This is probably my final Daily Bruin byline. I can probably say whatever I feel and will probably have a ridiculous headline above my mug. It will probably be: “Columnist looks back.”
This is the end of my undergraduate education, so I probably should do that. But I’ve got a contrarian streak in me as thick as … something that is very thick. So I think I’d rather look ahead.
Sometime, in the relatively near future, I will probably be dead. Empirical evidence shows that every person in the world has died ““ or will die ““ at one point or another. Oh, but I’ll do things before I die.
I will probably be a famous author. Not many people may know this, but there could be 20 fans. I may be rediscovered 200 years post-mortem, and excited lecturers will podcast to tortured liberal and scientific arts students.
I will probably be a state senator in South Southern California who fights for artificial beach breaks, music education in schools and gerrymandered districts ““ which include the defunct interstate 40 miles away, my arcological Second Reformed Presbyterian Evangelical chapel and my best friend’s apartment.
I will probably be a chef who can make trans-fat-free hydrolyzed soy curd taste like bacon-wrapped filet mignon and generic nutritional food paste like deluxe food paste.
I will probably be married; I will probably have children; I will probably bury my parents. My future is a vast expanse of potential. And I will probably waste it.
I’ll speak rudely to my family and friends and those around me. I’ll get angry. I’ll struggle with materialism and lust and greed and hypocrisy. I’ll fail those closest to me. I’ll realize what I have coming, where I’ve come from and when I’ll arrive. This will upset me. Probably.
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
I really don’t know what will happen after school; I don’t know what will happen with my life. If this epistemological conundrum is the essence of education ““ Fiat lux! I know nothing ““ I would like a doctorate, please.
But for all my doubt, for all my worries, for all my dreams, for all my prayers, I still find I have hope. I may have been taught I know nothing, but I’m beginning to understand that. I don’t know anything, but I know Someone does.
Earnest was a 2008-2009 sports contributor.