And try to teach lots of different courses, so you know more things to teach. That not only helps you for the future but makes you more attractive as a job candidate (which is IMPORTANT.)
Still, you can find yourself teaching a course that's more or less completely out of your area and requires brand-new prep pretty much every week. Try to attack these sorts of things directly instead of letting the intimidating and unpleasant nature of teaching new material that you're unsure of spur you into constant procrastination, which will compound the problem. [shoots self]
Yup--the first couple of years are constant prep work. Moreso if one gets a job at a teaching-oriented school in a small department wherein each faculty member has to cover a large percentage of the major-level classes.
It ain't like your profs in grad school (depending on where you went, of course) where they taught a handful of preps over and over again.
But who cares if my future time-slices are grateful to me, if they are not identical to me? Quick, how do you account for identity over time?
It's not as if my future time-slices are going to be able to express their gratitude to current me in the only way I recognize as valid, namely, with gifts of money, goods, and sexual favors.
I recognize identity of me with past time-slices, right?
Inductively, I assume that future time-slices will recognize me in the same way.
I can't prove it, but I'd be willing to lay a bet.
RE 4
Your current self could obtain goods and sexual favors in a manner that puts a debt on your future self. This debt can counterbalance the improved utility to your future self.
Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
...
Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
"(If you're wondering why there aren't more and better posts, it's more or less crunch time between now and Christmas, so blogging is falling by the wayside.)"
Some of my best friends are mail carriers.
Well, two good ones were, anyway.