Before I begin this column, I would like to address the obvious absurdity of its construction. I have never written for The Evanstonian, and I know nothing about journalism besides a few points of data that I have gleaned from friends who have been integral parts of the paper over the years. Moreover, I have not done anything substantial enough to warrant my opinions being held in any special regard. Despite all of this, I am going to declaim a few of my beliefs with the specious grandiloquence of an autocrat delivering a ukase to an unresponsive mass, so I ask you to forgive me my self-indulgence.
My goal is to impart an idea, but in the spirit of journalism, I feel I ought to include some fitting narrative structure, so I will do my best to colligate my idea with my experience. Before I attended ETHS, I went to Pope John XXIII, a small Catholic school where I was bound at the hip with the same thirty-or-so kids from the time I was three to my graduation. As a freshman, I was not very social—I was undirected save for the singular motivating impulse that had possessed me my whole life: a desire to know.
I have always been both awed and terrified by the idea of the truth. The truth is awe-inspiring because of its beauty and basic concreteness, but it is also terrifying because of the anguish of believing a lie—the sense that regardless of intent, a mistake which seems to carry some moral value might be made. With this in mind, I found myself concerned with knowledge as a means toward the truth, which was also evidently the good and the beautiful. I was first fascinated by physics, and in my sophomore year, I could have informed you of the various intervals of seconds following the Big Bang and the conditions of the universe at those times: the moment the first hydrogen atoms formed and similar trivia. I read books by people like Sean Carroll and Brian Greene, and I learned little but felt grand in the struggle for knowledge—like a child who dunks a basketball on their father’s shoulders but still takes pride in the accomplishment.
All the while, this spirit of inquiry directed my ordinary life. It caused me to acquaint myself with new friends and to have interesting conversations that would alter my perspective and further develop my thought. I thought I was teaching myself the secrets of the universe, but I still craved a knowledge of the self, and in these moments, when I would discuss the causes of life or the existence of a creator, I felt that I knew who I was.
When my questions developed beyond the realm of natural science, I felt the need to turn to philosophy, which has been the playground for human reason in both its greatest futilities and successes for all of modern history. I devoted myself fully to developing my thoughts about every question, and I realized that I was compelled to solve all of the puzzles that existed, interwoven like an arboreal tapestry of branches, through which the scintillating light of truth shines sporadically on the forest floor. Of course, this compulsion was self-serving and absurdly ambitious, but it continued to fuel me. I read and I discussed; I came to enjoy mathematics with its solid truths, and I became more confident and assured, because I had been convinced that I had a purpose greater than myself—a purpose that allowed me to know who I was.
This year, I have engaged in much reflection about this whole process. Although I have avoided saccharine sentimentality, I would like to say that my reflections have been very standard. I have wondered about who I was—now only a nebulous character—and who I became, and how everything came to be the way that it is. In this process, I came to reject a common trope: the romantic notion of the isolated and depressive intellectual—one made miserable by their knowledge of the reality of the world. As someone who has done his best to lead something of an intellectual life, regardless of the merits of my ideas, I can say that intellectualism did not have such an effect on me, and I do not believe it has to have such an effect on others. Of course, I have had moments where I was overwhelmed by the horror of the truth or its appearance, but more than anything, the pursuit of truth was, and is, the direction of my mind and my purpose.
When one wanders aimlessly, there is no self to reflect on, because it has not yet been defined. However, when one directs the force of the often-undulating consciousness towards a goal, they create themself and become someone certain. It does not have to be a journey to discover the secrets of the universe, but by giving yourself to something—any direction of the mind and heart—you will know yourself.
