Dear Freshmen,
College will be the perfect time to lie. Quietly tucked between your awkward upbringing and the infinite sobriety of adulthood, in the next four years it will be exciting and easy to fabricate who you are.
The majority of people you meet will not inhabit the rest of your life, and as such, these people will be ideal depositories for slightly inflated GPAs, free clouds to store overly melodramatic volunteering stories and living diaries to pitifully justify broken relationships when in reality it was all your fault. I am sure you have already participated in this. In the dozens of introductions you have already had, how many times have you silently twisted your identity? To some, you are an introverted youngest child who cannot bear the academic pressure of your older siblings, to others your confidence precedes you, a “Hopkins Med” shirt was purchased on your first trip to the med campus. This kind of duplicity is comfortable for the moment but ultimately at what cost?
I beg you. Rebel against all kind of deceitfulness. Be honest.
Be honest with your background. Are you a middle-class white guy who actually does not care about the current economic state of Baltimore? Okay, that is understandable. Most probably do not, at least not initially. If you are not alright with this, address it. Do you secretly take pride in the work ethic you have developed from your humble upbringing even though it does not provide you with the best clothing or much spending money? Great. Use that to drive your studies and career aspirations.
Be honest intellectually. You are not gifted enough to take 19 credits a semester? Fourteen works, too. And going to the Learning Den is not beneath you. You actually only just skimmed that book and have no idea what it communicated? That happens, and there will be time to catch up in the future. You really are just as smart as your friends who set the curve? Wonderful, be proud of yourself and hit the books not looking back.
Be honest socially. Do you actually hate getting drunk at every party you have been to in the last two weeks? Stop going. Tell your friends why. Have you been living a completely sheltered lifestyle and secretly long for some risk and romance? I am sure there will be a party next weekend. Do you no longer love her? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but please tell her. Does your relationship with your mom actually suck? Turn off your music and admit it. Now reconcile.
Be honest religiously. If you have never missed a church service in your life but now secretly doubt whether God even exists, confess it loudly and with more confidence than anything you have ever prayed about before. If no one is actually listening, you have not said much. Or deep down do you dearly wish for there to be transcendent and embodied Love in this seemingly secular world, something by which you could rest easy at night despite all the wars around and within you? Good. Pursue it with everything in your being. It was once written that he who seeks will find. Was that author telling the truth?
Keep your promises; Do not cheat; do not throw away your empty plastic water bottle in trash. The recycling can is never that far away.
Done correctly, honesty is a scary thing. In fact, it will probably hurt your grades, land you in less prestigious internships and earn you fewer second dates. You may gradually hate the person this process reveals, or you may come to understand yourself to actually be someone worth an infinite amount of love. You may become completely cynical to the world or perhaps you will become enchanted by it. This uncertainty is expected.
College is about recognizing your ignorance and hungering to learn because of it. During the next four years you will have more information to personally digest and respond to than any other time in your life. As such, it is important now more so than ever that the instrument processing this data is at least internally consistent. At the end of the day, and for now you will simply have to trust me on this, a properly tuned instrument will produce something much richer and more lasting than just good character and an accurate understanding of oneself. It will produce a coherent person full of symmetry and liberation, with a pure heart.
Practically I do not know where this honesty will find you. But you will. That’s education.
Sincerely,
A privileged white guy finally addressing his religious uncertainties.
Karl Johnson is a junior economics and chemistry double major from Detroit.
