I can't decide if this is the toughest column I've ever written, or the easiest. It's screamingly self-indulgent, took a while to write and edit--and it's the last one.
Some of you, I know, read this regularly. But most of you likely read this column only occasionally, so I want to recap what I've tried to do, and why I'm leaving.
I started this column--amazingly--12 years ago, in the summer of 1990. That's reason enough to stop. As a biologist, I know senescence is valuable: It opens up opportunities for others to strive and succeed. Although term limits are foolish (anyone for short term limits for doctors?), college should allow young adults to spread their wings, take risks and thereby learn; so, too, a college paper. Surely three times the length of a typical undergrad's stay is long enough for me, no matter how many gracious editors assure me my column is worth printing. I might write a column again someday, somewhere. But enough for now.
Most of my columns are archived on the website (search by author if you've got time to burn). My first few years, though, predate even that. The early columns focused on issues like the high rate of violence in America or on a friend who was dying of AIDS. Later, I covered topics from Thanksgiving dinner with my girlfriend's family to synthetic spider silk from transgenic goats.
Over the years, I endorsed several Democratic candidates. I always urged readers to take seriously the privileges and responsibilities we enjoy as citizens of the most powerful and free democratic republic ever to grace the world: We must be active participants, but respectful of each other's differences and needs. We cannot simply serve our self-interests, but must heed the better angels of our nature, here and abroad.
I have broached new topics or raised eternal questions in novel contexts. I've tried to write with both rationality and passion, for neither alone is sufficient either in defining, or in answering, the challenges we face individually and as a society. I've raised off-beat issues and tried to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." I hope I've contributed meaningfully to the exchange of ideas in this paper.
I've learned (I think) to be a better writer--that editing takes time, that no column is ever perfect and that too much editing can eliminate both bad and good: If you sand too much, there's no wood left. I've enjoyed this opportunity, and I will miss it. It's been a great soapbox, limited only by that 800-word limit, which eliminated the best stuff I've written (to explain anything you've read that didn't seem top-notch; well, that or the editors, right?).
The old column title, "An unexamined life," comes from the quote by Plato which ends "is not worth living." I meant it then, and I mean it now. We must examine our beliefs, assumptions and certainties with a critical eye. It's one of the reasons I'm a scientist, and I try to apply it everywhere. I believe life is an unpredictable adventure, best lived with a sense of enthusiastic curiosity.
But the past is past, and this column is ending largely because of the future.
A year ago, several local Democrats asked me to run for chair of the county party and somehow convinced me. I was elected and have been astonished at the time and energy it sometimes takes. I've not written since on county politics, though I did before, and I've never concealed my pro-Democratic viewpoint. But as column-writing time has shrunk, I've also had difficulty not writing on "what I know," and I don't want my opinion pieces here to be misconstrued as party positions.
Meanwhile, my paying job has gotten far more intensive; I've had to take more work home, which has also cut into my free time.
But far more important than all that are the most remarkable things that've happened to me in my entire life. That girlfriend with whose family I had Thanksgiving dinner? A few years back, I married her--and late last year, right here at Duke, we had a baby boy.
I can't express what our "little dude" means to us; I don't know if any parent can. He's a challenge, a joy, a logistical hassle and a miracle. The first time I saw him, I was wonder-struck. Sometimes, I still am. When he cries I cringe from both the sound, and the worry I feel. And when he smiles at me, I'm filled with more happiness than I would ever have imagined. My wife and I are truly smitten, and truly overwhelmed--emotionally, and temporally--we've got so little time now, day or night, for anything from hobbies to sleep, that we're paring back our commitments, leaving only work, the kiddo and a couple of volunteer activities. We've learned that the only things that get done in life are the ones labeled "priority."
So, this column (and some other volunteer activities) ends now. I know where my responsibilities, and my love, reside.
So I close, wanting more than I can express to help my boy grow, develop and see all the wonders and challenges that surround us. And to see the person he'll become.
Despite my dewy-eyed, new-parent status, I know it won't be easy.
For to quote Plato one last time, "Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable."
I'll let you know in 22 years!
Edward Benson is a Durham resident.
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