Today's batch of essays included Kevin, Abby, Joan, Katie, and Ronald ... very impressive! Also, very daunting. I have to present on Friday(?), I believe, and I have to say it's an intimidating group of five to follow!
I couldn't help but notice a correlation among all the presenters; each person there today found the most inspiration talking about their own experiences, things that moved them or jolted them into an epiphanical moment, or the path that led them to the senior capstone in English Literature. Admittedly, my paper will probably follow something of the same outline as I will be chronicling the experiences that have led to my graduation (finally, YES!!) from MSU.
I don't think it would be very honest to write about the idea of epiphany in a senior capstone class without using one's own experiences. How else would you know what epiphany is? In order to know, one has to experience, and sometimes experience several times to come to know something for the first time (something Katie referenced in her paper).
I have had my share of experiences that have led me to this moment, this day, this place in my life. I've been to three different colleges, dropped out of school twice, had experiences (romantic and otherwise) which I would like to forget, and battled alcoholism in my family and my personal life. Somehow, though, I feel like I have wound up in the right place. Melancholy has been the overriding tone for most of my college career, but through those experiences have come wisdom I never thought I would have. I will talk about all of this in my paper... it's all about learning where I HAVE to go and not where I WANT to go. School is winding down and my life is about to change very drastically, and I feel now more than ever that I'm on the track to where I HAVE to go. I know I have to. One of my favorite quotes by Beryl Markham explains this period of transition better than I ever could:
'a life has to move or it stagnates. even this life, i think. it is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no good anticipating regrets. every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.'
I feel like this is quite fitting for most of us in the class because we're all realizing this every day; every class we take, every lecture we attend, every book we read (or re-read) tells us that this is the way life is supposed to be. I don't ever want to live in a life that is stagnant, and so I will continue on learning where I have to go. I am in the process of applying for a job position in Guam; it's a world away, and while I am very excited about the prospect of leaving, something inside me doesn't want to go. I want to go back to Red Lodge and be near my family, but I know this will only lead to the kind of stagnation I so badly want to avoid. And so, however melancholy I may feel when I get to where I'm going, I can only be sure that I will come away from the experience with some sort of elevated understanding of myself or the world or both. Whether this will be a 'light' epiphany or 'dark' epiphany, I cannot be sure until I've experienced it, but at least I feel like I know what I have to do.
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