“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”

-St. Augustine

“Your everlasting summer, you can see it fading fast. So you
grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last.” — Steely
Dan

Throughout their respective careers, both St. Augustine, 4th
Century Carthaginian party-boy turned Christian philosopher, and
Steely Dan, the ’70s rock/jazz duo, offered ample advice and
reflection on life’s lessons learned–though one’s ruminations may
not be as entirely sound as the other’s, both are pretty catchy.
Discretion, as is true in interpreting any opinion, is
necessary.

So, listen up incoming freshmen: I have additional unwelcome
advice. But, no, my sharing is not just for you–in this column I
will attempt to satisfy two difficulties of my own: 1. Avoiding
political commentary, as is my usual fare on this page. 2. Not
composing an overtly formulaic ‘college-advice’ piece, as is the
usual fare of this summer edition. So here goes.

My dad has offered, without pounding me over the head with it, a
pretty sizeable amount of guidance throughout my life. Related to
college, I think some of his best came when he wasn’t really
trying–or maybe he was.

Once, for what reason I can’t really remember, Dad brought up
the topic of a paper he wrote as an undergrad. This was, as he
called it, one of his “rare A’s” on a lit. class essay, which was
actually more of a story, and it went as follows: Two of the most
frequently quoted lines in all of poetry are found in Keats’ “Ode
on a Grecian Urn” and Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy
Evening.”

A traveler, studying each of the respective works, becomes
trapped in an inexplicable time lapse. He first finds himself in
Keats’ study–who in his short life endured a fairly tortured
existence. His wife died at a very young age, with Keats following
suit shortly afterward–succumbing to tuberculosis.

The traveler notices Keats’ palpable suffering and asks how he
could be so miserable. After all, it was he who wrote the famous
words, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty–that is all ye know on
earth, and all ye need to know.” Even if he is on death’s doorstep
and wallowing in the pain of his past, shouldn’t he be at least
somewhat satisfied, being surrounded by the “truth” of his life’s
work, even if steeped in misery? Keats responds, “What, then, is
beauty. I may have been wrong, that’s the real beauty–failing
that, it still sounds nice.”

After leaving Keats, the traveler next finds himself surrounded
by trees on a cold New England night. He looks through the woods
and sees a man on a horse, just as snow begins to fall. The
traveler recognizes that the uneasy horse senses his presence, but
the man has yet to see him–should he approach the rider? No, the
traveler just leaves him alone. After all, he was just admiring the
scenery.

While a bit sarcastic, I try to remember this story whenever I
write or am worried that I’ve lost the deeper meaning. Maybe I
missed the point altogether and shouldn’t even think that hard, but
it’s important that we learn in a similar manner as the
traveler.

Both socially and academically, better answers surface if you
observe, as opposed to prod. Really, college is not that difficult
to understand if you take things as they come.

And no, my dad and I don’t sit around and talk about poetry.
That was pretty much a one-time thing.

Part two of this article involves more of a personal anecdote: I
made a lot of goals for this summer. I worked a full-time
internship and took an annoyingly dull, online class. My personal
reading list reached seven or eight books.

On top of that, I tried to stay in shape, go to the pool,
eliminate the concept of “social smoking” from my vocabulary, play
cards once a week, view and subsequently invalidate every aspect of
“Fahrenheit 9/11,” watch as many Cardinals baseball games as
possible and do all of this while saving enough money to make it
through my senior year.

This was meant to be the summer with a purpose, the final May
through August blowout. Still, just mulling over all of the above
can seem pretty tiring.

And I was often tired–it eventually caught up with me. On the
night of ESPN’s crowning of sports royalty, the ESPY awards, the
plan was to take a nap from 7:30 p.m. until the show began at 8:00
p.m. and awake fully refreshed for award show excitement. I was
ready to laugh with Jamie Foxx, cry to the replay of Jim Valvano’s
great speech and get down with Outkast. But my plan failed, as my
nap ultimately extended and I slept through every minute. Three
hours later, realizing what had happened, I really didn’t care.
Besides, the ESPYs are voted on by a bunch of no-nothing,
star-blinded fans.

Moral of the story: Naps are awesome. Take as many as you can
before you have too much to do. If trying to glean anything more
meaningful than this from my summer, you probably missed the point
of anecdote number one.

At this point in my life, that’s about all of the advice I have
to offer. Now, as a college student, it’s up to you whether to file
it with that of St. Augustine or with Steely Dan’s– and therein
lays the real challenge. So, deem yourself prepared for the next
four years.

Bert Seefeldt is a senior studying accounting and
English.