What Could Have Been and What Is

I wish with all my heart that I could have been an Ivy League snob, to have attended Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. To be entitled by fortune to feel elite and talk among my peers in smug undertones of sympathy about the poor, deprived kids who had to attend state universities.

Oh how self-importantly I would have savored those mornings on the banks of the Charles River watching the sculls. A touch of humility to affect the proper posture -- gracious but appropriately aloof -- as I attended one of Harvard’s House Crew meetings at the Weld Boathouse – perhaps stopping to talk with a member of the Radcliffe women's crew (their sculling crew is housed at the same boat house.)

Ross Douthat wrote the book, Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class. He describes Harvard as "an incubator for an American ruling class that is smug, self-congratulatory, and intellectually adrift." I can live with that.

Several years of night school at an urban, state funded school provides no context for feelings of upper class arrogance. Sitting in the school cafeteria at 7:30 PM eating a hot dog and watching the other “students,” some still wearing their coats and ties from work, doze and stare eyelessly at their text books – no haughty, arrogant poses among the earnest. Hard to strike a pose wearing a mustard stained tie.

Tired – that’s what I remember about college days. Oh there were some high points – evenings after class drinking beer with other psychology 301 students; pretending to be intellectuals but coming across as office clerks who were pretending to be intellectuals. I received a modest and utilitarian education, but no memories and experiences to create any aristocratic self-assertions.

In my modest sphere, struggling to ascend a gradient of mediocre genetics, dysfunctional upbringing and dispositional deficits I regret that I was not fortunate enough to have inherited a native endowment that would have allowed me to attain some worthwhile intellectual achievement.

It is miserable to know what you are; I envy those whose intelligence does not allow them to reach a level of awareness such that they know how little they contribute to the world. Unfortunately, I am aware of all my limitations; a facility that come along with cognitive ability and the ability to face reality.

Reality is a bitch; best to ignore it and live immersed in fantasy. The movies and novels allow us the opportunity to vicariously experience other “realities,” however briefly.

I don’t think there is any question but that the creative life is probably the most satisfying; more than riches and power – which bring with them a dangerous amplification of self - which seems to slowly poison the capacity for joy. But, those capable of creating something truly original – to achieve a rendering of self in some physical form – must experience the ultimate euphoria.

The whole experience of life is ineffable to me; I will die without understanding much about where I’ve been or why. All of this is an enigma and understanding becomes more elusive the older you get.

Things that in my youth seem simple are now are unfathomable; all the wonder of youth and the hope of understanding have been discarded. The search for wisdom and the pursuit of those who purported to have obtained it has been abandoned.

I would prefer to have a couple of hundred acres somewhere and live in the middle of it. In the evening, I would drink Martinis and watch the deer creep in from the tree line and browse the grass and vegetation. The only sounds would be the sounds of insects and creatures that inhabit the woods.

It is a pretty Buddhist fantasy, but I think I would be happy there. And yes, where I went to school would not matter – in fact, it doesn’t matter now.