The Memoir of a Cave Troll: A Warning for Current High School Students

"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong."[1] - G. K. Chesterton

It was 2012 – my senior year of high school. A woman walked down the narrow hall, tears shining in her eyes. Her white hair exaggerated her years, but not her hardship. It was not my place to notice her plight, but when two people meet in a narrow hallway, there is no other place to go. I asked her what was wrong. She told me she did not know how she was going to pay for rent. Her son needed special classes due to his learning disability which were expensive. The boy's father was nowhere to be found. Everything was falling apart. I recall wanting nothing more than to help her, but her helplessness became my helplessness. I had no job, no money, and no skills. I, myself, was entirely a recipient of charity: the government funded my school; my parents funded my room and board; unknown benefactors would be funding my college. I had nothing of my own to give her. At the time, I could not console her, but I consoled myself with the promise that one day I would have money, a job, and skills. One day, I would meet that same helplessness head on and defeat it.

At the time, I was deciding whether to pursue a major in philosophy or engineering. There were many moments in my senior year that contributed to my decision, but that encounter finalized it: I would become an engineer. I enjoyed philosophy, but more than anything, I wanted a home to raise a family, time for the people I love, and freedom from Sonya's[2] horrifying thought experiments. I wanted safety.

Stone by stone, I built up a protective fortress with resumes and buzz words, market analysis and strategic internships. I inaugurated it with a lucrative job. Within this fortress, I built a marriage, a career, and a home. I gave birth to two children and made dear, dear friends. I declined jobs I considered unethical and satisfied myself with the knowledge that at least I was not doing anything bad. Within my fortress, there were few tradeoffs and none of consequence. As time went on, I kept building the fortress, strengthening it with layer upon layer of backup plans. I patched the holes in every surface, until helplessness seemed but an unhappy memory.

But my plan failed to account for the fact that the greatest fortress in the world is no defense against what is already inside. I did not anticipate the churning in my stomach when my husband asked whether we should start tithing in 2017. I did not think that in only five years, I would become so addicted to security that I could not sacrifice a bit of it even to address someone else's clear and present need. It was not my plan to become a coward. However, as my husband expectantly awaited my reply, "what if"s beleaguered my mind - what if we need to move? What if we need special care for the baby? What if I lose my job? What if we have a medical emergency and the house burns down and our support system disappears at the same time? The memory of the white-haired woman glimmered for a moment and faded. After years of trollish toil, my fortress was more cave than castle: with no windows or doors, nothing could get in or out. In the dark of extreme caution, my husband was a light. And, like all cave trolls, I was taken aback by what the light revealed: my plan's failure was not my education, my ability, or my opportunities - all of which received the lionshare of my attention. It was my heart. In my distraction, I let it turn to stone.

I tell this story because in 2020, students watched people who once took pride in their independence shrink to a state of desperation – seeking aid from family, friends, and stimulus checks. They watched providers who could not provide and teachers who could not teach. These children on the cusp of adulthood have watched adults flailing in child-like helplessness and they have felt the repercussions. They know, first-hand, the value of a fortress. Many will want to build one. It is these students I wish to address:

Build your fortress. That is part of becoming an adult. Study something that will yield a job. Research and holistically decide on a career path based on lifestyle, potential impact, and moral consequences. Do not become the 30-year-old who complains bitterly about how unfair life is. Become independent. But do not lose yourself in that process. Whether your fortress looks like a castle or cave will depend entirely on whether you can remain focused on what really matters.

When I was in high school, I imagined that if I could only define the good life, I would be equipped to pursue it. After all, I sincerely wanted to pursue it. But the reality is that even if one perfectly understands what the good life is and sincerely wishes to live that life, he may be unsuccessful. Think of the apostle, Peter: prior to denying Jesus three times, Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you" (John 13:37 New Revised Standard Version). He knew what kind of person he wanted to be; he articulated and accepted the price for becoming that kind of person. Nonetheless, when the time came to pay that price, he surprised himself with his own failure. One need not be a Christian to recognize this as a human story. It is my story, and it may yet be yours.

But how and why did I fail? Aristotle writes, "the virtues we get by first exercising them...we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."[3] Virtue is akin to a muscle or skill. With repeated practice, it becomes easy to do the right thing. Likewise, with repeated neglect, it becomes harder. I could have recited this fact in high school, but I only understood it in the abstract. In truth, when I arrived in college, I began to operate as though my character were fixed: I did not quibble over going to soup kitchens or visiting the elderly. I justified my absence from those venues by telling myself that making money would enable me to do good works in the future. I did not consider that I could lose the muscle of being charitable. Instead, I assumed I could pick up where I left off after graduation when I would have more time. And so, in somnolent darkness, my soul became emaciated and weak. In spending all my excess energy securing a fortress to strengthen myself, paradoxically, I disabled myself. When I finally needed the muscle of charity, I, like Peter, knew what I wanted to be: I could articulate the sacrifice I wanted to make. But I was inadequate for the task.

You may imagine that this will not be a problem for you. However, I have never heard of someone writing a senior thesis about money. Nonetheless, most people (including Ridgeview graduates!) will spend more time earning, saving, counting, spending, arguing about, and toiling over money than actively cultivating character. This is especially true of young people because there is still so much to learn. Even if one successfully does the philosophical legwork to protect himself from Nietzschean emptiness, he will be exposed to something equally pernicious: forgetfulness. The pursuit of money superficially appears to be a smart tactic for almost any goal. Money cannot buy happiness, but it can buy time, freedom, and groceries - all of which are needed for most definitions of the good life. But if, in the enactment of that tactic, one forgets the practice of virtue, he will win the battle and lose the war. Forgetfulness is a quiet calamity: it happens during in-between moments, when thought is drawn elsewhere. It sweeps through the dark and transforms a person. You will know it is happening to you when you tell yourself that you only need to do one more thing before you turn back to doing the things you hoped you would. But in those moments, remember the wise words of Robert Frost: "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should ever come back."[4] Whatever path you choose, you probably will not return, so you must choose carefully.

During 2020, a disaster occurred. My cave, like so many others, was ripped open and, just like in 2012, I could see and feel the helplessness of my fellow man. Though undeniably tragic, COVID was a great blessing to me. Rebecca Solnit researched and wrote about a variety of disasters and she saw the same pattern again and again. She summarized, "Horrible in itself, disaster is sometimes a door back into paradise, the paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each our sister’s and brother’s keeper."[5] In 2020, I did not magically become the person I ought to be, but I remembered: I remembered my thesis and I remembered Sonya and, for the first time in a long time, I remembered her – the woman with white hair walking down the narrow hallway.

If this were 2017, I would wish you well: a nice cave that keeps you from wind and rain. But this is 2021, and I know better. I pray you accept the rain with the sun and if disaster does not befall you, I pray you seek it out and rescue those in need. I pray your fortress has great big windows and a great big door. Find the mother who cannot afford diapers for her baby and invite her in. Make care packages for the homeless and acknowledge them. Learn about the people in your life who are hurting and give them your time. Practice being the person you want to be every single day lest your forgetfulness make you weak. You were meant for the fray, so do not linger in a cave. Fight.

Ariel Quinn, Class of 2012
—

[1] G. K. Chesterton, The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton III (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 70.

[2] From Crime and Punishment

[3] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W.D. Ross (Kitchener: Batoche Books, 1999), 21.

[4] Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” in Best Loved Poems To Read Again & Again Second Series, ed. Mary Sanford Laurence (New York City: Galahad Books, 1989), 63.

[5] Rebecca Solnit, “How to Survive a Disaster,” Literary Hub, Lithub Daily, 2009, https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-how-to-survive-a-disaster.