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April 30, 2004
On the road...
I talked a bit about change in my Contemporary Issues class on Tuesday. A college education should do far more than teach technical competence in a trade. A college education should, among other things, teach students how to solve problems and manage change through a study of the humanities--that broad category of disciplines that considers mankind in all its glorious absurdity.
There's no doubt in my mind that the 20-year-old me would be a bit horrified by the 47-year-old me. That younger person had very specific goals and a life plan that doesn't match what actually transpired. He was more politically libertarian, more strident, and less able to reflect on self. But he also knew how to have a good time and was far more willing than I to take big bites out of life.
I'm spending a little time today getting reacquainted with him because he was also far more resilient than I in managing change, or, rather, he was far more cool with it. I have just finished teaching my last class for Park University. My house is now for sale. I'm on my way to Springfield and SMS.
Friends and colleagues constantly ask me if I'm "excited." My usual answer is "yes and no." The 20-year-old me would never have said such a thing. He would have said "hell yes," popped another cold one, and then launched into a verbal cascade of enthusiasm worthy of Neal Cassady (his not-so-secret culture hero). I admire that.
The 20-year-old me could not imagine my life now, although some things about it I think he would find exciting. I'm sitting in a coffee shop typing on a laptop and sending these words through the air to a web site. In 1976, the year I turned 20, such things were nearly unimaginable. And I think he'd be cool with the idea that I am now an academic. You see, something I admire about him is that he understood at the time that his college years were some of the best years of his life and for a very specific reason: Spending four years learning and partying with other young people is as close to utopia as we are ever likely to get. I hope he'd be impressed that I have managed to make the years following college ever better despite, perhaps because of, the unexpected twists and turns. And he'd be impressed that I have found a way to reconnect with that golden time (yes, he would have used such a romantic term).
Am I excited? HELL YES!
Posted by acline at April 30, 2004 9:27 AM | | Spotlight