The Defense

I recently had the grand pleasure of attending a friend's oral defense of her doctoral dissertation. A defense is one of the meaningful rites of passage our culture currently holds, and it is a stirring thing to watch. She was very great. For over two hours, we listened to our friend discourse, gracefully, wittily, and with enormous and powerful intelligence, upon issues surrounding ancient texts with some of the world's experts on these issues. She covered herself in glory, the committee was as pleased with her as she and her friends could wish, and the whole day was bathed in rich golden light.

She and I have known each other for about 14 years, and she is probably the most natural academic I know. Nothing but nothing in those years could deflect her from this goal recently achieved. Part of the interest of sitting in at her defense was listening to her go on about topics that she has been chatting about for years, in this very high-power setting. There may be this and there may be that to be said about the academy, but when you are acquainted with doctoral students completely engrossed in their studies, it is difficult not to think that this is part of what makes us human--this wild passionate untrammelled curiosity, this craving for deep intellectual and imaginative play. Well maybe what makes our humanity worthwhile--plenty of creatures play--but to watch humans completely engaged in fierce questioning is to feel some of their light and heat spill over onto ourselves. An "unexamined life" can be very well worth living, but it shows a will most correct before heaven to engage as fully as we are able with this adventure of living on this planet, as the humans we are, and to consider any sort of transcendence available to us.