I'm trying to read more this year. Not from my course books, though. I usually read as many pages of those as I can, which usually is not all of them, but I'm not in the business of changing that. Instead, I'm trying to read for myself. I'm trying to read before I go to sleep because it's a much more pleasant way to drift away from the day than numbing my eyes with the glamorous, synthesized photos of my family, friends and curiosities on Instagram.
A few nights ago I read this:
"Our hottest arguments were always about how we could contribute. We did not care about the rewards. We were young and earnest. We never kidded ourselves that we had the political gifts to reorder society or insure social justice. Beyond a basic minimum, money was not a goal we respected. Some of us suspected that money wasn't even very good for people... But we all hoped, in whatever way our capacities permitted, to define and illustrate the worthy life." - Wallace Stegner, "Crossing to Safety"
The worthy life. What a thing to write. What a thing to say. What a thing to read.
The young and earnest surround me, and I’m one of them. We trod across campus on stone pathways that have always felt the rhythm of the feet of those seeking to develop and nurture their capacities. All of us that walk here, whether we know it or not, are suddenly and certainly starting to think about and define the worthy life.
For some people, this place defines worthiness; especially those who don’t know it well. These people walk here, too. They visit and marvel and capture the attempted institutionalization of worthiness in photographs.
However, those of us who have come to know this place well, have realized that perhaps worthiness cannot be earned by walking through the storied and tabooed gates that tower in front of Nassau Hall, or even by walking out of them, for that matter. Even if we manage to leave with a greater capacity than we started with, we are still amateurs.
The best thing I’ve learned at Princeton, though, is that amateurism is a capacity. That’s right. I’m talking about newness, not knowing, inexperience. These things are valuable.
During my sophomore year, after a semester of challenging us to solve problems, think creatively and critically about the current system of international development, my professor concluded with a lecture titled “So what can you do?”
The answer: be a development amateur.
If it is one’s capacity that permits them to illustrate and define a worthy life, then keep amateurism in your arsenal of capacities. Don’t try to eliminate it, because then, your capacity will stand still. It will start prohibiting you, not permitting you. It’ll lock you in to one illustration. One definition. Forever.
Perhaps I will leave Princeton with a slightly more polished capacity than when I started, not because of the papers I’ve written, the research I’ve done or the books I’ve read, but instead because I am now not only quite aware of my amateurism, but in alliance with it.
