Seth Dorman

For the Maine Campus

Riding the bus to campus is more than a cheap alternative to driving — it is also a healthy reminder of the ultimate reason to attend college.

It is not the kind of reminder that says, “Look at these impoverished people who have to suffer bus rides to bad jobs — I’d better stay in college so I don’t end up like them.” Rather, it is a reminder that the world outside of privileged academia is a real place, with a lot of real pain, and the goal of all this studying and thinking is to equip me to serve people.

As the bus stopped outside the Bangor parking garage, I looked out the grimy windows and saw a man in an electric wheelchair traversing the sidewalk. I recognized him — he often rode the bus. He went down a small slope and off the sidewalk to cross the parking garage exit. He hit a bump and tumbled from the chair to the pavement, where he lay, unable to move, in the middle of the exit.

That is why I am studying English. English (particularly, in my case, literature and creative writing) will train me to think of humans as humans, to understand brokenness and to see and create beauty. Is this grandiose idealism? A romanticized justification of reading books while people are falling out of wheelchairs? If it remains merely conceptual, then yes, it is; but when it takes to flesh, and is lived out in physical ways, it is not. Additionally, if this degree leads to a job, then that job can become a means for providing financially for me and others in need around me.

Some may argue that if the goal of thinking is service, one ought to move directly to helping people, and waste no more time reading books and writing papers. However, the thinking is the fuel of the service. Valuable service proceeds from right thinking. The mechanic can’t do excellent work on the car unless he understands cars.

Others may argue that thinking, like art, ought to be for its own sake: study for the joy of learning, search for the sake of discovery. There is no need to find a use for learning, beyond the pleasure of inquiry and understanding. The idea that thinking is pointless unless it has a use is simplistic pragmatism. There is great personal value and reward to intellectual pursuits — to biomedical engineering, to piano performance, to philosophy.

I agree that there is a great deal of personal pleasure to be derived from thinking. However, this enjoyment is truncated when it does not go beyond the personal and when it does nothing to advance the happiness of others. The study of English is not alone in this. Almost every area of academic inquiry, even that which seems most abstract, has an inherent capability to be applied in loving service to real people. The less difficult part is identifying it. The hardest part is applying it, when the inconvenience and pain of helping people comes in — but that is when the greatest reward comes, as well.