On Confusion, and Self-Indulgent Memoir

What should I do with my liberal education?

According to my big brother Six, we, the American liberal-educated, are living in a Kantean "Post-Modern World" where we are given the freedom, knowledge, and encouragement to define our own values, and this cornucopia of choice is precisely the reason for much of our anxieties. Here in Columbia, we are told that we are the exceptional bearers of the torch, that we can change the world someday; indeed we must, for that is our American Ivy League destiny. But can we all do this? What is the world market for genius? What's the structural unemployment rate? Whatever we do, we have to be the best at it, and it's impossible for us to all be the best.

A liberal education is the ultimate luxury. I can take whatever I want in college because the degree is a symbol of my market value, which stands in the job market regardless of my course choices. In the modern economy, I have to get an advanced degree anyway if I want a competitive wage, and even those courses may have little to do with my work in the "Real World."

The blessing: I can do whatever the hell I please. For a person of my means, I can rest assured that in New York City, I will always be able to make a living wage. I have the luxury of a top-notch education, and I can do whatever makes me happy; I can create a neat list of values and priorities and decide to "center my life" around these abstractions.

But what is my obligation to the world? In society, not everyone can do whatever they please. I have been conditioned to feel that I must take my luxuries, my economic surpluses, and use them to best serve my society, my species, my planet, life at large and in abstraction. How would I go about doing this? My liberal education has nurtured in me a plethora of interests, talents, and possibilities; which path should I choose? Should I buy into the economic notion of "comparative advantage" and pursue whatever I (and/or others) identify as my best quality? (ie Performing, Writing, Teaching) And say I feel that quality is writing and I decide to be a writer; but say there is a great supply of people who feel this way about their comparative advantage, and not enough demand for it in the market; and say I discover down the road that I'm not good enough to beat the curve, do I allow myself to be cut from the market? Or should I tailor myself to the market by filling a less competitive or more secure position? (ie start off with Finance or Accounting) Is comparative advantage an illusion too? Do we really have choice or are our lives ultimately determined by the market?

Do geniuses at the top of the curve have choice?

According to Six, it is both risky and tiresome to try to be a genius. You have to be very lucky. You have to be better than everyone else, then you have to run into the right people to recognize that you're better than everyone else, and then you have to have the right inspiration at the right times to produce consistently at that level in which you are better than everyone else. And a lot of people, especially at our Columbia's and Brown's, believe that we are part of that genius class, so a bunch of them must inevitably be disappointed. How do they respond? Do they hang their heads, tuck their tails between their legs, and join the big corporate wheel?

Does anyone ever really leave that wheel? Should I take the risk?

How do I best serve my society? I am studying economics, politics, and environmental science in order to understand the most recent trends of the world, and see how I can help the progress. In the future, I think I'd make a great teacher or educator of sorts. I'd like to work with people on the ground level; I enjoy planning curriculum, teaching, counseling, playing, and helping people be creative and feel inspired, especially through art or theater; and I can imagine myself working globally in community building through schools. This will also allow me time and opportunity to learn about different cultures and fields, connect with different people, think, write, and spend time with loved ones. I will be happy.

However, my parents absolutely scorn the career path of "teacher," at least at the pre-collegiate level. Today, when I told my mother about my dreams of being a teacher, she responded: "why don't you just jump out the window? Why don't you just kill yourself? I don't care." Teaching is "没出息" - no future prospects, a disappointment to the family.

Well, there are other ways to change the world. Working with people directly may be too small scale anyway. If I really want to do anything worthwhile, I should work in policy. I should be a big shot politician, or at least a CEO, a director of some non-profit, an entrepreneur, heck even an academic or a think tank brain cell - but not some primary or secondary school teacher. I have no doubt that policy is incredibly important and money is the language of the world; that is why I'm studying these things which come so unnaturally to me. However, I don't feel a life of statistical analysis, diplomatic schmoozing, and frantic ladder climbing is particularly fulfilling. It doesn't makes the most of my abilities to inspire people or enjoy life, and it just doesn't seem very fun.

Who said life is fun? Why don't I just kill myself? My mother doesn't care.

"Live your passion." That is what my eigth grade English teacher, Ms. Neelakantappa, told me one day on the subway after we chatted briefly about my desire to write poetry and my parents' desire for me to write chemical equations. She said, "One day you will have to make that choice between what you want and what others want for you. Choose the one that will make you feel more alive." She also said, "Your parents will come to understand, respect, and love you for what you choose and who you are."

That is such a liberating idea. But it opens up several whole new cans of worms; namely, an Education Major at Barnard in addition to my gazillion other ambitions, and several awesome philosophy, anthropology, and history courses next semester that I "don't have room" to take. Choice is awkward and paralyzing. If I had only one path, I'd suck it up and deal with it. My parents can bind my feet, arrange my marriage, sell me to my in-laws for some rice and a porcelain chamber pot, and I wouldn't know to protest. But since I live in a Kantean Post-Modern World, hell yeah I'm fucking blessed, but also quite anxious at this point in life.

For those who worry excessively (ie me), an endless variety of possibilities is cause for misery. There are difficulties in all things, my parents tell me, and no career is easy, and in the end all jobs are about the same. Still, I believe some things are more personally difficult than others, and some things simply bring me more joy. Does JOY matter? My mother doesn't seem to care.

Some questions:

1. How do I live my life to the max?

2. What is happiness? Is it adaptable, as my parents say? Is it determined by attitude rather than activity? Or is there something concrete about achieving happiness in life? Does it matter?

(It seems matter very much to me. But who is "I"? Some social construction of identity: a myriad of voices, a perception, some arbitrary and ambiguous thing.)

3. What is identity? Who am I? Am I for sure? Can I know? Does it matter?

4. What is good and what is the good life? Should I listen to others' definition or my own? What is my own definition but a composition of others' definitions? Why do I want so badly to be good? Does being good matter?

5. What matters? Do I have the discipline to live according to what matters? Am I in danger of a life of misery? Why am I so unsuccessful and unhappy right now? Am I doomed to be forever this way?