I have been a sophomore in college for two weeks and already I feel like one of the old souls around campus. Somewhere between working two jobs, taking a full load of credits, and being a mentor for other students, I've been thrust further into the adult world where mornings are full of coffee pots and heavy sighs and nights are hard flops into bed at nine.
But I'm not complaining. It's nice to feel old sometimes. There's a sort of freedom hiding within the responsibility of it all. And I've begun to take comfort in knowing that, even with the wisdom I have gained over the past year, I'm still a fool at heart.
Soph: a greek base meaning wise. Mor: a greek base meaning fool. Put them together and you have the name we give people who are in their second year. And really, it couldn't be more accurate.
I came into this year feeling like I knew a lot. And I do, in a sense. I've gained so much knowledge through my classes - learning more about literature, about philosophy and language and technology. But that does not mean I've become wise. I still have three years and countless hours of classes full of the unknown waiting to be absorbed by my eager mind. And, more importantly, I still look at myself in the mirror and wonder, who is this person staring back at me? What is she? Identity is such a fickle, hazy thing. I know next to nothing about my own. If you were to ask me who I am, I could probably give you a few words. A college student. A writer. A reader. But such simple words do little to give me an identity. Using them makes me feel ignorant, like a child struggling to express her ideas, her head still filled with room for the right words she does not yet know.
I am ignorant to much, but I don't think it's a bad thing. In As You Like It, Touchstone tells William, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." The wise man is always opening his mind so more information can make its way in because he knows the handful of things that fill his head are only one drop in the great ocean that is knowledge. He's always watching and listening, hungering for more.
That's exactly what I intend to do. I'll keeping watching that girl in the mirror, keep listening to her words and thoughts and wait for the secret of her identity to become clear to me. And, even if it never does, I'll always have the power of knowing one of her secrets: she's a fool with so much more to learn.
But I'm not complaining. It's nice to feel old sometimes. There's a sort of freedom hiding within the responsibility of it all. And I've begun to take comfort in knowing that, even with the wisdom I have gained over the past year, I'm still a fool at heart.
Soph: a greek base meaning wise. Mor: a greek base meaning fool. Put them together and you have the name we give people who are in their second year. And really, it couldn't be more accurate.
I came into this year feeling like I knew a lot. And I do, in a sense. I've gained so much knowledge through my classes - learning more about literature, about philosophy and language and technology. But that does not mean I've become wise. I still have three years and countless hours of classes full of the unknown waiting to be absorbed by my eager mind. And, more importantly, I still look at myself in the mirror and wonder, who is this person staring back at me? What is she? Identity is such a fickle, hazy thing. I know next to nothing about my own. If you were to ask me who I am, I could probably give you a few words. A college student. A writer. A reader. But such simple words do little to give me an identity. Using them makes me feel ignorant, like a child struggling to express her ideas, her head still filled with room for the right words she does not yet know.
I am ignorant to much, but I don't think it's a bad thing. In As You Like It, Touchstone tells William, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." The wise man is always opening his mind so more information can make its way in because he knows the handful of things that fill his head are only one drop in the great ocean that is knowledge. He's always watching and listening, hungering for more.
That's exactly what I intend to do. I'll keeping watching that girl in the mirror, keep listening to her words and thoughts and wait for the secret of her identity to become clear to me. And, even if it never does, I'll always have the power of knowing one of her secrets: she's a fool with so much more to learn.