From: eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.misc
Subject: CHRONICLE editorial: Wed Nov 18 92
Summary: Never settle for comfortable; always explore originality
Date: 19 Nov 92 04:55:31 GMT
Followup-To: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

Another Duke _Chronicle_ editorial

Wed Nov 18 92
Never settle for comfortable; always explore originality
Dean Moyar (Trinity College -- arts and sciences -- Junior)
"Cyprus Avenue" column

When confronted with an important decision, we often must choose which
of several considerations influencing the decision takes precedent over
the rest. Many writers over the past two centuries have promoted the
idea that our most important consideration should entail that we be true
to ourselves; roughly speaking, to do what we will feel good about
doing.

We were recently offered an example of one such action when in a letter
written from England during the Vietnam War, Bill Clinton wrote that by
organizing protests he was doing what he felt was right. Clinton was
trying to be true to himself, and admirably did what he felt was right
despite the possible harm to his political career. What George Bush
assumed and wanted us to assume is that Clinton's self had not changed
in the intervening twenty-odd years -- that the same person who had felt
compelled to protest against our country would now be leading it.

The danger with this argument lies in attempting to use Clinton's prior
decision as a clear indication of how he would act as president. Clinton
would not admit that his actions were a mistake, but in doing so he was
not saying that his actions now are governed by the same beliefs that
motivated him in England. Implicit in his response was the idea that one
cannot abstract a person's decision from half a lifetime ago and apply
those decisions to the radically different here and now. The question
arises, though, if Clinton now believes (this is purely hypothetical)
that one shouldn't protest against the U.S. on foreign soil, should be
call him a waffler and condemn him for inconsistency?

How should we see the possibility of change over time of a person's
beliefs and corresponding actions? If the person is at one time true to
themselves in acting one way, and then some time later acts another way,
should we insist that the latter action is phony?

Some have said that our college years are the most important years of
our lives. The main justification for this claim is that during college
we are said to make substantial progress in our quest to "find
ourselves." The idea is that over no definite span of time do we see
such a change in our understanding of ourselves as we do in these
critically formative years. That is, many who enter college with no idea
where their lives are going leave with a firm sense of their occupation
and how they wish to spend their adult lives.

Regardless of how clear such a picture is for each of us, we all at some
point have thought of what life will be like when each of us finds our
so-called place in the world. The danger of this kind of thinking, and
the danger of emphasizing college in this sense as the most crucial
years of our lives, is that we tend to see our adult lives as static; we
think of (and perhaps look forward to) a time when we will be satisfied
with life, content to remain as we are.

Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel _The Idiot_ alludes to the embrace of
such a life: "There is, indeed, nothing more annoying than to be, for
instance, wealthy, of good family, nice-looking, fairly intelligent, and
even good-natured, and yet to have ... not one idea of one's own, to be
precisely 'like other people.'" Dostoevsky speaks of the person who is
satisfied with being comfortable in life, not wanting to put an original
imprint on the world. In addition, in writing of being 'like other
people,' Dostoevsky invokes the idea that such a person tends to conform
to the societal norm, thereby losing anything resembling individuality.
In thus linking the notions of the static life and conforming to a
generic form of existence, Dostoevsky points out the tendency of humans
to be satisfied with themselves, resisting change because remaining the
same is often the easiest way to exist.

But it is an impoverished existence which upon finding happiness, sees
itself as the be all and end all of life. We should not see the desire
for personal growth as an admittance of weakness or unhappiness with how
life is going. The maxim, "if it's not broken, don't fix it," does not
imply for us that if we are happy with life we should not try to enlarge
our experience of it.

What Dostoevsky asks us to do is to never see our lives as complete, but
to be aware that we can always create new aspects of ourselves.
Originality need not be conceived of as doing things no one has ever
done, but rather we can see it as doing things that we have never done
and that we are doing for ourselves (and not simply to be "like other
people"). Dostoevsky's stress on originality can then be seen as a call
for us to constantly strive to go beyond our normal thoughts and
actions. That is, we should see personal growth as a goal in itself, not
allowing ourselves to become stale in our unwillingness to see the world
in new ways.

And significantly, this concept is especially relevant for those older
than us. For it is precisely when we feel we are settled that we tend to
be content with our lives and close ourselves to becoming more than we
already are. And I would hope that our president-elect is not the same
person he was 20 years ago, for an unoriginal person could hardly be a
good president.

Perhaps college is the most important time in our lives; for it is in
college that we learn to see ourselves as capable of changing the ways
we think and act. And as we strive to become independent adults, we
should remember that those older than us often have as much to learn
from us as we do from them, and that the ideal of the openness of the
college mind should be an ideal extended into full-fledged adulthood.

Happiness and unoriginality should not be correlative; we owe it to
ourselves to explore the richness of originality of which the human
spirit is capable.
*** END ***

-- 
Emil Thomas Chuck	eyc@acpub.duke.edu	Biomedical Engineering 1993
	THANK GOD IT'S BASKETBALL SEASON!!!!!
I don't have to have a 4.0 GPA to succeed in life because I'm 
good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh