Lamia

Lost Inspiration

Now that I'm here at a big University in a big city, I
can honestly reflect upon my recent past college
experiences which, at the time, I found to be unbearable. I
was at a crappy, corrupt southern college in an uneventful,
lifeless town. I hated in there after a year, but now it
seems that I can realize what I took for granted.
Ironically, in that little hellhole there lurks the
greatest mind the world has never seen, but I was lucky
enough to take two of his classes. Every lecture he gave
was an inspired masterpiece, made from true, raw passion
that I have never seen equaled in anyone, for anything. His
speeches were about life, for once from a man who was
actually living it. I can't even begin to convey how much
that man changed the way I think about life.
My best friend and I would go on Mondays to listen to
his discussion group at a local cafe. He would wear his
funky cap and talk about what it means to be human with an
audience of mostly admiring older ladies. Not nearly as
admiring as we were though. I was so in awe of this
amazing, courageous man that I was afraid to talk to him
personally. I really regret that now, not taking full
advantage of such a vast human resource. At the end of the
last paper I wrote for him, (for which the instrctions were
simply to 'pour our hearts out onto the page, as if we were
writing in our own blood...') I tried to tell him how much
of an impact he had made on me in my fumbling, awkwardly
formal words that I knew were not good enough even as I
wrote them. It was a pitiful offering to an understanding
diety from an intimidated and thankful subject.
But even though now I'm in a much more prestigous
place, I'm hard pressed to find a mentor with even a
fraction of the intensity I beheld every day in past
psychology classes. I'm a lot happier here then I was
before, but I feel like the rest of my college experience
has in a way been ruined by such an early display of
greatness. Every class I'll ever take will most likely pale
in comparison to his, so how can I continue to be satisfied
with my education? The obvious answer is that I'll get what
I take from it and it's ultimately up to me, not any
professor. But in any case, I still long for the kind of
intellectual stimulation that he offered and in my currently
disillusioned state, I wonder if I'll ever find it again in some form
or another.