October 5, 1998

A Man of his Times

I was talking to myself today and asked myself, "What time in history would I most have liked to live in?" I answered to myself that is would be Shakespeare's time.

That was a most interesting time. The world was approaching great change. Revolutions in thought, in science, in politics. Even a new world was being explored a hemisphere away.

But it's the fact that one man could keep interests in all this and still be respected. In one moment, I could be a poet and in another, a mathematician. I could theorize on the people's duties to the state and then argue on the motions of the planets and heavens. I would not be an eccentric freak; I would be a man, a scholar.

But I find myself living in the year 1998, the millenium approaching. The Twenty-First Century… a time of great change. I will be graduating in 2001, one among the many first students to venture boldly into the brave new world, expectant by all to carve great ruts in the channels of history. It is difficult for me to spread my interests around. As the years approach, I have found myself discarding more and more of my old passions to focus closer and smaller on certain fields. The obligations are big, and though I regret the loss, I accept it.

Shakespeare describes it best in his last play, "The Tempest." The Renaissance was ending, and he wrote in the character Prospero a man ready to give up his magic for a new world.

"I shall break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth. And deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book."

Comments:

• I liked this one alot. I feel the same way. We are forced to narrow our interests into a single beam.
  -- Carla