Great Expectations

          When one finds oneself debating, actually mulling it over aloud, whether one should go to the emergency room or attend the matinee performance of J.M. Synge's, "Playboy of the Western World" and thereby fulfill academic duty, one should see a doctor as soon as possible, if not for the obvious reason then for the other.
          At some point in my brief career as a child I picked up this burdensome notion that I have an unconditional obligation to my education. My fierce adherence to this unspoken obligation has been the death of my attendance at many a social event, countless hours of restful sleep and hundreds upon thousands of cubic feet of unbreathed fresh air. Certainly the aforementioned deaths put good health on a shelf, but never did I think that this obligation could be the death of me.

          I spent the better part of my Sunday afternoon taking the circuitous tour of the emergency room, spending just enough time in each different waiting cell to shift my weight three times. I arrived dripping with wimpy tears and settled myself on a bench pretending to be a chair. I took out my school books and displayed my determination to study. I tried hard to concentrate on my studies and not on the slippy little thing with the broken nose whose entire sorority had come in support, or the vain attempts the television censor was making to bleep the dirty words from the Austin Powers film spilling loudly from the television that no one seemed to be watching and no one seemed to be not watching. No other noses in the room were buried in textbooks, no other brains were attempting to displace their discomfort through discourse. I had checked myself into the one place where Americans can idle guilt-free. What is so terribly perverse about me that I cannot follow suit?
          The need for security, that's what. It's the American way, after all. Insecurity keeps me bound to my obligations. Without my obligations I am insecure, I have no security. But what have my obligations done for me lately? Obligations I've given you all and now I'm nothing if I'm not just as insecure as when I started; I'd be obliged to split the difference but it's lately all or nothing with you.
          At birth I was blessed with a bottomless curiosity, and a devout gluttony for knowledge has been the result. There's rarely a time I wouldn't rather be thinking about something or reading a book or deconstructing patterns in my environment. My brain gets fatter in spite of me, though I've been told the looks I wear on my face at times suggest I'm suffering a slow leak. Would I prefer to spend the afternoon in a theatre instead of this stuffy pit of muffled coughs? Indeed. Would I like to see a doctor to cure that which ails me? Sure. Am I more terrified of not fulfilling academic obligation? Mais oui!
          But unlike so many of my undergraduate classmates, I crumble at the thought of disappointing my professors. Insecurity rears her ugly deformed head every time I begin an email with, "I'm sorry for my absence"; asking for extensions is like asking for an upset stomach. No, no. It's best to eat through the tough times in order to save face later and only when you become a hazard to the health and safety of others should you bail---

          What a piss poor revolutionary I make. People like me might as well stick our heads in the oven because we're just wasting air and letting our bodies become puny bags of fret and fear, our guts turning in on themselves, corrective lenses growing thicker and thicker, our skin paling, noses bleeding, allergies compounding and nails chewed to the nub. If we hadn't good reasons to feel insecure before, we've acquired them with interest. I wish I could understand when academic obligation decided to make us her bitch, and which persons were accessories to her crime. Fingering through the stack of germy waiting room magazines at the hospital one could easily find a hundred reasons why someone's got to be smart in this country. Examining my highly elitist attitude and well-endowed University environment, I am sure that something in my upbringing imposed upon me the value of higher and higher and highest education. I also love to learn, remember? These reasons alone do not validate my neurotically unrealistic expectations of my academic performance.
          By now you must be thinking I'm really some hotshot genius-in-training whose brain will someday be preserved via cryogenic technology of my own design for future research into the structure of cerebellums in individuals exhibiting precocity from birth and exceptional biological fitness. You flatter me, really. The fact is the reason I seek security through these particular means is as simple as it sounds, because I am not secure; not secure about anything. I am so not secure that I am insecure (these two ideas having different meanings, but of course you knew that). I am insecure about any and every activity and insecure about any and every word I say or type or think. I am insecure about my appearance, my height, my weight, the color of my teeth, the curl of my hair, and the flatness of my feet. I am insecure when I raise my hand because I'm both afraid to be wrong and afraid my shirt will have sweat circles around my armpits. I am insecure before, during and after sex. I am insecure about asking for help or admitting defeat, I'd rather just not try. I am insecure about my gender, which may explain my many other insecurities. I am physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually, financially, spiritually, metaphysically, and even organically insecure. When one is as perfectly unrooted as I am, the best defense is always good grades.
          Were this blog a Broadway musical, this is the point where the chorus line of geeks cuts loose in a little number I like to call, "Ain't No GPA High Enough". There is a sensational orgy of blue books and library cards, dancers erupt like colorful confetti from giant tote bags and the singing is perfectly in tune.
          I like to think that geeks can step, turn, kick, turn, slide, kick, turn, again. I want to think this dedication to academics is a phase that we will grow out of once we have sufficient affirmation of our other traits. I've seen it happen to others. More often than not, the affirmation comes from finding true love or developing a drinking problem. I've tried both with little success, which is maybe why I found myself on a sterile white bed in the emergency room sobbing from both my discomfort and my guilt for missing the play.
          Once my lovely mother arrived with hot tea and the attractive young doctor revealed the evening's spread of delicious pharmaceuticals, I was able to relax. I returned my textbooks to my tote bag and instead elected to read for pleasure. In my bleary state, I struggled to distinguish the letters on the page, which was beginning to look like a bowl of hot cereal. My mind was shocked to delight by a passage on the page, the only piece of text I was able to pick out from the mush. It was as if mr. e.e. cummings was winking at me from his papery grave. He writes:


"Security?" I marvel to myself "what is that? Something negative, undead, suspicious and suspecting; an avarice and an avoidance; a self-surrendering meanness of withdrawal; a numerable complacency and an innumerable cowardice. Who would be 'secure'? Every and any slave. No free spirit ever dreamed of 'security' - or if he did, he laughed; and lived to shame his dream. No whole sinless sinful sleeping waking breathing human creature ever was (or could be) bought by, and sold for, 'security.' How monstrous and how feeble seems some unworld which would rather have its too than eat its cake!"


          Touché, Baldy. But this is not a victory, entirely. Even e.e. was an academic junkie, so I am not sure we should trust him to lecture (or nonlecture as he claims) us on the principles of lightening up. There is a reason academics write articles for scholarly journals instead of self-help books.

          I do agree, however, that this whole business with the cake has gone far enough. It's enough that I spent twelve of my formative years grooming my resume for college applications, and another five going on six years grooming my resume for potential employers. My fellow geeks, when will we stop and smell the pencil shavings? When is the 'too' too much? I, for one, have hit the wall. I have found that I will never be happy with myself so I'm going to simply stop trying to be. I have both everything and nothing to prove. Boring, tired, and zestless is the life of the secure and his insecure brethren. I envision a new future, a living-on-the-edge approach to academia with ProQuest pirates, hell-raisers with day planners, flagrant citations and what else can I say, no apologies for missing class when other obligations call. Because that's what matters, really - other obligations - health, sleep, socializing, travel, love, family, sex, breakfast, pleasure reading, poetry. And if I'm going to die, I do not want to be thinking about how it might impact my grade.


Still kicking,
E.P. Farthing