Spring is in the air. Rush is in the works.
Self-consciousness is a recurring theme on our campus, with or without the special seasonal variation thrust upon us by a formal system of selection and rejection. But take heart. It turns out that its brainchild, "effortless perfection," is not a uniquely Duke fixation. Stanford students have their own (far superior) term of endearment for the perfect, imperturbable people on your hate list: "ducks on a pond."
Next time you're lolling in the Duke Gardens, "reading" and surreptitiously trying for the bronzed look you know you will never achieve, choose a test subject from the University's private collection of uncelebrated webbed mascots.
Your duck will be placid. Serenely, it will glide along the water's edge, powered by some mysterious internal mechanism that allows it to leave only a subtle ripple in its wake.
Do not be intimidated by its well-oiled appearance. For behold: beneath the pristine surface of the water, two skinny little duck legs will be paddling two chubby little duck feet into a veritable duck frenzy.
Contrary to popular belief, ducks are not propelled around ponds by cosmic fortune. They simply hide the horsepower beneath their liquid crystal fortress, as though the effort at self-propulsion is, like, embarrassing or something.
I like Stanford's duck analogy because it's honest. The fact that the unruffled look is exactly that, a look, is built nicely into the metaphor. On the other hand, unlike our West Coast coevals, who have seized the thing by the throat and called it what it really is (waterfowl, apparently), we at Duke continue to double speak in the language of effortless perfection as though such a way of life were theoretically possible or actually desirable. Meanwhile, futilely, we decry our own continued reiteration of the topic.
Sure, we've talked "effortless perfection" into the ground. But maybe it's time to take a dive into the water and check out what's really going on down there.
After all, for all our babble, it's not clear what we really mean to convey when we invoke the visually uninspiring concept of "effortless perfection." Is it tongue-in-cheek? Is it focus group fodder? Is it cardigans-and-pearls? Is it a secret aspiration, to be publicly derided and privately pursued?
There is something revealing about the fact that the particular expression that has grafted itself onto our campus consciousness is as opaque as the phenomenon it supposedly describes. Contrary to popular belief, the incredible lifespan of the hackneyed phrase is not a testament to its timeless relevance. I suspect it is rather our choice of misnomer that has helped make effortless perfection a self-perpetuating phenomenon.
The problem is not that effortless perfection amounts to strenuous pretension. The problem is not that the phrase calls to mind only half the picture, the stuff above the surface without the stuff below to undermine it as farce. The problem is that idealizing the kind of "perfection" that requires no effort implies a ceiling on what we want to become and achieve.
Some people study hard-not because they don't get it, but because they want to master it. Some people struggle-with family issues, friend issues, career issues-not because they can handle less, but because they care more. You can always learn more, want more, try more.
So why settle for being effortlessly anything?
Being more human-more fallible, sure, but also more capable, of aiming high and enjoying life-means being less duck. God gave us arms, and it's about time we stopped pretending like it doesn't make more sense to doggy paddle.
I am more a dog person anyway. Dogs are fun, friendly and unafraid to demonstrate just how much they care (about you! And life! And that butterfly! And dinnertime!)
But I will say the one great thing about ducks is that they, like Stanford students, call themselves out on it when they catch themselves pretending to be something they're not.
Quack.
Jane Chong is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Tuesday.
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