How I Learned to Fondle Everything Around Me (Except Other People)

To be completely honest, I started out here pretty arrogant. Though I knew I would be
surrounded by smart people, I still viewed school as merely a formality. Surely, there were very
few things, if any, that a school could teach me even one with a so-called advanced
curriculum. Oh, how I was wrong.
Oh, how I was wrong. I have learned this year that there is so much more to learn, and I
have barely even scratched the surface. One particular thing that I have realized is just how
deliberately authors write. I recall first semester, when Mrs. Brown constantly pushed us to dive
deeper into the text, to pick apart every page and paragraph and sentence. I learned that reading
and understanding were two different things. You can read a book and enjoy it. But the art of
understanding literature demands scrutiny of every word; surface level comprehension is not
enough. I am reminded of the idea of sonder1. There is so much involved in every book and
every person that to think you fully understand them is foolish. That is why Siddartha has to live
his own experience. Where we get from following a set of instructions is contingent on who we
are at the start, and just as it was impossible for Siddartha to understand what made the Buddha
who he was, it is impossible for us to know precisely who another person is or what exactly
their book is. Knowing this is very enlightening, but it can also be a handicap. Take a hotbutton policy issue and then state your stance on it. Whether it is abortion rights, immigration, or
healthcare, there are always multiple sides. And embracing that each side has its own truths and
validities that are as valid as the truths of the other side hinders your ability to confidently make
decisions or take stances. It may make you a worse politician, but at least it makes you a better
human. I have personally experienced this indecision the night before an essay is due, thinking
about whether I ought to reverse the entire paper because I found evidence that reached an
opposite conclusion.
The depth of everything can be overwhelming, but not knowing that the depth exists in
the first place is even worse. A liberal education empowers individuals and prepares them to
deal with complexity, diversity, and change and helps students develop a sense of social

A neologism not recognized by Merriam-Webster or the OED, but it is said to mean: the realization that each
random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own Source:
http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder

responsibility 2. And I now feel like Im down the road to learning how to deal with the
complexities of the world. And its pretty damn exciting. Its not just a road you can learn about
from reading a book. You have to live the journey. You have to open the object of your analysis.
You have to breathe in the details. You have to fondle them. And you have to learn to be wrong.
You have to learn to be a bit wrong and you have to learn how to deal with being so wrong that
you question the wisdom of your admission to the magnet. If living is learning, the only way to
fully live is to be humbled on a routine basis. The trap I fell into before ninth grade was that of
reckless encouragement. I mistook praise for perfection. Perhaps I should have fondled the
details of the praise. Having wonderful or wow written on my paper meant that a paragraph
was wonderful, not that I was wonderful.
Pre-IB English may as well be renamed to Learning to Live through Literature3
(partially because its true, but mostly because its alliterative). Thats what I have learned this
year, and I am so glad I did.
***
Addendum: I really hope you have a wonderful time at Central Office. The building may
be ugly, but at least youll be able to escape to slightly less ugly schools (Poolesville obviously
excepted).

From the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

http://www.aacu.org/leap/what_is_liberal_education.cfm
3
As in Using Literature to Learn How to Live, not Living Vicariously Through Literature. Misplaced modifiers
suck, but I am always amenable to abandoning accuracy for alliteration.