2008 Woodie Awards
Taking a moment to sit back and reflect
By: Miriam Larson
Issue date: 3/24/06 Section: Opinion
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The air here is filled with a heady sense that reason and books hold all the world's answers and it is enough to produce culture shock after a week of Spring break. This is why my opinions have not succumbed to essay format this week. While I think one of my biggest contributions as a student and a member of the academic community is to explain and offer analysis of this confusing world we live in, leaving Macalester for a week to spend time in my hometown community reminds me of the knowledge and wisdom of communities, life-knowledge not regularly deconstructed or bullet-pointed for lecture format.
My last piece was a critique of volunteerism, which I stand behind and have found useful, but my mother asked of that piece, “Yeah, but where is the peace and love?” Essentially I think her question points to a larger gaping hole in our academic pursuits. As we deconstruct and explain the world, when do we set aside time for reflection, confusion, hope, idealistic dreams and reconstruction? These are fundamentally uncertain and dangerous waters but without entering them we deny ourselves the humility that guards against presumption and arrogance.
Word fights Meaning in coiled jumbles of my brain.
Word has no loyalties, only disdain for whomever he serves.
Word is greedy for trees and covers pages of pulp, pulp, pulp, pulp making the world tangible in symbols secret to modern human eyes born with the destiny to decipher.
Word flirts with brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes but her advances are returned and deals are sealed with certain-seeking eyes.
Word whispers ultimate knowledge, massages the brain into submission, subdues and sedates the body, spits a jar and a gun- BANG! at Meaning who recoils.
Meaning is a ghostlike figure, elusive, changeable, wafting, divine.
My last piece was a critique of volunteerism, which I stand behind and have found useful, but my mother asked of that piece, “Yeah, but where is the peace and love?” Essentially I think her question points to a larger gaping hole in our academic pursuits. As we deconstruct and explain the world, when do we set aside time for reflection, confusion, hope, idealistic dreams and reconstruction? These are fundamentally uncertain and dangerous waters but without entering them we deny ourselves the humility that guards against presumption and arrogance.
Word fights Meaning in coiled jumbles of my brain.
Word has no loyalties, only disdain for whomever he serves.
Word is greedy for trees and covers pages of pulp, pulp, pulp, pulp making the world tangible in symbols secret to modern human eyes born with the destiny to decipher.
Word flirts with brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes but her advances are returned and deals are sealed with certain-seeking eyes.
Word whispers ultimate knowledge, massages the brain into submission, subdues and sedates the body, spits a jar and a gun- BANG! at Meaning who recoils.
Meaning is a ghostlike figure, elusive, changeable, wafting, divine.
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