Background
My Esteemed Colleague Melania Espinal recently wrote an article for the Williams Record
in which she explores our relationship with the conveniences in our
environment. It's good! You should go read it! Maybe especially if you're at
Williams?
I was reminded of an article by Mr. Money Mustache called Cure Yourself of Tiny Details Exaggeration
Syndrome,
which I've thought about often since I first read it. Perhaps we could talk
about that article in more detail some other time. To quote from it briefly:
"One of the stranger patterns that I’ve noticed ever since reaching adulthood,
is the tendency of humans to zoom in on increasingly irrelevant details as
their material wealth increases. Despite their advantaged position, people seem
to become unaware of the wide variety of conditions in the world and their own
ability as a human to deal with them. The results are both tragic and amusing."
Both Ms. Espinal's and Mr. Mustache's observations are important and true. I do
not aim to offer any refutation of them here--if anything, the reverse! But I
would like to offer an additional perspective, in the hopes that it might help
us all thrive even more.
An Elaboration
Espinal points out that "there are at least 100 people making life at the
College possible for any single student — whether it be the custodial staff,
those who wash our dishes, or the grounds workers who clear leaves so that we
may step with ease." Even beyond dishes and groundskeeping, when we're in a
college setting like Williams, we also have legions of people dedicated to
our personal learning and growth. When young people start at my company fresh
out of school, I often point out to them that from now on, they must devise
their own syllabi for personal and professional growth.
In school, the path ahead and milestones upon it are generally clear. What's
after first grade? Second grade! After second grade, third! I suppose you may
know the rest. After college, and perhaps for a few years longer if we attend
grad school, we step off of that clear path. The milestones become fewer and
less clear. Get a job, probably. Maybe get married? Optional. I guess you could
have kids? Also optional. Buy a house? Grandkids? Retire? All optional. Dying,
well, that one's not optional.
While we're still in school, people both in our immediate sphere and very
distant pour time and energy into helping us develop. It's truly marvelous. I
had the pleasure last October of returning to Williams as a Friend And Family.
Having spent a few decades building up my own techniques for helping people
learn new things and develop themselves, I was impressed by Dr. Colin Adams's
skill and fluency as an educator. When I sat in my own math classes, I was
unaware of the amount of work that went into making my learning possible.
Watching Dr. Adams lecture, I was struck by how many hours of thought and
practice he's put into that craft.
At my workplace, of course I'll do my best to help those around me. But I'm no
match for an army of educators, administrators, staff. You, dear New Hire, will
need to take charge of your own continuing education. You will need to select
things to learn, and identify people, materials, and opportunities to learn them
from. Then you'll need to do it. No one will send you a report card.
When my son was little, I was conflicted about the whole question of Santa
Claus. I certainly didn't want him to miss out on the joyous feelings I'd had
as a boy at Christmas, receiving gifts from this distant benefactor. But I also
wanted to be as honest with him as I could in every way. I found this article
by Maren Schmidt helpful in my struggle:
https://marenschmidt.com/2014/12/santa-claus/.
It took me several years to fully understand it, but eventually I realized how
I could use Santa as a concrete signifier for all the many people who make our
lives possible.
I also often say that I don't have time to count my blessings, because once I
get going, I'll never stop. The coffee I drank this morning, and the mug I
drank it from, and the machine I made it with, each just lead me on a string of
gratitude for the innumerable people and circumstances that made it possible.
Or: who put this shirt on the hangar in the store I bought it from? Who made
the hangar? The shirt? The equipment they used to make each? Who drove it to
the store? Who made the vehicle they drove in? Etc. etc. et as they say cetera.
Let us indeed be aware of and grateful to all those who make our paths
possible. Let us not be mired in tiny details like whether there are enough
to-go containers or whether the line at the snack bar is too long.
A Perspective
Ms. Espinal asks, "In what ways can a college education prepare you for any
sort of future if it cannot confront you with anything but yourself?" My
immediate response is: it is exactly by giving us the space to confront
ourselves that the College does us the most good. It is ourselves that we must
confront at every moment of our lives, or else miss one of the greatest
opportunities that Life presents us. We can draw on any paper, to be sure; we
can listen to one another even in a crowd, even while navigating rush hour
traffic. But: when confronted with the blank page, when sitting together on the
couch with our phones down, we must come up with something from within.
I'm reminded of Blaise Pascal, quoted here from Project Gutenberg:
"Diversion.—When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different
distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at
court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad
ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from
one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who
has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not
leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not
be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the
town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot
remain with pleasure at home."
I frankly disagree with M. Pascal on a great many matters, but his observation
that people have trouble being alone certainly seems to be borne out by a
variety of evidence; consider, for example,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26847946/.
When we have dishes to wash and laundry to do, and the shopping, and the bills,
and the colors, children, the
colors, it is all too easy to
ignore our inner lives. Even when we do try to make room in our days for
whatever may be important to us, it often feels like blackout
poetry, finding meaning within
a jumble of nonsense while invisible fingers pluck at our attention.
Perhaps it is helpful to think of a place like Williams, not as a resort in
which we will complain that the sand is not warm enough, but as a sanctuary,
a monastery, a place to do rare and difficult work. By providing care and
clearing away so many of the impediments of the mundane, the College offers us
opportunity. Not just the opportunity to sit with ourselves, not just the
chance to build an internal reservoir of ideas and knowledge, but also space to
meet others, to expand our sense of human community, to explore the physical,
the social, the emotional. When we confront ourselves, we create ourselves.
