In the military, they call the obstacle course
the confidence course, because completing it
shows you you can do it. But in life, or in education,
the struggle never ends. Every day a millennium,
as James Jones says, in From Here To Eternity.
The bar is raised. After high school it is college.
Then graduate school. Then you have to get
an entry-level job at a good school, publish articles in
prestigious journals, win research grants, get a publishing contract,
your book win a prize, or at least a good critical reception, win tenure,
make full professor, make dean. You get the idea. If you aren't advancing
you are retreating. Falling behind. There's no standing still.
It's keep moving, like a shark. Rise or die. Succeed
or be selected out. It's survival of the fittest.
Nature, red in tooth and claw.
Social Darwinism.
In American Thought.
Dylan Thomas in
America. I Brake for
Delmore Schwartz.
Eating at Arby's.