Just finished up my Fall 2010 term at PSU and I'm pretty excited to be getting my Bachelors of Arts in six months. So excited that I haven't slept and instead spent the night (after finishing submitting my last final) going through requirements for the graduation application, commencement ceremony details, and designing my class ring on the Jostens website. I guess you could say I can get a little obsessive.
It's kind of a big deal. I put a lot of thought into all the details. I thought maybe I'd share them with people -- never mind how incoherent it may all end up being or how confused people who do not know much about me and my history will find themselves. So please forgive me ahead of time, and feel free to chalk all of this up to a result of not getting enough sleep.
I think that, rather than being a study of subjects and cultivating of marketable skills that will one day earn me a Job In The Real World, my college career has been more of a struggle with my greatest enemy -- myself. The difficulties most difficult to overcome and that brought the most trouble were never academic -- they were recurring anorexia and depression, motivational problems, identity crises, self-doubt, racism, relationship issues, emotional abuse and what seemed (or is it seems?) like a constant struggle to find purpose in life. They were self-esteem issues, burdens of a poorly-founded sense of guilt, overwhelming desires to find true love and incredible anguish also manifest physically as well as psychologically at its loss. I dealt with hospitalizations and suicides, I dealt with despair, I dealt with hopelessness and frustration and abandonment and loneliness and the oppressing weight of the overly too-considered thought of being undeserving of any and all good that comes or has ever come my way.
So I believe that my college graduation is not a celebration of a completed pursuit of knowledge or the necessary step of certification in some field for a career.
It is a triumph of my very heart and soul over everything I've suffered -- a declaration of my desire to thrive despite hardships and a solid reminder, no matter how hard I try to reason against it, of my own worth.
Edward Estlin Cummings, my favorite poet and lifelong source of inspiration, once said, "We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." Suffice it to say that thanks to my college experience, I believe.
All the textbook knowledge I've accumulated and marketable skills I've developed pale in comparison to the value of the insight and understanding of my own self that completing my bachelor's degree has required me to uncover. I've always found it endearing whenever I'd read brilliant poets or philosophers talk about how they never sought to be wise or anything like that -- I adore Greek philosophers like Socrates who once said "I only know that I know nothing." Keenly aware of their own limitations, and even reminding others about it, these people often focused on self-development.
I've found it incredibly appropriate that Jostens carries class ring designs that look strikingly similar to some engagement and wedding rings I've seen as alternatives to the traditional style -- indeed, graduation has marked me as someone who's truly discovered what is necessary before marriage: love.
A love for oneself that inspires healthy decision-making and commitments -- a love and deep appreciation for all those who are a part of one's life -- a love and great empathy that comes from being for so long at the brink of despair and being gently brought back through friendship. A love not solely dependent on any one other person, a love easily and often gladly shared with anyone you come across. As badly as many people (including me) want to believe marriage is falling in love, I like to think that it is creating love. However, my B+ in physics reminds me that matter cannot be created or destroyed; it merely changes from one form to another. Thus, to "fall in" or "find" or "create" love with another person, you must first have it with yourself.
Graduation marks my embracing of this love. A love that, if ever lost, can be found easily once more in the recollection of life's events up to that point. And what better way to remember than with a small piece of jewelry worn always? Is that not one of the basic ideas of rings?
My class ring will not bear my degree or major or clubs and activities I've been involved with -- it will be engraved with the simple Greek aphorism "Know thyself." I just think it's fitting.
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