Failed Scholar.

Perhaps it is the eternal struggle of desire that pits me this afternoon into an almost-tranquil trance. My story is not particularly more interesting than others’, nor does it offer the general depth of perception and literary convention most (good) stories do. My story does, however, follow in the tradition of Edgar Allen Poe. Poe believed that stories should be read in one sitting, and in order to emphasize this point, the dark and dreary artist wrote a majority of his works in one sitting. Thus, I have concluded that great works come in two varieties: the result of many a hard night’s labor, or the result of supernova explosions of inspiration.

The college student inside me has automatic tendencies toward the latter.

Though my story tries most earnestly to avoid convention, it inevitably must fall under some kind of category. Categories and taxonomies and labels in general seem to be a human intuition. Genres and titles make things less scary. We are inherently afraid of the unknown (i.e. the dark, or the Future), and placing things in categories helps us understand things better, or so we think. Ergo, it stands to reason that such taxonomic tendencies ease our anxieties about that which we do not understand. Thus, I must categorize my story.

Let’s call it self-referential for now.

I am a loud, loquacious and lucky college student at the University of the Pacific. I have been blessed (and I use the term semi-sardonically) with the opportunity to study Biology in a Pre-dental focus, having been enrolled in the very unique program Pacific offers.

My educational experience at Pacific has been a mixed and varied one. I have seen first-hand the dichotomy that dissects the various majors of the school. In general, the science majors stick to themselves and the rest stick to the rest. I see music majors clique themselves. I see SIS majors band together freshman year before dispersing. I am enrolled in the Honors Program, and even when we are forced into the same classroom, somehow we know how to segregate ourselves into our respective majors.

It is a sad sight indeed, when my educational experience is not dominated by my education itself, but rather by my observations regarding our very classist society. I guess “sad” isn’t the right term for it, really. I think it is more apt to call myself concerned.

But I digress.

I am a science major, which in and of itself yields inevitable connotations beyond my ability to fathom. As diligently as I try to analyze my situations from a third-person viewpoint, I cannot fully understand what others feel and see when they see a science major. The connotations are boundless in their complexity and yet infinitesimal in their implication.

My story, then, begins in an honors section of Pacific Seminar. I was asked to be involved in a documentary the school funded for the class, and I accepted merrily. I like looking at myself, you see, and there is no better way to watch yourself than in a cinematic format. Alas, my film debut was limited, and I began to accept my squashed dream as a movie star. I did, however, learn a few things about myself and the context in which I have placed myself here at Pacific.

I learned that my ability to write and discuss in Pacific Seminar did not help me in my science classes.

I learned that my knowledge of biology did not help me (much) in my humanities classes.

I learned that injustice occurs in almost every corner of the world, and despite my observations, one person rarely makes a difference.

I learned that despite my ability to write, to put into words my most visceral thoughts and ideas, I cannot fully explain the intuition that is human desire. I have let go of that goal. I cannot explain the intricacies of the abstract.

Love, joy, sadness, anxiety, depression, desire, Chuck Norris. These are the things that we cannot explain in words. We are at a limit in our communicative abilities to express our feelings.

But we try, Lord knows we try.

Perhaps it is our desire to reach out that makes our limits so difficult to bear.

Perhaps it is our desire to be understood that makes us so grotesquely insistent on expressing our feelings.

Perhaps it is our desire to love and be loved in return, as Toulouse claims, that drives us.

Perhaps it is not love, but habit, that breaks our hearts when we separate from each other, whether it is an emotional parting of two lovers or the physical parting of a friend or father.

Perhaps, as Fitzgerald eloquently states in The Great Gatsby, “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Perhaps it is the desire to put to peace our past mistakes that worries us.

Our fear of the unknown is evident in our fear of the future. We know the past and so we obsess over it. Our fear of the unknown keeps us confined to the familiar, and separates us from the foreign, the strange immigrants, the changing pop culture, the differing majors.

Perhaps it is not the eternal struggle of desire that pits me this afternoon into an almost-tranquil trance. Perhaps it is the unknown and the acceptance that I cannot control the unknown that puts me at peace.

For, despite my upbringing, despite my “science” major, despite my Roman Catholic guilt-ridden educational background, I find Buddha’s words most True:

“Suffering comes from desire. To end suffering, end desire.”

It is the automatic human intuition of desire that makes us suffer.

And it is the fear of the unknown that fuels such desire. We fear that which we do not know, so we desire to Know. So we suffer. And we segregate. And we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

And I have an anatomy test next week, so I can’t spend more time with this story or else I have to use more than one sitting.

Poe would be proud.