A Letter William Peeler A Letter I won’t lie, this is not the first time I have begun writing this integration; I believe this draft to be numbered somewhere around five, although that number can vary depending on how you define a draft. This is all to say that I have been struggling to find something worth writing about, and every idea I tried was forced and, in all honesty, half-fabricated. So, in lieu of attempting to face the prompt directly, I believe I should just do my best to explain from where this issue stems. For years before coming to Notre Dame, I was an active journalist. My room back home has an entire shelf devoted to moleskins filled with half-finished poetry and whatever insights I saw fit to write down, and I found that the easiest way to process and deal with new information or uncertainty was to write about it: often in the form of a poem or letter. Ending the summer with a rather painful breakup also ended that habit, as the act of pulling out a moleskin reminded me too much of the dozens of love poems I had written in the past. I promised myself that I would begin journaling again when I felt the need, and to this day, I haven’t. Felt the need, I mean. In Week Nine, you began class by asking everyone what was shocking about their transition to college, and I struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer. In the end, I made something up, an answer which I don’t even remember at the time of writing this. Had I been answering truthfully, I would have said ‘nothing,’ but I figured that would make me sound vain and elitist, when in fact that answer is honestly my greatest source of disappointment. It seemed as if that entire week was based around Emery Bergman’s statement that “Going to college is a massive change — so many students are being uprooted from the familiar comforts of their homes and thrust into a completely new place,”1 a statement to which I can’t relate anymore. I was fourteen years old when I moved away from home, and in the span of a single year I was disowned by two friends I had known since birth, thrust into the middle of a family-wide war about who should be blamed for my uncle’s suicide, taken to Brazil by someone I had met only a week before, told by that person that I never did and never would deserve happiness, repeatedly flown back and forth from New Hampshire to Maryland in order to visit my Grandfather on his deathbed, and forced to quit the sports I had built my life around due to a career ending injury. Believe it or not, that’s the Sparknotes version; I didn’t even mention the death threats from a stalker. In the span of a single year, I went from a sheltered kid who could barely hold a conversation to someone who had been exposed to far more than his fair share of the world’s ugliness. Suffice to say, I was forced to mature a little quicker than expected. In the span of that year I changed my outlook countless times, devoured the texts of different philosophies and religions, and changed my core beliefs about as often as one changes bedsheets. Every week I held a revelation about myself, my values, and the world around me. And so I adapted, and so time passed, and so the world returned to a more normal resting state, and here I am, having just moved into college, surrounded by people in awe of new horizons and in fear of new obstacles, and none of it feels new. I am surrounded by peers who are experiencing daily revelations, the beliefs they have held for their entire lives being tested for the first time, and I find myself struggling to relate anymore. To make something clear, I in no way see this as a form of superiority - I simply see myself as desensitized. I know I still have learning left to do, and I understand that I am nowhere near finalized in my beliefs (and I never will be), but it is indisputable fact that the pace of revelations slows with time and experience. 1 (“Advice from a Formerly Lonely College Student” by Emery Bergmann - Moreau FYE Week Nine) The best way I have ever seen this feeling described is in Circle Mirror Transformation, my favorite show of all time and one I could honestly see being a Moreau module in and of itself. In his ending dialogue, Schultz, the character never fails to get the short end of the stick, poses the question: “Do you ever wonder how many times your life is gonna end? Like how many times your life is gonna totally change and then, like, start all over again? And you’ll feel like what happened before wasn’t real and what’s happening now is actually…”2 As he trails off, the play ends, and each member of the audience is left wondering how that sentence ends, because somehow, it rarely feels possible to define right now as ‘real.’ Years ago, it felt like my life ended once a week, and while it doesn’t feel any more ‘real’ now, it does have an air of permanence I find unfamiliar. In “Thirteen Ways of Looking At Community”, it was stated that “We find it threatening when leaders say, “I am not going tell you how to do this, let alone do it for you, but I am going to create a space in which you can do it for yourselves”3 because the author assumes that functioning without help or guidance is new for the reader. I have actually found the opposite to be true; I have found the level of micromanagement in college courses to be stifling. I have found the constant check-ins, the raising of hands to ask questions, and the constant statements of “this is all new to you, so we’ll walk you through'' almost surreal after living alone for four years and figuring everything out for myself. Worse, I understand that I am probably alone in this feeling, as this experience is new for everyone but me, and so I find myself unable to talk about it without coming across as elitist or dismissive; which, I must admit, would be a fair reaction. I am left to wonder if this is “the dryness and dullness” spoken of in The Screwtape Letters.4 Is it this feeling that those around me are finding their callings, their passions, the things 4 (“The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis” - Moreau FYE Week Twelve) 3 (“Thirteen Ways of Looking At Community” - Moreau FYE Week Eleven) 2 (“Circle Mirror Transformation” by Annie Baker) that are important to them, and yet here I am feeling as if my worldview hasn’t shifted in years? I have always tended towards a cynical nature -- I consider it a result of my heritage, an opinion anyone would understand after a single night at my family dinner table -- but there was a point at which my ideas were loose enough that every philosophy was met with at least partial acceptance instead of informed rebuttal. I wonder when that change happened, when my first response to a friend explaining their worldview became comparing it with mine, seeing what parts were the right shape to fit, when I used to just try and accept ideas in their entirety. I am left to wonder how much easier this would feel if, in all of that time, I had found a single system of belief behind which I could throw myself wholeheartedly. I find myself influenced by an odd mix of Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, and classical philosophy, and a side effect of that idea-stew is that identifying with any individual one feels impossible. When reading about the founders of Notre Dame and how, from an early age, Father Moreau “merely wanted to be sent, like the first apostles, to spread faith in Jesus Christ and his good news wherever he might be most useful,”5 I wondered if I would ever be able to believe in something surely enough to ‘merely’ want something. I could talk about lofty ideals, could quote the Wesley Theological Seminary Commencement Address and agree that “the challenge of reducing hatred and promoting love. This is your calling”6 but while I find some passion in this belief, I know I couldn’t devote my life to that single cause. I find the idea of scientific knowledge important, thus my major in physics, but I don’t think I believe in it strongly enough to devote my life to it either. I can’t think of anything I’m truly sure of, and yet I have met students my age with unshakable faith in God or their purpose and I wonder if that would even 6 (“Wesley Theological Seminary 2012 Commencement Address” by Fr. John Jenkins - Moreau FYE Week Ten) 5 (“Holy Cross and Christian Education” - Moreau FYE Week Twelve) be good for me. After all, I have seen that unshakable faith lead some dorm mates unquestioningly into bigotry and misinformation. Still, I can’t help but think it would be comforting to know that there are other people who have devoted their lives the same as mine, to find camaraderie and affirmation. In another life, maybe, but for now, I think mixing pieces and parts of what everyone else has to say is the best way I can express myself. I realize that, by now, we are already well over the word count, and it isn’t my intention to keep you here reading ramblings. While this began as an explanation of my writer's block, It could be said that this letter fits the prompt after all. What have I encountered? Apathy, and normalcy. A lack of purpose, direction, and innovation. Stagnation: now that’s a good word. Isolation, too, and that was the hardest word to add to this list. What will I do? Well, maybe I should start writing again. About two paragraphs in I forgot this was an assignment, and actually had to backtrack to add in quotes and requirements. I consider this my first journal entry since August 14th, and hopefully it is the first of many. I don’t think I would have admitted any of this letter’s contents had it not been in a written format. So, to summarize, I would consider this letter an admission of deep seated beliefs and fears, followed by discovery of how, exactly, to face them. One could almost call that a revelation. I used to sign every journal entry, including those written with no audience in mind, because I find it important to address the reader, whoever they may be. That being said, Yours, Will