In one of the first columns I wrote sophomore year I projected into the future:
"I am sure that I will look back years from now on all these beliefs and snap analyses of books and realize how young, naive and wrong I once was and how much I have lost in becoming old, wise and right. This grayed version of me will wish I had chosen a science or at least something more concrete and more substantial to pursue."
Now I'm not saying that I've lost all that, or that I would change my majors if I could. All I'm saying is that I applied to consulting companies earlier this year, which the younger me would never have considered. I will never outlive the shame of doing so. That just isn't me.
Whenever big change comes along, which at this stage in our lives is very frequently, we have to look in the mirror and make real decisions. What major you choose, what organizations you join, where to go abroad, what jobs you pursue or what graduate degrees you aspire to are all necessarily based in decisions about who we think we are.
So what can I say about myself? Well, I've got one thing that I'm pretty sure my friends would use to describe me: I like Bob Dylan.
I'm wearing a Dylan shirt in my headshot to the side there. My freshman year was spent pretty headphone-immersed, and Bob was my main choice.
I can trace the love affair back to sophomore year of high school. One day, before class started, I was listening to a particularly nasty, high-pitched harmonica solo, when the people sitting next to me burst out laughing and asked what the hell I was listening to.
I guess that's a pretty embarrassing little memory, but there was something special about that moment: I felt like a rebel. In college, I have come to the sad realization that liking Bob Dylan doesn't exactly make me a rebel, but it does make me kind of pretentious. That's something, I guess.
But I don't think I'm nearly as pretentious as I once was, and, sad as it is to say, Dylan doesn't mean as much to me as he once did. There are things that define very specific stages in our lives and can never mean the same to us again. Its true of music and movies, of course, but it is also true of friends and relationships: people change.
In the moment everything seems permanent, and only afterwards do we realize how ephemeral even the most important things are.
That's okay, and, honestly, it's necessary to survive. The Bible states (and I'm paraphrasing); "whatever your hands find to do, do it well."
That's my outlook on things right now. I honestly have no idea where I'm going to be in six months. I don't know what my preoccupations will be or with what group of people I'll be spending my time, but I know that I'll throw myself into whatever I find.
I know some of you, even those younger than me, already know what you want the rest of your lives to look like. I am envious in many ways, but that is not my fate.
Because the whole world is out there, waiting to be grabbed. I'm excited to throw myself into something new and different, though it will probably only be for a couple of years. Maybe I'll even try something unconventional while I'm at it.
Now, if the next few years aren't as useful to my professional development as they might be, that's just fine. Right now, I'm more worried about my development as a human. If I experience a few things that I wouldn't put on my resume 30 years down the road, or even on my tombstone, I'm all right with that.
In Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors," Professor Levy states, "We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices."
So, if things fade, if Dylan fades today and Allen fades a year from now, the enormity of what they have meant to me and of my choice to love them both will always define me in some way, obvious or hidden.
Jordan Everson is a Trinity senior. This is his final column of the semester.
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