When I was no more than eight years old, my Dad woke my younger brother and I up in the middle of the night. It must have been only three or four in the morning, but I was wide awake.
According to my Dad, we were going to take an early morning drive out into the Carolina country to catch a glimpse of a predicted meteor shower, all before the school day even began. Before I knew it, our trusty Chevy Suburban facilitated our escape, taking us far from the blinding lights of Charlotte. Then, in the beautifully illuminating darkness, we sat on the top of our car and experienced that celestial light show famous for enlivening even the most depressed of souls.
Although I was relatively young at the time, this memory has never left my mind, and I think I now know why.
Man is not engineered for routine. All too often we allow for pressing external demands to silence our longing for risk or fresh activity. We cannot be afraid to break out of this constricting routine that all too often defines our life.
Diana Saverin from the Yale Daily News says that we “see and feel more when things are going wrong.” Continuing, she claims that only through seeking out challenge can we keep this “ecstatic presence” with us forever.
Although the majority of my life as an early elementary school student blends together in my mind in almost white opaqueness, specific moments of great joy and sadness seem to stick out. These are the moments when I took chances, acted in accordance with my heart instead of my mind and either failed miserably or succeeded with a triumphant high of independence. These moments in which I broke out of routine, effectively ditching this dulling sameness, are some of the best moments I can remember.
Gazing up toward the stars that early morning, I gained an introspective view of my world, though only for a moment. For a moment, the start of school was not a few measly hours away and the cold and damp morning breeze seemed to cease. In that moment, I learned not only of my insignificance in the face of a raw and undeniable natural beauty, but of the electrifying potential of new experiences and their capacity to reveal a future filled with potential.
In Madison, and every other college town in the country, everybody is competitive. Students, professors, administrators, businessmen and politicians all race through life and through this city, day after day, accomplishing their goals and creating for themselves a life and an identity. Although this perpetual race will someday come to an end, and I am sure the position of the finish line will have changed a time or two, my wish is that I will not allow this world to effect the nature of my goals.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “The health of an eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.” In many cases, dim and insignificant societal goals can break even the most spirited soul, infecting not only our view of this world, but the life in which we envision for ourselves.
By letting this dark cloud of complacent behavior envelop our seemingly irrational thoughts, we allow this world to stifle not only our dreams but also the possibility of their manifestation.
The cure for this sameness is simple: Take risks, and against all logic and odds, do it anyway. Act without the consent of reason, but with the approval of passion. Love without the consent of your mind but with the whims of your heart. And think without the consent of society but with the undeniable acquiescence of an impenetrable soul.
Grant Hattenhauer ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in biology.
