If you have ever seen NBC’s television series “The Office,” you’ve undoubtedly become acquainted with the character of Dwight Schrute, portrayed by Rainn Wilson. Schrute is the assistant to the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, and by all accounts, he’s weird. Schrute moonlights in his free time as a beet farmer and has a penchant for science fiction, Thomas Dewey and martial arts. Yet with all of his absurd and often outlandish qualities, at his core, Dwight is loyal, hardworking and hilarious. Wilson’s character is unforgettable. Jim and Pam are old news, but Schrute is timeless, and it is his idiosyncrasies that make the humdrum office life of Scranton, NJ, just a little more bearable.
What I’m getting at is that the people we meet mold a large part of our experiences in this life. Oftentimes we tend to stick to our own social circles and rarely stray outside, but this is college, not high school. If you aren’t out meeting new and different people every day, you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage. Your life will lack a colorful tapestry, the likes of which only a lifetime of experience can weave.
I started to realize this principal when I developed a fondness for cigars. It started about the class and the intriguing link to a bygone era, but soon the experience became about the people. The owner of the cigar store I frequent is a mid-life Puerto Rican from Brooklyn who greets everyone walking through the door with a smile and deeply accented “Hello, my friend.” Not for a second do you doubt his sincerity. The customers are oddballs to say the least, but unearthed through our shared passion of carcinogens are the most culturally diverse and interesting people imaginable. One is a jazz musician who played with Fats Domino, an accomplished rhythm and blues musician. Even a traveling businessman from Chicago who hated his job and was worried about using improper cigar etiquette happened to walk in. These people are the hodgepodge that is the world.
A good example would be in 2007. I vividly recall spending the coldest night of the year on a sailboat that had run aground some 50 miles from New Orleans. Besides me, the only other person on board was a rather dirty mechanic who had taken my gratuitous offering of a drink of rum as an invitation to the entire bottle. The night’s problems were further compounded by a single sleeping bag and a 40-degree list as the tide went out. But as the night grew colder, we heated soup over the warm engine head and exchanged life stories. He was an illegal pilot that loved to skydive and was fond of old wooden boats. I weathered the night and came out with mild frostbite and a new friend who promised to teach me mechanics in exchange for sailing lessons.
At Southeastern, these amazing people crop up everywhere if given the chance. There is the blond artistic girl who is sensitive about her fashion and harbors a strong passion for sharks; the girl who is learning to fly, loves foreign films and once had a hamster named King Solomon; and the guy that I met in history class and later stumbled upon 200 miles from home, cleaning up the Gulf in the wake of the BP spill. There is even a kid who comes to class in a fedora everyday and insists upon injecting biblical scripture into every lecture, often to the dismay of the professors. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I wish it had been him crucified, but I have to admit that he makes my day far less monotonous. For that I am eternally grateful.
Our professors are not immune. Last semester, I had a history professor who would bounce from dry erase board to dry erase board, scribbling down important terms and dates. In between, he would spin tales of often-overlooked and greatly interesting tidbits of European history while making witty jokes that would send him into a fit of self amusement. A French professor who ran away from her duties as an au pair in the middle of the night and who worries about the future of her career is also among these people.
Sometimes life must be vicarious before it can become primary. My advice to incoming freshmen and upperclassmen alike is that you must simply expose yourself (metaphorically, please). It is one of the hardest things imaginable to take a risk on another person, but often times the risks will be rewarded in the most inconceivable of ways. From life-long friends, to lovers, to arch nemesis- everyone has to have one- it all starts with a little time spent in interest of another.
Don’t think that you’re so normal that you could not benefit from the reciprocity of this ideal. These are the real lessons on the human condition, the true study of the humanities.
A homage is deserved by all the people that give our lives depth. You will miss out on all of it if you remain closed these characters of life. It is to all of the Armandos, Luciennes, and Alyxs, Dwight Schrutes, Norm Petersons, Denny Cranes and Kosmos Kramers out there that we owe a debt of gratitude.
Sometimes life is about the grades and sometimes it is about the career. Sometimes life is about how good the cigars are; but life is always about the people.