“Today’s students are starved for foundations. Many of us start to realize it only when we get to college. The few of us lucky enough to know what we believe have no underlying framework, no good reason for why we believe what we do….
“Come senior year, college admissions offices were concerned mainly with my SAT scores and the number of speech medals dangling from my bulletin board. They were in no way interested in what I thought about the world. This was a lucky thing for me, because I had no idea what I thought.”
The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost, Molly Worthen
If I accomplished nothing else over fall break, I rested and began repaying my sleep debt. I started one book (Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS), finished another (The Kings of New York), and skimmed a third (The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost). I saw friends and spent time with my parents. I had my hair cut, and it is short for the first time in years. I went to the gym. I played with my dog.
Worthen’s book did not amaze me (though the character of Charlie Hill was rather interesting), but her commentary on young men and women attempting to find their “foundations” struck a chord. Nowadays, in college, I sit in seminars and debates and for the first time in my life, I have trouble speaking my mind. The silence has nothing to do with nerves, but rather, I doubt the value of what I can add to the discussion. I spent the last four years standing in a comfort zone, facts and quotes and material that I unfailingly understood within my reach, and now I am suddenly on my own and challenged to offer my own opinions. I recognize that this is all a process of growth, and I refuse to background, but it is all more than I initially expected.
I suppose this is why I can benefit so much from this experience.
Today, I had the privilege of sitting in on an eighty-eight-year-old Holocaust survivor speak to a 100-person Modern European History class. She survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, came to America in the late 1940s with eight dollars to her name, eventually taught at Cornell, and retired to my college town so she could remain close to students.
Needless to say, she put the 80 I received on an Econ quiz in proper perspective.
I understand how academics wind up locking themselves away in the ‘ivory tower.’ I don’t even believe that they all do so intentionally… even with so many lectures, forums, panel discussions, documentaries, primary texts, and whathaveyou, sometimes “real” becomes something less than. Routines are easy to establish, papers and exams and deadlines loom, petty drama replaces fulfilling social interaction, everyone is overwhelmed with information, and others are more than willing to accept “stress” as an excuse for “self-interest.” The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I don’t want that to happen to me.
I think about the changes I want to foster and the stagnancy and regressions I want to avoid. And swimming or going to the gym is the easiest choice I can make. I can grin through that pain and keep going; exhaustion means I sleep even better that night. Tangible improvements are simple – gratification is instant – but what matters more to me are the mental and emotional changes I recognize that I need. I still do not know where I am heading, but a myriad of paths have been unveiled. Now I need to pick the right ones, and more importantly, trust myself to jump to another when the time comes.
…on the night before Christmas, that is.
A few key days out of the entire year used to set me abuzz, excited, antsy, struggling to focus on one particular task at hand. After all, the day following promised yet-to-be-realized wonders: family, food, and presents; above that, however, was the insuppressible sense that SOMETHING grand, SOMETHING new was proximate and impossible to miss.
These days, that feeling is nested somewhere deep inside me, unshakable even in the dullest moments.
I am learning, and a lot of it involves realizing how much I do not know. My foreign policy research group is teaching me how little I understand international conflicts. Course registration is coming up, and I want to take more classes than I can ever fit into my schedule. I have three classes which constantly reference the financial crisis, yet something new happens every day. Old blogs I have enjoyed are returning to life and I continue to discover more to read, while an incredible library system is accessible in just a few keystrokes.
Overstimulated? Yes. Overwhelmed? Not yet.
