I showed up at Wash. U. four years ago because I didn’t get in to a better school. Now, I’m leaving because I don’t have a good excuse to stay longer.
Washington University is a good school. It’s not great, but it could be worse. We have above-average academic programs and a below average social scene. We’re all pretty smart, but most of us aren’t as smart as we think we are (except for me of course).
I’m supposed to use this space for some productive purpose. I’m expected to impart some life lesson to younger students, offer a wizened critique of University policy or inspire others to change the world. But I’m not. Because frankly, I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said before. And while that may seem disheartening or anticlimactic, I find it to be somewhat fitting. How simple and boring the world would be if I had all the answers.
Underclassmen will figure it out for themselves. If advice exists that can head off potential mistakes, someone else has already told it to them. All other mistakes are experiential, so I’m probably not going to be able to offer too much help there.
The University has problems. Its lack of socioeconomic diversity is troubling, to say the least. The lack of administrative transparency is a major cause of concern. The school’s position on the environment, while progressive, sometimes seems to lack sincerity. But don’t look to me for any silver bullets.
For the past seven years, our federal government has somehow managed to make the wrong choice at just about every fork in the road. We have a pointless war that we cannot unload. Because of it, we can’t afford to pay for the myriad of domestic programs necessary to maintain our standard of living. And we have barely acknowledged the threat of global warming, let alone tried to address the underlying causes. In the aggregate, our generation might fix some of these problems, but it would be rather arrogant for me to suppose that my fellow graduates or I have the solutions.
This is a real downer, isn’t it? Well that’s life. But here’s what I can do: I can learn from my mistakes; I can call out problems when I see them; I can live in an environmentally sustainable fashion and support others who do the same. And I can take solace in acting justly in accordance with moral principles.
My favorite book is Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” In it, there is a passage that I’ve always relished, which seems apropos at this juncture:
“Training – training is everything; training is all there is to a person. We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training. We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, and therefore fairly credible or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed. And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this pathetic drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly me; the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for all I care.” (Chap. XVIII).
We, the students of Washington University, are not special. While that may be disappointing for many of us, there is a silver lining. For I believe that I have the ability to live a just and productive life. If I can do it, then the rest of you must be capable of the same. If we can all do it, odds are the individuals who make up society at large can do it too. With any luck, our collective lives can cause tomorrow to be brighter than today. Can you reasonably ask for anything more than that?
David Brody is graduating from the college of Arts & Sciences. He is the former executive editor of Student Life and can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].