.png)
 |
| Benjamin Whitlock, McConnell Scholar |
By Ben Whitlock, Class of 2015*
(From my Stream of Consciousness Collection)
Growth is
something we’re all faced with. Babies grow to be children, children grow to be
young adults, adults to middle aged, and middle aged people to elderly people...
What does it mean, though...to grow?
Of course, we all grow physically. That much is clear and inevitable… To grow mentally, however – to learn, to read, to have a better sense of awareness, to broaden one’s outlook on life, to write, to mature – that much is not so clear.
It seems, in fact, that some grow, and then plateau. We see these people scattered throughout life – content with the heights they have reached and happy to never develop further… And others, strive to reach the heights of Everest... where Plato, C.S. Lewis, Socrates, Elliot, and other such individuals swap stories with Edmund Hillary.[2]
I believe that deciding which to be is a deeply personal endeavor. One must, after all, be happy with where they are and where they are going. As for me?... I choose to strive for constant upward growth – victory, if you will… but victory of the sweetest kind – personal, private victory. And in the same sense, personal and private growth.
Churchill once said: “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”[3]
I have always anticipated living out life on a plateau… content to be a husband, a father, a career (I don’t know what), a member of some tiny community… never being in a spotlight, and never caring to develop further. Sad to say, but obvious to me now… I was wrong! I don’t mean to say that those who choose to plateau are always wrong – on the contrary, I think this form of existence is beautiful and utterly enticing at times… But when I look into myself, I know that this is not the route for me. I would never be happy with this. I couldn’t survive.
I do not wish to be in national or renowned spotlights either… In fact, I only want to be in one spotlight – mine… Visible only to me.. Only I can feel its warmth.. only I am blinded by the joy of it.
I do not want to plateau… but yet I do not wish to stand atop the globe either. Instead, I wish to constantly move forward. I want to make continual breakthroughs… grow continually… reach my own personal victory.
I wish to be like George Mallory[4]… like Paco, the protagonist in Hemingway’s short story.[5] I don’t need to have my life’s story recorded for the ages… I don’t have to reach the summit of Everest. For me, growth is a personal victory – “victory at all costs” … “victory is spite of all terror”… “victory, however long and hard the road may be”… “for without this victory” – this victory that only I may attest to… for which only I may pay the costs, feel the pains, the joys, and the triumphs…and that only I fully comprehend – “there is no survival,” and I will never be fully satisfied.
To readers of this passage, you understand what your Everest is. Perhaps you will be remembered forever… Perhaps you will reach your own summit. I hope, though, that you will be content to push forward towards your own, personal end.
I have been taught these things through experiences and reading inside the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville… and I am forever grateful.
Never stop growing… and kick on!
Benjamin Whitlock is a sophomore McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville, where he is majoring in history with a political science minor.
[1]
Title taken from a short story, “The Capital of the World” by Ernest Hemmingway
(my favorite story)
[2] Edmund
Hillary reached the summit of Mt. Everest in 1953 – he is forever in the
history books as the first man to do so.
[3]
Winston Churchill, from “Victory at all Costs Speech,” 13May1940
[4]
George Mallory made the first attempts to climb Mt. Everest in the 1920s. He
died on his third attempt in 1924. His body was discovered in 1999 – fully
preserved. Only since then has his history been known to the public. He never
reached the summit of Mt. Everest.
[5]
Paco is the protagonist in Hemmingway’s story, “The Capital of the World.” Paco
desires to be a matador, and even though he is forced to work as a bust boy in
a café, he holds to his dream and maintains a sense of joy. Paco dies in a
freak pseudo bull fight, but his story is not a tragedy because Paco
continually pursued his goal and was willing to die for it – even though he
never achieved it.