Utopia
Mrs. Aginoth, a new visitor, has a blog in which she has begun to plot out her own fantasy utopia. I read through it and it is pretty comprehensive as an outline for a utopian society.
It reminded me of the crucial moment in my life that was my own crossroads. I quote Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
I was drafted out of college in 1972, the first and only year that the draft could take people out of college after their freshman year. I served my country and then went back to school. I was a bit full of myself, thinking I was handsome, athletic and pretty darned smart.
My philosophy course the following year had a year-ending requirement. Based on a book by B.F.Skinner, "Walden II", we were to design our own utopia and lay it all out in a long report. I was excited by the idea and began to design this uptopia. But soon I was frustrated. I thought Skinner did not give enough thought to the individualism featured in Ayn Rand's novels nor the tendency for man to be selfish and sinful. I saw that I could not believe in any uptopia I could create, for sin and selfishness worked against such a society and man's desire to excel and express himself worked against collectivism. I also discerned the bankruptcy of my own life's philosophy. I dropped out of school.
I wish I could say that I left school determined to study and meditate until I knew the answers I sought for myself. In truth, I wound up spending more time getting drunk or high on illegal substances than I did in study. Feeling sorry for myself to an extent, and feeling lost as well.
Eventually I began to seek answers, open to whatever truth I could find. Much to my surprise, I found truth in God and the Bible.
Later, I did go back to school and am a professional now, but it was a hard road since I wound up getting married and having children and responsibilities. How much easier it would have been had I remained in school, graduated with my degree as a younger man and gone on to follow my then-chosen career. I know what it is like to work full-time, go to college classes full-time plus be a father and husband (clue - you largely give up on sleep...) and I know what it is like to have to cut corners and eat oatmeal two or three meals in a day rather than one. Yet I have never regretted my "stop the world, I want to get off" moment that led me away from college and a neatly plotted-out life and on to a life full of zigs and zags.
It reminded me of the crucial moment in my life that was my own crossroads. I quote Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
I was drafted out of college in 1972, the first and only year that the draft could take people out of college after their freshman year. I served my country and then went back to school. I was a bit full of myself, thinking I was handsome, athletic and pretty darned smart.
My philosophy course the following year had a year-ending requirement. Based on a book by B.F.Skinner, "Walden II", we were to design our own utopia and lay it all out in a long report. I was excited by the idea and began to design this uptopia. But soon I was frustrated. I thought Skinner did not give enough thought to the individualism featured in Ayn Rand's novels nor the tendency for man to be selfish and sinful. I saw that I could not believe in any uptopia I could create, for sin and selfishness worked against such a society and man's desire to excel and express himself worked against collectivism. I also discerned the bankruptcy of my own life's philosophy. I dropped out of school.
I wish I could say that I left school determined to study and meditate until I knew the answers I sought for myself. In truth, I wound up spending more time getting drunk or high on illegal substances than I did in study. Feeling sorry for myself to an extent, and feeling lost as well.
Eventually I began to seek answers, open to whatever truth I could find. Much to my surprise, I found truth in God and the Bible.
Later, I did go back to school and am a professional now, but it was a hard road since I wound up getting married and having children and responsibilities. How much easier it would have been had I remained in school, graduated with my degree as a younger man and gone on to follow my then-chosen career. I know what it is like to work full-time, go to college classes full-time plus be a father and husband (clue - you largely give up on sleep...) and I know what it is like to have to cut corners and eat oatmeal two or three meals in a day rather than one. Yet I have never regretted my "stop the world, I want to get off" moment that led me away from college and a neatly plotted-out life and on to a life full of zigs and zags.