Abstract thinking can never take you anywhere that you haven’t already been. At best, it returns you back to your native good sense before you have abstracted from the reality of each moment. Dismayed at the arbitrariness in life, I dove into my studies. Now I reemerge, having circled the globe of thought back to my common sense.

I sought that one concept that would render the chaos meaningful rather than arbitrary, to serve as the font of my well-being. I found concepts to be like prisms, they only show in different colors what the light already contains. I tested concept after concept; I would be elated for a week, then downtrodden when life proved too complex for my treasured idea. Eventually, I ceased to adhere to any school of thought, for fear it would only let me down.

This seems the inevitable result of a broad education — our horizons expand to the point where they are no longer visible, and we float along, unmoored to any fixed support.

This is decidedly good. Narrow intellectualism is as dangerous as fanatical religion, all the more so because it borrows the authority, deservedly or not, of the technical achievements of our age. The immutability of logic is offered as final and unshakeable proof for a political argument. Fools! The vast world can never be packaged neatly into a premise.

Be a human before you are a historian, a scientist, a Democrat or a sophomore. Always ask questions about what you don’t understand – don’t accept sophistication blindly. Put integrity and honesty before grades and requirements. And for God’s sake, be kind to each other.

Gavin Beeker was an Assistant Op/Ed Editor and Columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].