Of Squirrels, Truth and Reality

Squirrels are funny little animals. They run around your backyard like it’s their own. They have that bushy tail which is supposedly making them rather cute until you realize that they are rodents and you can’t find anything “cute” about a rodent. Your mind cues a scene from an Indiana Jones movie: Harrison Ford with that pretty blond archeologist (who turns out to be a Nazi you want to hate) walking past the catacombs of decadent Venice, as the army of rats is running loose and screeching in perfect chorus.

Squirrels make sudden movements. They hold the nuts greedily and they sit on top of the tree in a position as if they are ready to fly. If you try to get closer to them, usually they quickly run away. “Avoid human contact,” they communicate with you and each other. This is a usual picture of a squirrel’s life. But squirrels at the University of Chicago? Those are in a species of their own.

When I was a student at the University of Chicago, I observed these furry-tailed little creatures and I marveled how different they were from other squirrels. U of C squirrels would walk up to you, seeking food I’m assuming. A face-off between myself and a squirrel was a normal occurrence whenever I had to cross those giant gates of the intellectual cosmos. How cute, I thought (the squirrels, not the intellectual cosmos). As soon as I said it, I caught my mind in a verbal mishap. “Cute?” What is so cute about a few rodents trying to climb my bookbag and perhaps even attack me? The truth is when I was at U of C, I didn’t find them cute at all. I found the whole experience annoying. I quickly realized that the only reason U of C squirrels entered into the realm of “cuteness” was because I am not a student at U of C anymore and I don’t have to face the stares of the furry pseudo-masters.

Isn’t it curious that once we are chronologically removed from an experience, we start to heavily romanticize some of the aspects of it? We delve into that reality called nostalgia and everything, which has been bagged and put away (for a reason), we start to find higher meaning. This is true of many experiences, which presented a certain level of difficulty. We are proud that we have accomplished something (in my case, a completion of an M.A. degree) and that we have conquered the difficulty itself. This pride (which generally is not a bad emotion to have) starts to play tricks with the memory and converts memories of discomfort and indifference into idealized vignettes we can either share at the dinner table or drop them at a cocktail party, or even better: find a fellow U of C-er and stroll down the superficial memory lane.

Truth to be told, if I want to be fully objective with myself and my memories, then I will say this: my experience at U of C was difficult. Intellectually? Well, yes, of course but reading and writing and comprehending comes easy to me, so one learns quickly to overcome that difficulty. Spiritually? Even more so. It was an experience gloomily filled with an indifference (human being to human being), irreverence (to God), psychological games (interpersonal communication). The spring air smelled of anxiety, sticky t-shirts, smelly studio apartment, Heidegger’s non-sensical material, and intellectual struggle so far removed from ordinariness of human experience. I was seen but not really seen. I was a commodity, a commodity made up of intellect only. Something was missing. My soul was slowly dying. And death of God seemed more imminent than I could have ever expected.

U of C squirrels. Divinity School Café. Doc Films. Regenstein. Hyde Park. Professors’ idiosyncrasies. Nerdy t-shirts. Gothic windows. Students being “radicals,” trying to hand me the latest pamphlet in socialist news. “Down with capitalism!” “Down with big, bad corporations!” they self-loathingly yell from the comforts of the Upper Middle Class. What does it all mean? Are they all just pins we collect and put in a box and then reminisce? How quickly we forget the true character of memories, the truth behind every single pin. We tell ourselves that it’s perfectly fine to live in a protective womb of the academy because we are at U of C. And we don’t call the gates of intellectual cosmos University of Chicago; we call it U of C. Yes, even that. We tell ourselves that it’s fine to be ignored and used as pawns in a sado-masochistic intellectual and psychological game, while our soul is slowly withering away. We have come this far, dammit! We can’t leave the whirlwind of intellectual difficulty.

My question again: what does it all mean? I am not saying that the experience may be meaningless; not at all. What I am saying is this: are we objectifying our subjective experience (as Lonergan advises) to the point where truth will be revealed and we might be able to see the reality of the memories? Can we see the simple, ordinary world that is there, beyond those gates? Are we blind to beauty?