When author William Deresiewicz visited Harvard on September 22 to discuss his contentious book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, he was asked by Harvard faculty about his emphasis on education’s role in cultivating the student’s self. Professor of English, Amanda Claybaugh, stated that Deresiewicz’s view seems to espouse a “No Soul Left Behind” policy that places an undue onus on institutions to foster an intangible entity.
Souls left behind. The image is a potent one that speaks of haste—a frenzied race to reach an elusive end that necessitates we leave something behind. This abstract concept of having to capitulate an essential part of ourselves to advance ourselves in a race that is as unnamed as Betty Friedan’s feeling is one that has been nagging me as of late.
In my Humanities 10a course, we recently read the Odyssey, tracing the hero Odysseus’ return from the Trojan War as he faces the life-threatening seduction of temptress Calypso and wrath of the Cyclops. Throughout the poem, we see that Odysseus is motivated by kleos, glory and fame. He longs to attain the status of an immortal by enduring in people’s memories. During my first few months at Harvard, I can’t help but have noticed that we, as students, tend to conflate kleos and veritas as our motto.
What’s dangerous is that this pursuit of kleos manifests in every aspect of our lives. It manifests when we accumulate political internships so we can polish the resume for the Law School (#ElleWoods) and our entitled position in the West Wing (#OliviaPope). It permeates when we spend five hours finding the right outfit for the Hasty social (#LovePoshPudding). It permeates when we copy off our entryway mates on the Ec. Pset because the grade trumps comprehension, and Fireball calls.
I don’t state this as an passive observer, but as an active participant. I find myself already tired from sprinting (#PumpkinSpiceMeNow) because I foresee four years of sprinting this marathon.
What’s ironic is that the Odyssey ends, not when Odysseus finds kleos, but when he completes nostos, his homecoming.
Harvard is now my home. In the physical sense, I completed my nostos the moment I claimed the top bunk at Mower A-22. Yet, in the metaphysical sense, I know that my internal state is restless; it seeks fulfillment from the physical, but emerges cramped and fatigued.
I am beyond grateful, humbled, overjoyed to have found my physical home for the next four years; however, I want to treat Harvard, not as the means for kleos, but as an end, a nostos, in itself. …tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—So we run on, souls against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.