North Carolina State University - Agromeck Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

Page 9 text:

. l Part of the whole. Or are you ' Are you separate, or are you alone ' ' An identity? Where? You are part of 15,500, a tiny part at that. Your teachers can lose you; the computer can lose you - you can even lose yourself. Look at the crowd. Do you see a crowd, or do you see people alone? Perhaps you are frightened today; perhaps you have forgotten who and what you are - maybe you haven ' t known for some time. Your identity is inert in a room filled with cotton candy, smothered in alikeness, drowned in nothingness. Is this really where you find yourself; is school the tutor of yourselfl ' Go to class. They will teach you something, quantum mechanics, the Carolingian Kings, Ferlinghetti. Go to all your classes, go for the entire week; did you learn anything about yourself? Anything to affirm who you are, or what you might be? Why are you here? Why are you being filled with so much yet learning so little? Why are you surrounded by so many yet so alone? Forget the Carolingian Kings (they ' re dead); forget about quantum mechanics (they ' ll surely displace it); forget about Ferlinghetti (he ' s no longer in style). Laugh. Laugh at it. How can anyone take it seriously ' ' They are all frauds; they claim to be educating you, but you don ' t know anything - nothing, not even as much as a child because their endless repetition of endless facts has drowned your senses in ennui. Damnit they ' re bullshitting you; they claim to be adding and instead they ' re subtracting; you ' re getting dumber by the minute. Throw it up; leave it all; skip class, sleep till two in the afternoon, play a little handball, drink, gossip, date, sleep around. And you are just as empty as you ever were. Oh, you ' re free all right; but you ' re still empty; you still don ' t know who you are or even if you are. So creep back into school, with stealth and a little cunning, looking behind you all the while. Ease into the chair when the professor ' s back is turned and listen to what he says and then listen to how his words apply to you. Ask questions about them, and force him to answer the person in you who is trying to come out. Take the courses which educate you; not what you want to be, not what you might be, but what you are. Make them tell you who you are. They can ' t of course, only you can do that, but they can help. Now! Now, damnit; live right now; you are not going to grow up and be something - you are something right now. And they are stealing from you the something you are, and you ' re not only letting them, you ' re helping them. So creep back into class and listen closely to what they say; listen closely inside yourself to know if, once again, they are betraying you and if you are betraying yourself. You are not empty; you are not going dead inside; you are not alone, merely...