Collegiate Laws of Life Essay Contest
The Collegiate Laws of Life Essay Contest asks Penn State students to explore ethical values and intercultural issues, and their talent for expressing their views in writing. This essay contest is open to all Penn State undergraduate students. For our twelfth annual competition, students responded to this prompt:
The creeping progress of artificial intelligence (AI) places the notion of the human in crisis. There are many things that AI already does better and more efficiently than humans, and it is increasingly easy to imagine a world in which machines are better diagnosticians than doctors; wittier than comedians; more eloquent than writers and journalists; wiser than philosophers, sages, and religious leaders. Indeed, it is even possible to imagine AI bots that are better friends, parents, and lovers than humans. In such a world, it is tempting to wonder: what is left for human endeavor? Why insist, for instance, that articles, books, and films be written by humans when AI can do it faster, cheaper, and better?
In your essay, consider the place of the human in the world of technological progress. What must remain untouched by technological progress? Or is there no place—are humans to accept the advance of AI as a replacement? If so, is this to the benefit or detriment of humanity?
Submission Deadline:Friday, March 7 at 11:59 p.m. EST
The Collegiate Laws of Life winners will be announced at a coffee hour on Thursday, April 17. Email Linnet Brooks to register to attend.
- First Prize: $500
- Second Prize: $400
- Third Prize: $300
2025 Winning Essays
First Place: “AI Wrote the Perfect Essay. That’s Why I Deleted It”
Grace Behr | ’25 Psychology
“Write me an essay about the place of the human in the world of technological progress.”
The cursor blinks. A moment later, words begin to appear on my screen, neatly arranged into coherent sentences. The AI structures the argument flawlessly, citing studies, presenting counterpoints, even adding in rhetoric.
It’s… perfect.
Too perfect.
I read the words again, searching for something: a small grammatical mistake or a raw emotion. But there is none. The essay is polished, efficient, optimized. Yet it feels hollow.
And suddenly, I have my answer.
If AI can write, create, even think, then what’s left for us? Isn’t progress supposed to enhance humanity, not erase it? As I sit here, searching for the right words, I realize something: even my hesitation, my uncertainty, is deeply human. The fact that I can question, reflect, and doubt is something AI will never do. Technology can imitate creativity, but it doesn’t wonder, it doesn’t hesitate, it doesn’t dream.
And so, I delete the AI’s essay and start writing my own.
I know what AI is missing, something no machine can replicate. It isn’t knowledge or efficiency; AI can beat us at those. It’s something deeper, something I’ve felt in moments when connection mattered more than the right words.
I remember my first hotline shift, one of the most human moments I’ve ever had. I was terrified I would say the wrong thing when talking to real people. What if I made it worse? What if I stumbled over my words? Instead, I learned something unexpected: that’s exactly why people call a hotline—to talk to real people.
Countless times, I have apologized for saying something wrong, laughed it off with the person on the other end, and moved forward. And time after time, they didn’t just accept my mistakes; they appreciated them. Because no one is ever going to have the perfect words. The words don’t matter nearly as much as the feeling behind them, the presence of another person who may not understand but who feels for you.
That is something AI can never replicate. It has never lived these experiences. It has never felt heartbreak, loss, or the overwhelming relief of being understood. Everyone, at some point, has experienced grief in some form, a heartbreak that left them hollow, a moment of helplessness where they reached for someone—anyone—who could simply be there. AI can process words, mimic responses, analyze speech patterns, but it cannot feel. And feeling is what makes us human.
For a while, though, I didn’t think that distinction mattered.
I remember a conversation with a friend, right before ChatGPT became mainstream. I wasn’t convinced it was anything special. “What’s the point?” I thought. “You can just look things up on Google.” Admittedly, I was wrong.
As AI advanced, we talked about what it could mean for the future. If AI took over jobs, would humans have more time for creativity? For hobbies, for art, for music, for taking care of themselves? That seemed like a utopian dream, until I thought about how many jobs AI could take and what happens when entire industries shift.
Then came the question that still unsettles me: could AI replace the people we lean on the most—therapists, friends, even family?
At first, I laughed. Impossible. But then I reconsidered. If AI could listen perfectly, always respond with the right words, never get tired or frustrated, would it really be any different? Some of my peers already turn to AI when they need to talk. They say it listens, gives advice, and never judges. If AI can provide comfort, does it matter whether it truly understands?
I don’t have the answer yet.
But I do know this: humanity is not about perfection. It is about shared experiences, about the raw, messy, unscripted parts of being alive. AI can simulate words of comfort, but it cannot sit beside you in grief. It can process heartbreak, but it has never felt it. It can generate art, but it has never created out of love, or loss, or longing.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that technological progress doesn’t wait for permission. The printing press, the telephone, and the internet were each met with skepticism, yet each changed the way we interact with the world. AI is no different. Like any tool, its impact depends on how we use it. But if we allow AI to take the place of human expression, we will not be shaping the future—we will be erasing ourselves from it.
So, no, I will not let AI write this essay for me. Because AI may write, but only humans give words meaning.

Second Place: “The Future of Intelligence: Preserving the Human Soul in an AI-Driven World”
Nate Erisman | ’25 English and Criminology | Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar
What is left for us in a world dominated by the use of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is everywhere. Even if you yourself refuse to harness it, many around you do. It writes, it paints, it tells jokes. It answers questions before we even realize we wanted those questions answered. Some people think this is incredible— we’ve finally built something smarter than ourselves; something that is possibly even beyond use. Then there are others who remain uneasy, watching as machines creep into the spaces we once thought were only human.
The frightening part isn’t just that AI is getting good at things—it’s that it’s getting better than us in more than one way. It writes books in seconds. It can create music that sounds like Mozart. It diagnoses diseases with more accuracy than doctors. If AI can do all this, what’s left for us?
This is a somber thought, yet, even without this takeover, humans will always remain at the heart of meaning, the true creators. This because AI isn’t impressive—it is—but because there is something in the human experience that no machine could ever touch. No matter how advanced AI gets or how far it takes us, it does not live, it does not feel, it does not dream as we do. It creates from patterns, not from pain, not from love, not from hope. It is an echo, not a voice.
Though you can ask AI to create any work of art, asking to recreate or even to make something original, it will never be able to feel what it is making. AI can write a poem that resembles beauty and true art, but it has never once before watched the sun rise after a restless night. It can compose a love song, but it has never had its heart broken or felt true love. It can even paint an objective masterpiece, but it has never stared at the sky and wondered where it belonged or put its soul into a piece. It lacks a soul.
Art is not just about putting words together, or mixing the right colors, or playing the right notes. Art is about longing, about loss, about memory. It is about the aching parts of being alive. AI can copy the way grief sounds, but it has never sat in a silent room and felt it. If we let AI take over creativity, we lose something bigger than just jobs. We lose the human messiness, the imperfection, the spark of real experience. We replace our voices with reflections, our rawness with something too smooth, too perfect, too empty.
While it is becoming clear that AI knows the rules, it will never know the heart. A problem that is becoming abundant isn’t just that AI can create—it’s that people are starting to trust it to create things it simply cannot. Think about medicine. Maybe AI can diagnose diseases faster than a doctor. But when a treatment has risks, when a family is scared, when a decision is more than just numbers on a chart, who do we want to trust? A machine, or a person who understands what it means to be afraid, sympathetic, or a friend?
Or even think about justice. Some places already use AI to predict crime and decide sentences. But AI learns from history, and history is full of our mistakes. If the past was unfair, then AI will be unfair going forward. It will repeat what it was taught. It will punish some people more than others. And unlike a human, it will not stop to ask or even wonder if that is right, for it does not have that ability. AI follows logic. It does not question. It does not hesitate. It does not forgive. And that is dangerous.
There’s another problem in the danger of using a single voice, which is what AI gives us. AI is being trained on what already exists. And what already exists is not neutral. Most AI is built in the West. Most of its knowledge comes from Western books, Western films, Western ideas. What happens when AI starts shaping the way the world thinks? If it only understands a single perspective, how much will and is already being left out?
Culture is not just one voice, one history, one way of telling a story. It never has been nor will it ever be. It is thousands of voices, clashing and blending, changing over time. If AI takes over storytelling, over history, over knowledge, then the world will start to sound the same. And sameness is the first step to forgetting, and becoming that in which we are not, all because we gave into this new way of life.
This leads me to question if there are people who would want to be replaced. AI is already beginning to lower people’s ability to think critically, and I would gamble on the fact that many do not care. Some say this is just the next step, that we should accept it. Is this simply some sort of evolution? Machines replaced workers before. Calculators replaced mental math. Technology always moves forward, and a part of us always gets left behind with it.
But this is different. AI isn’t just taking over labor—it’s taking over thinking. It’s taking over the things that make us who we are. We can use AI as a tool. We can let it help doctors, assist writers, make life easier. But if we let it take too much, if we let it do all the creating, all the deciding, all the thinking—what’s left for us? If AI raises our children, tells our stories, makes our choices—are we even living, or just watching? At its best, I imagine AI doing the work around the house for me so that I can pursue creative endeavors, not the other way around.
AI will keep getting better. That is inevitable. But we get to decide what stays human. Things like art, music, storytelling, and morality are not just tasks to be completed. They are expressions of being alive and things to be expanded upon. And if we give them away, we don’t just lose jobs. We lose the struggle, the joy, the passion, the mistakes. We lose ourselves. AI can make things easier. AI can make things faster. AI can make things cheaper. But that does not mean it should.
Third Place: “AI, Humanity, and the Lessons of Marie Curie”
Tara Goodyear | Organizational and Professional Communication
Artificial intelligence (AI) is surging forward, an unstoppable tide reshaping what it means to be human. It is dazzling, it is terrifying, and it is inexorably rewriting the rules of human endeavor. We have long feared the moment machines would outthink, outwit, and outcreate us – and now, standing at the precipice, we ask: what remains for us in a world where AI is doctor, artist, philosopher, and even companion?
To answer this, we turn not to abstract theory, but to history – specifically, to the life of Marie Curie. Her groundbreaking discoveries in radioactivity transformed science, just as AI is transforming our world today. But Curie’s legacy is not merely one of brilliance; it is a warning. Her discoveries offered the promise of boundless energy but also birthed the atomic bomb. She paid the price for her passion with her own health, unwittingly succumbing to the radiation she worked so tirelessly to understand. Her story reminds us that innovation without responsibility is perilous, that discovery must be guided not by blind ambition but by careful, ethical stewardship. AI is no different.
Curie’s work illuminated the immense potential locked within the atom, much like AI now unlocks the potential of intelligence itself. Nuclear power, like AI, was hailed as a revolution – clean energy, infinite possibility. And yet, when unrestrained, it unleashed Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and the chilling specter of annihilation looming on a world stage. Humanity did not falter because nuclear power existed; it faltered because it failed to control it.
AI stands at the same crossroads. Yes, it will revolutionize medicine, industry, and communication, but without a moral compass, it may also erode the very fabric of human Goodyear 2
identity. If AI writes our books, tells our jokes, and holds our hands when we are lonely, does it elevate us, or does it quietly replace us? Already, AI has begun generating entire novels, mimicking the prose of celebrated authors without their consent. These works, eerily accurate in style yet void of true originality, blur the line between homage and theft. If left unchecked, such technology could strip artists of their creative ownership, reducing human artistry to mere data points for replication. Like radiation, AI is neither inherently good nor evil – it is the wielder, not the tool, that determines its impact.
Even if AI surpasses us in logic, efficiency, and even creativity, there remains something sacred about human endeavor. Marie Curie did not pursue science simply for discovery’s sake; she pursued it with an insatiable curiosity, with courage, with purpose. AI may generate poetry more beautiful than any human can, but it does not dream. It does not suffer the sting of rejection, the exhilaration of inspiration, or the bittersweet ache of nostalgia. An AI may compose a poem about grief, but it will never feel the suffocating weight of loss, never cradle a keepsake infused with memories, never break under the burden of sorrow and reshape that pain into art. Without experience, its words are hollow—a facsimile of human emotion, not a genuine expression of it.
To insist that certain realms – art, philosophy, love – must remain human is not an act of resistance; it is an act of preservation. Curie’s genius did not exist in isolation but in relation to the world around her. She was shaped by experience, by suffering, by relentless perseverance. The power of human creativity and morality does not lie in perfection but in its very imperfection. AI, no matter how refined, cannot stumble, cannot fail, cannot triumph over adversity. And therein lies the irreplaceable essence of the human spirit. Goodyear 3
Marie Curie did not merely discover radiation – she sought to understand its implications. AI, like radioactivity, demands that same level of responsibility. The future is not about whether AI can replace us, but whether we let it.
AI should be our tool, not our master. Just as we learned to regulate nuclear energy, we must regulate AI – not to stifle progress, but to protect what is uniquely human. We must ensure that AI remains a force that augments human potential rather than diminishes it. The choice is ours: will we wield this fire responsibly, or will we let it consume us?
Marie Curie once said, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.” AI is not to be feared, but it must be understood, tamed, and guided with wisdom. We stand at a moment in history as consequential as the dawn of the atomic age. The creeping progress of AI does not signal our demise – it signals a challenge. We must prove that humanity is more than the sum of its intelligence. We must prove that our worth is not measured by efficiency, but by soul, by struggle, by the raw, beautiful, irreplaceable depth of being human.

Honorable Mention: “The Fear of Worms is the Beginning of Wisdom”
Matthew Liechty | ’26 English and Film Production | Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar
If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, what is the fear of AI the beginning of? Anxiety about the place of humanity in the cosmos, this essay contest would suggest. Fearful, barricaded in the levitating, foundationless fortresses of light that we have constructed over the nether wasteland of reality, we act as if an ancient king, crazy from lead poisoning, afraid of deposition, marshalling all the forces of rhetoric to our aid. The majority of our soldiers, infantrymen, well trained in hacking the strawman scarecrows they practiced on to pieces, were shipped in via bandwagon long ago — they patrol the battlements and castellations of our fortress with watchful, paranoid, sleepless steps. Our archers, experts in arrows shot ad hominem, aim their barbs at the robotic attackers besieging our castle, the first attack on you, our Sovereign Reason, by a non-human, non-animal foe. Our engineers, experts in fallacy, construct complicated cranes, mirrors for burning ship’s sails, catapults, war kites, spinning circular blades that they hope our infantryman, expendable as they are, will one day fly with like helicopters and drop obfuscatory bombs onto the approaching horde. All this to guard a foundationless castle, built on the faith that humans are different in some way from everything else — better too, better than the vulgar herd of birds and beasts — better than the vegetable kingdom (excluding the Veggietales vegetables of course) — and undoubtedly, indubitably better than rocks — better than mineral and wires conjoined to make a gibbering apery of our apish selves!
But are we any better than a robot? Are we not any more than a collection of minerals, arranged in a fleshy and spongy fashion, that self-replicates over time and space, not with the regard to be something great but just to survive, to multiply and replenish the earth not for the sake of being anything great but just to be there? Existence is the goal; the bare facticity of life,
stripped of all its illusions, is not that humanity has a greater purpose, or a higher cause, but that we imagine these caressing delusions because it flatters us out of the horrifying melancholy that arises from the shock that we are no better, no wiser really than the worms and bugs that live in the soil. This is why AI hurts: everything that we have told ourselves is great, wonderful, and wise — our arts, our philosophy, our culture (all of which produces no benefit practically speaking except to convince us that we are not what we are), is in danger of being surpassed.
Except we are not being surpassed; you have already been surpassed. You, a human being, just like me, have already encountered people who are smarter, funnier, wiser than you. The average person will not write Faust, will not discover gravity, will not explore the globe. They will just be, reproduce, and imagine themselves, via a shared filament of humanity, to be part and parcel of a hive-mind humanity that makes those geniuses capable of producing the idea-bulbs of thought that illuminate the dark, depraved, death-doomed, desolate desert wasteland of existence. This is really what AI has pitted us against: Us. Ai does not generate its own ideas — it is instead the world’s greatest plagiarist, taking all the achievements of humanity and squishing them down into a single chatbot. AI is not a genius, it is just a more effective google search, and its flashes of brilliance are just us being forced to look at how much better other humans are than us through the dehumanizing presentation of a robot. AI shows us how terrifying the idea of something better than ourselves is without the comforting illusion that we are somehow part of things we have no part of due to a shared human essence, the essence itself an invention. The mole that dies from the inclemency of winter does not say: “But yes, my compatriots and fellow moles have built bunkers and tunnel systems and really, as we are all one, I am as much responsible and the beneficiary of these tunnels as them, if it at least in an abstract sense, and am not here but there, and not really dying.” Instead it just dies. Why don’t we?
This may seem stridulously harsh, especially to those that harbour deep-seated beliefs in the interior iridescent splendour of the soul in connection to something greater (either God or humanity usually). It should be. The goal of this essay was to take the dreams and hopes that support humanity and put them through a wood chipper so we can realize where we are: marooned on the same uncanny coast every existentialist has been on after the last ship of reason, a narrenschiff, abandoned them laughing, slipped its cable, and sailed off over the edge of the known world into the abyss. Without hope, with collections of rock enlivened by lightning-conducting metal nerves parroting back at us easily and effortlessly how much more humanity has achieved than us, there is only one way to go on. Lie! Lie to yourself! Lie to others! Humans are great. This essay is a farce — refute it! Go do something great! At least tell us that it is great! Keep trying! Become a luddite! Destroy computers! Chatgpt can’t do anything to stop you putting a baseball bat through your computer screen. Live in the woods. Become a primitivist. It doesn’t matter what you do because the species, as a thing that exists in order to exist, will continue to exist, however it can, and invent whatever lies it needs to tell itself to keep it existing, until existing becomes impossible, and at that point give up! Not everyone was made to survive.
If this is too harsh, let me offer a solution to this dreary melancholia about humanity — a little flattering anecdote to suborn the judges to my side. If you ever want to hear a speech more eloquent than the greatest productions of humanity, more wise, funnier, wittier, and more impassioned, don’t go to AI. Instead go outside when it’s raining, imbibe the petrichor, find some worms, take them home, feed them a spaghetti dinner (to mimic the cannibalistic undertones of communion), and then listen to them speak. What they will say will have as much wisdom and wit as all of humanity’s collective efforts, but without the narcissistic flatteries of humanity.
Whoever asks wisdom go ask of God? No! Ask of worms. Those pinkish, pulpy masses will tell all without a single word. Plus, if that’s not satisfying, you can just add them to the spaghetti and eat them. You can’t do that with AI, but at least this way you can feel different and better than the lowliest form of life, having engaged in a sort of master-slave dialectic with them that resulted in you quite literally subsuming them, allowing you to go about life with the confidence that you are better than a worm because you ate one. And AI has never done that!

Winning Essay Archives
2024
“A Tale of Lions and Oxen”
Veronika Miskowiec | ’26 International Politics | Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar
It is hard to talk about equality in the eyes of the United States when the country itself never agreed on what it was. At one point, it gave one group of people complete ownership over another—that was called equality. When we were past that, it still meant the complete superiority and dominance of one race over another—that was called equality. Even beyond that, it meant the prioritization of men over women, rich over poor, educated over the uneducated—somehow, that is still equality? But how can we say that one group is greater than another when this “lesser” group is not given a fair chance?
Yes, people argue that equality is present. Black people can vote. Women can join the workforce. A lower-class individual can take out a loan and go to college. Of course, that ignores the many facets of a problem that is as prevalent as ever; voter restriction laws are still being passed, women still make 82 cents for every dollar a man makes, and the private loan providers that keep people who strive for higher education in debt for years are making millions.
I can keep going in circles and arguing that equality still exists. I can think about how it endangered, but was it truly ever safe? It is hard to admit that in a century that is defined by its progress, the people who were always on the perimeter remain in it. That being said, the institutions that were in place aiming to equal the playing field, like Affirmative Action, are being targeted (and, in the case of Affirmative Action, actually being called unconstitutional). If that is the precedent being set, what is stopping us from sliding down the daunting mountain of fairness for all that we have been trying to climb up?
Aristotle once said that “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” To me, this quote encompasses the problem the United States faces today: We are too caught up in trying to make everyone seem the same to realize that we are all different. The reality is we each grew up facing different circumstances, pressures, and obstacles.
As romantic poet William Blake wrote, “One law for the lion and for the ox is indeed oppression.” It is easy to paint a picture using a quote that critiques this universal law system that the United States has in place. Say we are a country populated by lions and oxen. If the governing body of this country says, “Yes, we recognize that you two have different diets and have different needs, so you are free to eat what you must in order to survive.” Great. The oxen can eat the grass they need, and the lions can butcher the oxen that they need to eat in order to survive. Obviously, the oxen are being slaughtered. The government recognizes this, so they say, “Okay, from now on everyone can only eat grass.” Great. The oxen are safe to eat their grass and thrive, but now the lions eventually starve.
The truth is we do live in a society of lions and oxen.
We live in a society that says if you get arrested you can post bail to get out. For a middle- or upper-class individual with money to spare, that is not an issue. For a lower-class individual without that money, they get to stay in jail.
We live in a society that says you can take the SAT as many times as you would like. Of course, that does not account for the access to test preparation materials, tutors, and school-funded study programs that tend to be present in wealthier areas in contrast to impoverished areas that often do not even provide their students with an SAT preparation course. That is not even taking into account the fact that it costs money—that many do not have—to take the exam itself.
We live in a society that tells us that we are free to apply to any university in order to set ourselves up for the future we would like to have. Of course, how does that bear in mind the fact that wealthier areas tend to have better school districts with, again, more resources, and wealthier people have more money to spend on college applications themselves?
The truth is inequality is still prevalent, and maybe we have not climbed as far up the mountain of fairness as we thought. Maybe the laws we have in place simply conceal the inequality better than they ever have. The tale of lions and oxen should be one of caution when enacting laws that seemingly position the members of society in an unjust situation disguising it as one of equality.
“Paradox of Then, Vigor of Now”
Creighton Mitchell | ’24 Economics
The year is 1968, two years after the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. America finds itself grappling with the tumultuous currents of civil rights movements, challenges to suffrage, and anti-Vietnam War protests. The nation is on the brink, facing unprecedented levels of public discourse and diminishing morale within its borders. Scenes of African American café sit-ins and bus boycotts have become a pillar in American politics, while women are fervently seeking admission to Yale, Princeton, and Harvard. Amidst this backdrop, crosses burn in front yards, fire hoses, and K9 units are unleashed on the innocent and the esoteric ball of equality is being hit across the country. Echoing the pursuit of this enigmatic goal.
April 4th, 1968: CBS Anchor Walter Cronkite delivers a somber announcement on the evening news: “Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of non-violence in the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee.” Meanwhile, Ira Mitchell Sr. just wrapped up instrument tests at the TWA airplane hangar in Tuskegee, Oklahoma. The fading sunlight filters through the expansive garage doors. Ira, two janitors, and an assistant flight controls mechanic are gathered, drawn by the noise emanating from the offices in the back of the hangar. This diverse group shared one common feature—their melanin-rich, mahogany-colored skin. As Walter Cronkite’s resonant words echoed through the air, the mechanic uttered, “Dr. King is dead.” Ira gazed down at the ground in disbelief, his leathery, worn hands fumbling a greased cloth. A long-exhausted sigh escapes his mouth. He exits the hangar, bound for the forty-minute bus ride home to his wife and seven children. At the bus stop sits a boy, pocket watch in hand, waiting for his father to arrive. The workday is over.
April 4th, 1968: Larry Braby arrives home after teaching Biology at Pocahontas High School in rural Iowa, surrounded by the vast prairies and cornfields of what some call “God’s Country.” He parks his 1960 Ford pickup in the garage, taking a moment of ominous silence between the final high school bell and the ensuing chaos of suburban Midwest life. It is in these fleeting moments, that the weight of the 1960s subtly lingers on his mind, vivid reels surge of friends and classmates entangled in the contentious Vietnam War.
As Larry sits in his pickup, plunging further into a disquieting euphoria, the distant bark of a dog fractures the state of detachment. Three toddlers excitedly rush out, and Larry is welcomed by his wife and daughters. Yet, the ethereal weight of the era persists. Entering the house, he hears the transistor radio near the pantry cabinet, broadcasting Walter Cronkite’s words that perforate throughout. Conversation softens to a whisper, as if the world had paused, leaving only the echo of silence. There are no words. Amidst this tranquil lull, one of the young girls diverts her gaze, meeting Larry’s eyes. “Who is Martin Luther King?” she asks. Breaching the stillness, he invites her, “Come sit with me, I’ll tell you all about him.”
August 22nd, 2023: I find myself in a stale, yet sweltering classroom populated by an ocean of peers. It is the first day of Labor Economics. The professor forges ahead, initiating the routine first-day introductions with the familiar prompt, “Introduce yourself, where you are from, and share your favorite food.” The class begins to list locations spanning the entire globe: “Seoul, South Korea; New Delhi, India; Toronto, Canada.” The spotlight brings me into focus, it is my turn. Hands damp with perspiration, I declare, “Des Moines, Iowa.” The professor dispels the anxious tension of the first day, shattering the atmosphere with a statement that captures the class and kicks open the door to the first day. “I counted 12 different nationalities amongst this class, the highest I have had in a semester.” I glance at the color of my hands, flipping them over and back, discovering subtleties I had never noticed before. A seemingly flawless blend, uniting the deepest onyx hues found in Oklahoma with the radiant glow from the expanse of stars adorning rural Iowa. I peer at the seats in front and behind me, they seem to be in similar astonishment. This is the world Larry Braby and Ira Mitchell envisioned. Class begins.
“The Garden”
Katherine Joyce | ’25 English | Schreyer Scholar
Picture a garden.
Not the prim, proper, prissy type: a spilling-over, four-leaf clover, blossom takeover, idle-Sunday rover kind of place where no two flowers are the same. Roses painted the palest pinks and the cleanest whites and the brightest yellows climb up trellises hand-in-hand, leaf-in-leaf, thorn-in-thorn—their own personal Everest to conquer by summer’s end. Herbs blush under too much attention and wilt if left alone. Ivy vines silhouette the white picket fence like a scalloped edge on a lacy wedding veil. The daisies and violets and primroses, darling little innocents, rustle cheerfully with the warm breeze, glad to beautify their home in their own tiny way. Bluebirds sing jazz and opera as the sunset casts its golden spotlight through the trees. Near the pond, the proud sprigs of lavender dance to the music of croaking frogs and barking dogs. The magnolias sway and the violets play and the chrysanthemums pray and the little dandelion puffs stray, and all is lovely and well as the sun sinks and the garden falls asleep.
Can you see it now?
This is the beauty of our nation. I am a tulip, and you a cherry blossom, and your friend a zinnia, and your mother a lily. The law stretches over us like the endless summer sky, bathing us all in sunlight. Under the big blue, we flourish as we please. Despite our differences, we are one garden.
But sometimes, the sky cannot protect everyone—not even in the garden.
The flowers know when the storms are gathering, but what can they do? Shake and shiver and shimmy and shuffle as they wait for the inevitable? Not everyone is hardy. The tulips just stare at the gathering clouds, tracing their beloved petals one last time. They are delicate, never meant to last … there is no hope for them in thunder. The roses cling tightly to the trellis, and to each other, as the winds begin to howl.
And then there are the bare feet that trample the innocents—the daisies, the violets, the sweet baby primroses. Perhaps the blunder becomes a regret, or perhaps that foot finds something powerful in crushing someone so small. The forget-me-nots lower their little blue heads in mourning. They will remember, and they will cry.
And when the gardener falls in love, what then? He walks down the mossy cobblestones, humming the tune that once caused his parents to sway among the daffodils at twilight, eyes peeled for the most perfect of blooms. He cuts a few fresh roses—pale as a young woman’s blush—and vows to get rid of those pesky dandelions someday. Those aren’t real flowers, he mumbles to himself, just weeds. And he goes away humming, and the dandelions cower and hate themselves.
The environment is not one-size-fits-all, and neither is the law. Nor, I would argue, should it be. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States of America declares that “nor shall any state … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The law is there, but we as Americans have failed in carrying it out. In short, our humanity is lacking. The fault is ours.
What if the ivy wrapped itself around the tulips when the fierce winds blew? What if the bluebirds chirped until the gardener looked away from the roses and towards those that are often forgotten? What if the snapdragons hissed when predators neared the lilies? What if the gardener taught his guests to look before they step?
What if, instead of depending on the government to build walls and write legislation, we simply looked out for each other? If I am a tulip and you are a cherry blossom, you must accept that I come from the ground, and I must accept that you come from a tree. Look at the roses! The pink blossoms do not attempt to strangle the yellow ones if they reach the top of the trellis first. Their vines twist, and they become one. And someone needs to protect the innocents, for the humblest flowers are just as beautiful as the showy ones. Protect them, please.
America is a garden. Tend it.
2023
“A Client and His Discontents”
Michael Mitole ’23 Finance (Schreyer Scholar)
I glance at the card in my palm—Dr. Carl Rogers, Ph.D., 1150 Silverado Street, La Jolla, California. Drawing in a breath from the cool air around me, I return even less warmth: “This better not be a waste of my time.” I arrive to his study and sit on a coarse Persian tapestry that conceals a chair well-worn and pleading to be retired. Let me put my watch on, I think to myself, because the first rule of therapy is that the first session always goes over time. Looking around, I wonder how a Milton novel, a textbook on scientific agriculture, a King James Bible, and a bust of Kierkegaard happened onto the same shelf together, but, being raised with manners, I know not to say anything.
As I begin to talk, I convince myself that Rogers will be genuinely interested in what I am going to tell him – as we often do with people in our lives, if we’re honest enough to admit it – and that my stories of figuring out who I was, loving someone for the first time, and a failed attempt at the Rhodes Scholarship will yield enough material to make the session worth our while. Michael, you’re rambling on again – maybe you should pause so he can interpret your problems back to you. And, what time is it, anyway? Have I talked for the entire session? Pausing in the middle of my soliloquy, I peer at Rogers and wait for a response. Oh no, he hasn’t even written anything down yet.
“Michael, it seems to me that you are living, subjectively, a phase of your problems, knowingly and acceptingly,” he replies. I give an empty expression. I’m sorry, but what am I supposed to do with that? Rogers lets his words hang in the air, knowing they have stirred an internal response.
Well — maybe we need to be told truths that are jarring enough to make us let go of our own conclusions. He continues: “Many people I see in my practice aren’t used to being told that. It was an idea I published in my book On Becoming a Person, after many years observing how people responded to problems.”
When we are presented with problems – personal and otherwise – do we reach too quickly for panaceas, convenient cliches, and old schematic frames? Is this what Rogers means? I decide to vocalize my thoughts: “I see, Dr. Rogers. I tend to believe that all of my problems can be solved in some systematic way. And, to be frank, I look at a lot of the world’s grander problems this way, too — the global pandemic, the devastation of war, our beleaguered planet, and economic turmoil.”
“Right, and I am sure that your experience and what you have witnessed around you reveal that problems are hardly formulaic – some are longstanding and most are too complex to fit within the lenses we impose on the world around us,” says Rogers. “So, what does it mean to you, to live?”
Searching for a response, my eyes return to Rogers’ bookshelf, where I notice Thoreau’s Walden and an anthology of poems by Keats. How apropos of the conversation… and that Keats fellow, what was that he wrote about ‘negative capability’?
—
How do we live meaningfully in the face of hardships and difficulties? First, we grasp that the world is a forum of problems, where things are not as they ‘ought’ to be. But, importantly, we continue doing all the things that meaningful living requires – we continue to feel, to learn, to grow, to struggle, to change, to persevere, to act, and to be courageous.
If Camus was right that “to live is not to resign ourselves,” then our living must also be done with an unwavering purpose. There are those who feel called to dream big dreams and those who feel called to be faithful with the life already set before them. No matter what destiny holds, each of us in life will face a problem of significance that makes all the ones before it into necessary preparation. When that time comes, it will be our chance to help set the world ‘righter’ than it was before. This, we might say, is the universal purpose for which we exist, our hard-wearing meaning in life—to live in service of the ‘good,’ however that duty appears.
—
I reply to Rogers, “I see now that to truly live, in the face of problems, is to embody a solution that is salutary in all circumstances. But to spend my life ‘fixing’ is to live enslaved by those problems, an all too narrow and futile existence.” Rogers nods his head in tacit agreement, looking away from me.
I follow his eyes: Where is he looking? Oh goodness, the time.
“An Ode to Time, a Friend”
Arushi Grover ’23 English (Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar)
A player enters onstage. They stand, center-stage, in a spotlight. They wait.
In this moment in time, the forces of the haunting past, the tense present, and imminent future converge to the pleading question: how does one go on? We live in a time of intense political polarization, both in America and increasingly throughout the world; reaching across the aisle seems more and more like an idyllic fantasy of the past, and instead of achieving progress, it seems like our society and democracy is regressing. We live in a time of great reckoning, coming to terms with how past oppression has caused current inequalities, along lines of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, class, nationality, and more; haunted by the past, we try to learn to play the hand we’re dealt and create equality for the future…on top of what feels like a house of cards. And the future seems imminent, as climate scientists warn that we are on a trajectory that will cause global temperatures to increase, seas to rise, a surefire climate catastrophe that will harm those most vulnerable populations who have caused the least carbon emissions. Suffering defines our past, present, and future, the current moment an endless and evolving challenge.
Dare I suggest that time may be, not our foe, but our friend, in such circumstances? Regard Time, a wingèd, angelic figure that presides and brandishes a scythe. For our experience on this Earth is defined by Time: a beginning, a birth; the middle, a duration of experience; and the end, a death. She hovers, ever-present, a metronomic gaze as we haunt this world. We, as humans, may mourn the eternality that could never be due to our mortal frames, but think, perhaps, that the ephemerality of life is what makes the lows ever-so-devastating, but also the highs ever-so-pleasant. Knowing that this will end, we can experience joy and pleasure for the euphoria that they are. Ephemerality is what gives us meaning; that end is a gift that allows us to cherish the moment. For our finite experience, should the universe envy us for our feeling the operatic breadth of human emotion—the pains and devastation, the joys and pleasure?
For the challenges and hardships we face, we can find meaning in the nature of our existence; the universe may have Time, but we have experience, too. As individuals in this world, let us consider our strength to be our individuality, our unique and discrete experiences—something to take pleasure in and something to expand our understanding. Appreciating individuality means listening to individuals, not just ourselves but our communities, and especially to previously unheard and unsung voices. We must appreciate the diversity of individual experience.
The inequalities of the past mean that we have the chance to make the future better than the past, better than the present moment—a challenge, but a gratifying problem to solve for individuals and humankind. Preparing to counter the effects of climate change can seem like a daunting and unwinnable task, but we can comfort ourselves knowing that every inch of progress right now will be a mile of progress for future generations. And in a moment when political progress seems like it’s headed backwards, let us ricochet in appreciating how far we’ve come, to where we are or were, and beyond. For all the challenges that come with Time passing and repeating, we can find a silver lining and some meaning in befriending the figure of Time—both internal, personal meaning, and external, real-world reflections of validation.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Can you hear it? Flowers bloom and trees sport verdant leaves that metamorphosize to a blaze and fall in decay. Can you see it? In water, a current pulls and pulls and pulls. Can you feel it? If Time is a friend, can we not collaborate and make a meaningful relationship for us both? Maybe life is a book, and we get to control the pace, how quickly the pages turn, how soon the conflict resolves. Maybe life is a film, and we can pause the piece, rewind, and replay when things get hard. Or maybe life is a play, and we arrive with strangers to share time and space for a moment, before dissipating.
In some ways, there is cause to be optimistic for the future. And in some ways, there is no cause—not cause for pessimism, but simply an absence of cause. In these moments of reasoning, it is choice that defines our actions and mindset—both the choice to choose what we want for ourselves and the choices that affect others in a complex world and web of interdependence.
Onstage, the player bends their head, then straightens and steps off the stage. They sit in the first row of the audience. The lights dim to a blackout.
“We Exist in a Society”
Taran Samarth ’23 Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology and Mathematics (Paterno Fellow and Schreyer Scholar)
Contemporary politics dances upon one principal question: do we live in a society? Before there were absurdist Joker memes asserting “we live in a society,” there was Margaret Thatcher saying the opposite: “there is no such thing [as society].” Thatcher and Reagan’s worldview that there are only individuals and families living under markets—leaving little place for interconnection and community—once dominated Western politics. And then came the coronavirus crisis to remind us that if there was no value in redistributing wealth and power with our neighbors through the government that constitutes our collective will, at least we could redistribute some virions.
The pandemic was a reminder that, at the core of human existence, we are interlinked—that infections spread person-to-person, that our health depends on others, and that the survival of our medical facilities required all of us to do our part. Intensifying climate disasters and oppressive violence suggest the same: we live in a society where colossal, pressing crises structure our lives, and the solutions will require individuals to act in concert with others, not alone.
The urgency of these crises and the scale of their needed solutions demand that we collectively do two things: we embrace society, and we embrace taking sides. Too often, we fear staking bold claims. To demand police abolition in a world that enforces racist violence through the state is “too radical.” To seek an economic reconstruction that centers sustainability and collective, not individual, wealth is “too polarizing.” Our allergy to supporting transformative, large-scale solutions leave us emphasizing “nuance” without substance or trying to confine ourselves to “gray areas” where bold ideas are watered down into mere Band-Aids. Or, worse, we tell ourselves that crises—like some former Penn State officials said about sexual and gender-based violence—are just “vexing” and “intractable,” as if they are too complicated to merit our focused attention and effort.
The crises we face are complicated—they are massive, they are hard, and we are bound, at times, to fail. But we cannot refuse to back bold ideas while the window for action that can meaningfully prevent harm dwindles. As we stare down the barrel of existential crisis after crisis, the existentialists are a guide to making meaning in 21st-century life. Our lives are defined by our freedom to constantly choose—I choose to speak; you choose to listen (or not). How we choose to greet and meet every moment fills our world with value and our lives with meaning. Faced with myriad crises, will we let our lives be defined by paralysis? Or will we courageously choose sides and define ourselves as actors that dared to try—dared to affirm our freedom and choose?
But, as Simone de Beauvoir says in Pyrrhus and Cinéas, “[humankind] is not alone in the world.” As intensifying global polarization and authoritarianism indicate, we cannot choose sides haphazardly or without attention to the identical freedom of billions of others. These choices and our actions demand thought and care—particularly for the most marginalized and vulnerable. Whatever choice I alone make in confronting a crisis will be meaningless without others willing to orient their freedom and choices toward the same projects. Disagreement is inevitable—even healthy—but the toxic polarization we face today keeps us frozen in the face of crisis because we choose not to persuade or communicate. We take sides—and we refuse to seek others to join us. We leave our lives meaningless, and crisis creeps ever closer to Armageddon.
As historian Gabriel Winant wrote in the throes of the pandemic, meeting the urgency and challenges posed by crisis requires “the building of relationships and trust across the forms of social difference.” To reach across dinner tables, borders, and backgrounds and build these relationships is to forge the bonds that alone have the power to bring the choices we make, sides we take, and solutions that follow into the world. As Winant quotes Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder from his text on fighting the crisis of tyranny, you must dare to “put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people.”
The urgency posed by a planet unequipped to withstand climate shifts in the coming decade and respond to structural inequities that will sharply allocate harm to the already-wounded means that we cannot risk inaction. For one person to imbue their life with meaning amidst extraordinary social problems, the urgency of crisis demands that they opt to take sides and try to effect change in the world. But they can only do so effectively if they dare to make those bold choices in partnership with others willing the same. That is, we can only make meaning in our lives and our world if we choose to embrace and act upon that one fundamental truth: we live in a society.
“Finding Meaning in the Pursuit of Survival”
Charles Cote ’23 Supply Chain and Information System (Schreyer Scholar)