Before college, my mind was submerged, confined in a tangle of culturally- and self-imposed limitations of who I was and my place in the world. Over the past four years my consciousness has searched inwardly and exploded outwardly, and was confronted with the unlimited expanse in both directions. Indeed, I think the most important aspect of a college education is that it shows you how truly little you know and how small we are, and makes you humble in the face of the immensity that is the human endeavor to understand the world and our place in it.
However, an expanded consciousness is not some cheaply attained enlightenment. It doesn’t make you wiser or happier, it is simply the tool which, through introspection and critical examination of the world around you, these things may one day be achieved. With greater awareness comes insights which can be mystifying and troubling; for example the melancholy or malevolence that lies within, or, from without, a new awareness of the systems of power that keep a large portion of the people on this planet marginalized and oppressed. It is better, though, to be aware and troubled then to live in blissful ignorance. It is only through acknowledgment of the oftentimes dark reality that change for the better can be hoped for.
Here at the end of my college career, I find myself confused and adrift more than ever before. I’ve found myself surprised by the widely accepted notion that a person should grow more sure and capable as they grow older, that their grasp on the world around them should strengthen and hold fast. The more I learn about the world and myself, the more tenuous my own grasp seems to become. With a greater awareness the confounding variables only seem to accumulate, the result being obfuscation rather than clarity. I find myself envious and incredulous of those who, from the outside, appear to move towards the future with a swift mechanical efficiency. It would certainly be reductive to assume that these people don’t struggle with or contemplate the Big Problems TM. But, perhaps they are the people whose major obstacles in life lay outside of themselves. My obstacles seem to be almost entirely in my head, which makes them difficult to step away from, objectify, and overcome.
Obviously, I cannot remain in this paralysis-by-neurosis forever. The “real world” (what a useless phrase, like “real person,” it serves only to distract from the fact that this is it, Life is happening RIGHT NOW) is calling; time moves inexorably forward blah blah blah. I’m sure (or, I hope) I’ll look back at the tail end of my college experience and see it for what it is, the initial shock and dejectedness of the painfully young in confrontation with that old adversary, the broken and indifferent world. College didn’t teach me how to be a perfect person or how to solve those elusive and harrowing questions that haunt us, but at least now I’m able to look them dead in the eye, and that’s a start.
Luke Tully is a contributor for the Rutgers Review.
