“The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult--to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization--not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be. Their method is confrontational, their domain unlimited, their "product" not truth but the reasoned search for truth, their "success" something very much like Frost's momentary stay against confusion.”
― Mark Slouka
This year, for the first time in at least a very long time (perhaps since the beginning of things), the English department's graduation ceremony will not be held on the Lawn. It's historic and subtle at the same time, significant and sort of sneaky, because they're just shifting us over to the amphitheater - arguably just as central to the university grounds and just as appropriate for the values of the English major. "We deal with theater, too," my Jewish lit professor said, a little dejectedly.
I guess... But let's be real. She was just as unconvinced as I am about the okayness of this whole Lawn --> Amphitheater shift. It's not the same.
The sand dunes of education have been changing, bit by bit, one wind drift after another, displacing mountains of sand and creating brand new ones elsewhere, subtly but certainly changing the landscape of the humanities. It's hugely symbolic, this change, and merely symptomatic of the undercurrents of change rushing beneath the surface. We've forgotten how to value the humanities. What about the renaissance man ideal? What about the Grand Tour? I feel like I was born in the wrong century. But if that could somehow be rectified, I would be the wrong gender. Oy vey.
It's disturbing, but maybe that's only because I happen to be on this side of the demarcation. The "wrong side," outdated and marginalized because those are the rules of society today, just as the merchants and craftsmen must have felt in the days of those bougie renaissance men who got to travel all over Europe in their privileged, bougie, fancypantsy lives. And it would be too blindly simplistic to just stomp my left foot in indignation at the loss of humanity!!!!!1 and the deplorable values!!! of our society, because you've gotta give credit to those responsible, productive-members-of-society-to-be for wanting to make themselves marketable. To become employed someday and earn the moneys. To provide for their future families and their future families.
They might even be closet poetry lovers; martyrs, in a sense, led to the sacrificial pyre of our failing economy, burning bright with the irresistible aura of Wall Street, beckoning us like helpless moths toward those cruel but effective zappy summer camp lights, and the grinding machinations of our Society of Productivity. It's all complicated.
All I know is that the Comm school has the plushiest of chairs, and I did not choose to study anything remotely related to money and other potentially depressing things.
But still, while I mourn for the loss of the English department's fight for the Lawn during that epic ceremony of the class of 2014, I am also at peace. Our growing obsession with money wasn't anything unanticipated by Jesus. Just google yourself a favor and ask the internet: "how many verses about money in the bible." We are so predictable, and that's weirdly reassuring.
This probably explains why I am more excited than scared for that insane, forever-anticipated May date when my formal education officially ends (for now), and life as I know it will veer crazily off its track of predictable year-after-years of being a ____-grader. I will no longer be defined by the number of years I've been in school, and hopefully also by other numbers, too, though I hear that's a little more persistent of a problem (SAT scores... GPA... GREs... salary... the numbers don't end).
As of now, March 13th 2014, life after May something 2014 is a void, in many senses - I will no longer have that "occupation" as Full-Time Student, will no longer be "going to UVA," will no longer "be" an English major; all these things will have been relegated to past-tense realities. But at the same time, many things continue: ever a follower of Christ, a child of God, a daughter to my parents and sister to my sister, there are lots of things to find my identity in.
So in this moment, I take delight in the adventuresome excitement of the blankness. "That's pretty hard, being excited about uncertainty," someone said to me a little while back, when I was gushing (not rully) about the exciting combination of not having a job + graduating in a few months. But I dunno -- I am okay. I'm doing okay. Praise God for that, because even this momentary sanity is because of the fact that in him all things hold together. Every second of normalcy and sanity is a paradox and a miracle.
As will be the moment when I do finally get a job or something. Miracle indeed. In-advance Hallelujahs abound.
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