Like you, my life revolves around e-mail. A couple dozen messages sail into my inbox every day, and every day I send about a dozen of my own back in the other direction. Each message from dmg4@acpub.duke.edu comes equipped with an accessory that is designed in part to overcome the icy impersonality of my computer-jargon address.
The signature file, or "sig file" for those hip to the zeitgeist, is the automatic appendage that caps off an electronic transmission. It's the stamp of authenticity, the Internet equivalent of a John Hancock. The sig file in most cases contains essential biographical data, all of which is essentially non-essential because a simple strike of the reply key is enough to put the receiver back in cyber-touch with the sender.
If you ask me, the biographical data is simply an excuse for all of us to pass along our favorite dripping-with-wisdom quotations. And that's odd, because e-mail is a dubious domain for inspiration. It's economical and unceremonious, purely low brow next to an impeccable form letter. Even President Keohane sends out e-mails with typos intact.
So I never read people's sig file quotations-never. Unless they're short.
Of course, this makes me a hypocrite because, as I alluded to above, I have a signature file. And alongside my signature file's useless data is my favorite dripping-with-wisdom quotation. I haven't changed it all year, in part because I don't have the foggiest idea how and in part because I truly love it and I truly believe in it. I don't know who said it, so I call it a modern-day proverb:
"There are two ways of being creative: One can sing and dance, or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish."
The editor of The Chronicle, I told the newspaper's staff when I was elected, must do both. The editor must write well, report well, think well, and the editor must make it possible for others to do likewise.
After 12 months, 35 migraines and 148 issues, I think I've figured out the secret to doing both. The remarkable thing is how simple it is: Love what you do unconditionally and surround yourself with great people. I don't know if I've sang or danced or created an environment for those who could, but I know I've loved The Chronicle and I know I've had great people by my side.
Our days and nights, like our lives, have blurred together in this dank office on the third floor of Flowers Building, with the papers strewn everywhere like garland, the garbage popping out of trash cans, the worn-out furniture, the filthy carpet. I have always preferred the office this way, dirty, because it reeks of crazy people doing crazy work.
And without a doubt, it is crazy work. We have chosen to spend the balance of our days, from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m., squeezing out every drop of resourcefulness and patience we have trying to explain this University to the people who live and work here. Duke University: this wonderful school, arguably the nation's hottest and indisputably one of its finest, a place at which gifted undergraduates nevertheless shout the name of its president alongside four-letter words. Try making sense of that.
Having covered this crazy place for four years, I am obligated to point out for those who still fail to grasp it the self-fulfilling prophecy at the heart of Duke social life: If you expect it to be miserable, you will be miserable. The administration may have changed the rules, but you have changed your expectations. Where you once expected to be happy, now you expect to be miserable. But at a place as lavish and opportunity-rich as Duke, misery is a choice. So choose. And if you don't choose wisely, don't blame Nan because it's not her fault. It's yours.
Whether or not you agree, I am sure (and thankful) that you will continue to tell The Chronicle all about it. In just one year's time, this newspaper has been threatened with lawsuits, accused of bias, praised for fairness and indicted for incompetence. Here inside 301 Flowers Building, we've listened to all of it, saved whatever was worthwhile and looked ahead to tomorrow's paper. Maybe that's the surest sign The Chronicle has done its job and President Keohane has done hers. This campus is singing, it is dancing, and this newspaper is counting the ways.
Having worn out my welcome-one too many e-mails perhaps-I am comforted some by the knowledge that I can leave The Chronicle in good hands. To Jessica: I hope you love it as much as I have, because if you do, you will run it better than I have.
As for me, this is my farewell to The Chronicle, the signature file for my Duke career. And this time, I'm only sending it out once.
Devin Gordon is a Trinity senior and editor of The Chronicle, and (to borrow a line from his mentor and one of his predecessors) he agonizes at the thought that he will never be either again.
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