadline day, I may just set off an explosive and take them with me. 

At last, the job is done, and Frederick William III is gone from my life for good. In the meantime I have learned a number of things about Germany and European royalty and the Napoleonic era, and I feel a bit more erudite. 

And so it has always been with me and education, since I was a bitty little Fred learning to read: The journey is worth the effort, but the effort sometimes feels like it may be fatal.