Would the faculty at Williams describe their offerings as a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme? How methodical can one be in shaping randomness? And is this really the mysterious alchemy of an education in a liberal arts forum, a process of infusing chance with an inexplicable chemistry that creates the likelihood of a known outcome?
How ironic the above reads, but how real this irony regarding the lives of classmates as a result of my five-year “listening tour”. I am struck when a classmate describes their experience post Williams as the peregrination arc of the randomness of events and emotions that determine our pathway, which William James referred to as “growing up zig-zag”. He was more refined when he professed that, “every man’s life is a line continuously oscillating on either side of its direction”. I envision a sine curve split evenly between peak and trough by a straight line of 45 degree angle depicting the shape one’s life takes as the tug and push of events provides an ultimate direction. In a like vein, E.B. White can be paraphrased similarly:
In the beginning,
We have nothing to spur us forward,
But our idealism.
No assets to speak of,
But our youthful health.
And, no where to go,
But all over the place.
I can speak for the Am Civ major, perhaps the road to nowhere, but in retrospect a route to all corners of every profession. This is not due to specificity, but the unharnessed freedom to “go all over the place” while riding whatever waves of chance appear.
Pre-med classmates are blind to the importance a proficiency in playing musical instruments or on a team sport is in developing their skill to dexterously complete complex surgical procedures? Or that random discussions with classmates and a Religion professor will lead to the study of Buddhism and the wisdom of koans, which then seeks expression in providing pro-bono eye surgeries in developing countries?
Try tracking the experience of English Lit, Poli Sci and History courses that funnel, not subject matter, but the flow of interconnectedness within animal husbandry, crop science and the environment.
Where within the syllabuses do we locate the methods to home schooling? And how surprisingly well such an endeavor translates into teaching African villagers the manufacture of bio-sand water filters, an effort marshaling patience with the ability to explain.
Do educators rise from their pursuit to command a body of intellectual material or because of an inherent need more codified as a contribution to society? Where and how do they gain a skill in adapting methods able to reach different channels of association and non-linear brains?
What “under the radar” experiences impact the artist, the writer and the musician to formulate their creativity in what I describe as an idiosyncratic crucible; a mix of entanglement outside the bounds of faculty structure.
The list is long, the examples myriad and the lives a series of stories both unpredictable and inspiring. Corralling the Williams experience as to impact is no straight line chronicle. What of the arc of life and the association with the College? This is complex, sometimes knowable, but often lost in the indeterminate points of connection as we cannot account for them. I am less inclined to believe the trope that Williams teaches us “how to think”, but more comfortable with the idea it provides a subconscious layering of “how to remain open to possibility”.
— Rob Farnham, February 28, 2021