Surreal is how I describe my return to campus. Removed as a student since 1985, my return this fall as an administrator presents the opportunity to learn how Dartmouth operates and lives within me. As I move around campus, I visit and am visited by old haunts and hang-outs. "I remember that," I say as I pass Bones Gate, and in the next breath, I say to myself inside my head, "There's something about the buildings behind Dartmouth Hall that seems familiar but nothing distinct enough to trigger detail."
Surreal because I was just here a few years ago -- or it seems only a few years ago and not over a decade since. Should I be here? Shouldn't I be off in the midst of my life's journey? Sure, life is a circle where we must all return home one day to face the shortcomings and haunting memories, to relive the joy that will rekindle our spirits and motivate us to strive to realize the best within us and to finally lay to rest the hurt, the hurtful, and to say sorry for caused pain. But isn't it too soon?
I see professors from my undergrad years on campus and shy away from greeting them because I don't know if I should say to them, "Good morning, Professor" or "Good morning, Jack."
As I lay silently in my apartment on a dirt road in Lyme, watching the starry night move across the sky, it is made plain to me. This is my journey -- embrace it.
My return to campus compels me to reminisce of my original encampment here in this enchanted place some thirteen years ago -- how as an African-American my experience was, in retrospect, different from many of my contemporaries who may have achieved unequaled academic achievements while suffering unparalleled and long-lasting disappointments in their life's journey of human exchange.
Athletics was the vehicle to transport me to new worlds. Find your conduit. It was my conduit to meeting people from other places; people who were not like me in any way yet were the same through the shared common goal of winning games, which would transcend our diversity while demanding respect for it. Interpersonal stimulation requires high energy at Dartmouth. Meet it at its pinnacle; especially when it appears menacing and challenging and on the verge of toppling your world view. That is where you will find ignorance and fear cowering behind stoic masks. That is where you will be strongest to unveil the masquerade. Confrontation motivated by honesty is good.
When you are compelled to escape your growth, and you will be, so that you can continue to evolve, go into the worlds of shadowy bicycle rides across campus after midnight on empty, stilled passageways, of fog-laden strolls around Occom pond and contemplative moments under moonlit nights in abandoned bleachers at Memorial Stadium.
Live your journey, I say, and make a deliberate effort to escape your comfort zone. At times you will become aware, albeit often after the occurrence, of serendipitous accounts of the wonderment that is life's spontaneous journey. Then you will realize that nothing is coincidental. Know that when ignorance and fear confront you at a cocktail party in the name of ideology and omniscient opinions, it is a fairly common opportunity to share thoughts that, at most, will give rise to new views and, at least, will gain respect for your position if articulated well. In your journey to knowledge and, hopefully wisdom, know this, to paraphrase a quote from the anonymous, "If you know nothing else, know that what you learn after you know everything is what will matter most."
When someone who does not look like you or come from the same region of the country, or even someone who comes from another country, invites you to a home-cooked meal that is their cultural specialty, go. If you're from the city, get to know a farmer. If you are a farmer, go home with a classmate to the city. Dare to do things that knot your stomach because you don't know if you can be good at them or because they're not "cool" or because they makes you uncomfortable. Golf, ski, canoe, hike, pack grocery bags at the supermarket, play chess. Revel in your natural curiosity.
Move easily through the world, taking nor giving offense. Exchange ideas and be receptive to concepts that challenge your own perception of the world. Take time to contemplate unfamiliar paradigms and be willing to experiment with the selective incorporation of valued ideas from others into your own thinking. Devour your time at Dartmouth. This is the time. This is the place. Your journey begins today as it does every day, only in the present -- which is a present from God.
Learn from one another of diverse backgrounds. Be amazed by the magic of the common ground that transcends your differences while honoring those very same differences. Beyond anything else, help someone else along their journey to realize the best within.
If you do this, you will have contributed to the advancement of humanity. Upon graduation and the continuation of your journey, remember the formative years, the years of experimentation that are Dartmouth and know that the surreal experiences to follow will most likely be calls to re-member the best within.
And that will make all the difference in the world.
