Nellie Brennan
Professor Hansen
Rhetoric 101
5 December 2017
Stayin’ Alive
I wake up at four in the morning to the pounding echo of construction cranes dropping bricks on the sidewalk below my window. The crust in the corner of my eyes cracks and it hurts to open them. About two hours after this, the cars on Commonwealth Avenue start their honking parade. It must be time to get up. The nighttime seems so short when “I cannot fall asleep” at night and have to wake up so early (Merton). I’m not sure why, maybe I am too stressed. I have a million assignments due every week, and they all need my full attention. I need to do well in school so I can make it into law school and eventually be successfully employed. That is my goal, anyway. Next, I shower, put on my clothes picked out from the night prior, and head to breakfast. Here, I get the typical scrambled eggs and whatever fruit the dining hall is serving that day. At eight thirty, I clean up my dishes and head off to class.
I step out of my dorm building and onto Commonwealth Ave. I start my walk down one of the busiest streets in the nation, and am just one of a million people. Among the sea of people, I am a nobody, I am anonymous. I hear the whining of an emergency vehicle rushing through the traffic. Living in the city, I see ten fire trucks and ambulances go down the road a day and no one else even looks up. If that were me being rushed to the hospital no one would care. No one even cares about my well being. Everyone is preoccupied with their own lives. I am hardly one to talk, though, I just ran through a stop hand at the crosswalk in hopes to make it to class on time. I arrive to class before any of my classmates, and proceed to my seat––second row from the front, three seats in from the left.
In a class of one hundred people, I only know two by name. In a big-city school, when people, including myself, enter a classroom, we all put on our academic masks––we become students. We avoid primary relationships with others; our one and only focus is trying to be better than our peers in the surrounding seats. We want to stand out so we can obtain the best internships and jobs in the future. Our student identities cover our real personalities, so “we think our mask is our true face”, and “we will protect it with fabrications even at the cost of violating our own truth” (Merton). I, personally, care about others and enjoy to connect with them, but my ambitions as a student mask my true self. As class ends, I head outside, where the bustling ocean of people, all focused on their own telic goals, awaits.
I head back to my dorm to drop off my bag before my field trip. On my walk back, I realize how worn out I have become since coming to the city. Something most people don't think about is how physically, mentally, and emotionally draining it is to be surrounded by so many people all the time. In the city, there is no place to have alone time. When navigating the constantly moving masses to get on the T, I get squashed, and the uneasiness from always being around people becomes part of my everyday existence. It takes a slow, but gradual toll on my energy. I have to constantly think about thieves, where to put my hands, and worst of all, I have to deal with the variable speed at which other people walk.
Walking in the city feels like a chore. The distances are big––it's not like a small town, where I could go anywhere on foot. Most commuters decide to take the T or bus, and the process becomes an obsession. They “do not see that the streets shine beautifully . . . they are running in skies to catch a bus or a taxi” (Merton). So, in an attempt to get away from the chaos, I decide to run to my class field trip at the Mount Auburn Cemetery today. I need to run alone, so I can think and get in touch with the city, not get wedged between people that I don't know.
I click play to my favorite calming music, Christmas, and set off on my run by heading over the BU Bridge. I take a left onto Memorial Drive where I get my last glimpse of the metropolis of Boston before heading into a more suburban area. I already feel more relaxed, for the further I get from the city, the more the effects of the metropolis wear off; the societal pressures of the city become less and less influential. I begin to notice details that I have overlooked the past few months in Boston. I see the changing of seasons and I see lively and outgoing people and sense sincerity in their relationships. Being outside the city “ in the woods . . . is something too excellent to be justified or explained!” (Merton). As I approach the cemetery, I see thousands of richly colored trees surrounding the beautiful chapel. Paths encircle the ponds and lead visitors to the different memorials and tombstones. Most importantly, I notice the many people there, taking time out of their busy lives to visit their loved ones.
I start my loop around the cemetery, and along the way, I notice a fresh bouquet of roses on a tombstone whose owner had passed away over 30 years ago. Although this person had been dead for decades, that person’s impact and the sentiment of their loves ones’ relationships with that person is still important. I realize that once I pay attention to the details, I know more about the dead people in the cemetery than the millions of people that I pass on the street every day. This hits me in a way that helps me realize the emptiness in my life; my life lacks daily purpose. I am going through every day of school focused on my goals, but I am not fully experiencing the process in the present. I realize the way I live my life has me less alive than the people buried under the tombstones; I need to live in the present.
I leave the cemetery and I begin my run home. This time, I unplug my headphones to listen to the world around me. I wave and say hello to the friendly faces I pass on my way back towards the city, and they smile and greet me back. As I approach Boston, I see things I never bothered to notice before. I see boats floating down the river, people picking up trash in the park, and families passing a ball together. Things that I would have glossed over before now have meaning, and they bring me joy. The happiness that I have found is addictive, and it makes me want to enjoy life by living in the present. I will still live my task-oriented life, because “to live in the present is not to avoid hard work or strife” (Setiya). I will still have my goals, and I will still strive to go to law school, but I can’t let the telic mindset absorb all my attention and energy.
I cross back over the BU Bridge, where I get my last glimpse of Cambridge before passing into the city. I turn onto Commonwealth Ave. and immediately sense the pressure of the city’s blasé attitudes, where people care more about their money and jobs than themselves and their daily lives. The challenge with living in the present in the city is that people are too rational. They think to achieve their goals as simply as possible, and this leads them to skip over the present to achieve their telic tasks. People focus too much on what is going to happen that they lose sight of what is currently happening. I have a new goal, “to care about the process of what [I am] doing, not just projects [I] aim to complete” (Setiya). While people are analyzing the projected values of their stock portfolios, I will now take the time to pet a cute dog that I pass on the sidewalk. Tonight, I go to bed feeling more content because I have more personality and purpose than before, because I know I won’t be wasting my life.
I wake up at four in the morning to the city’s alarm clock––the sound of construction. I get up again at six, when I hear traffic begin, but this time, I am excited for the day ahead. For once, I don’t wake up exhausted, because although my previous stressors are still existent, they no longer consume my life; thankfully, “I have learned how to sleep again” (Merton). Today, when I walk out onto the street, I am attentive to the sirens and all that is going on around me, I am openly friendly and energetic to strangers and classmates, and I can be true to myself at all times. Living in the city, there will always be social pressure to get ahead of others, achieve telic goals, and cross off huge milestones from my to-do list. However, by living in the present, when I reach my end goal, I will be able to remember my journey and memories from along the way, and even 30 years after I pass, I will have a fresh bouquet of roses placed at the base of my tombstone.
Works Cited
Merton, Thomas, “The Rain and the Rhinoceros”, The New Yorker. Rhetoric Packet 2017. N.p.
N.d.
Setiya, Kieran, “The Problem with Living in the Present”, New York Times. Rhetoric Packet
2017. n.p. September 11, 2017