I'm sure many of you have had this experience it's late at night and you
start browsing Netflix looking for something to watch you scroll through
different titles you even read a few reviews but you just can't commit to
watching any given movie suddenly it's been 30 minutes and you're still stuck
in infinite browsing mode so you just give up you're too tired to watch
anything now so you cut your losses and fall asleep I've come to believe that
this is the defining characteristic of our generation let's call it keeping our
options open there's this philosopher Zygmunt Bauman he calls it liquid
modernity we never want to commit to any one identity or place or community so we
remain like liquid in a state that can adapt to fit any future shape liquid
modernity is infinite browsing mode but for everything in our lives I've been
thinking about this recently because leaving home and coming here is a lot
like entering a long hallway you walk out of the room in which you grew up and
into this place with thousands of different doors to infinitely browse and
throughout my time here I've I've seen all the good that can come from having
so many new options I've seen the joy a person feels when they find a room more
fitting for their authentic self I've seen big decisions become less painful
because you can always quit you can always move you can always break up in
the hallway will always be there and mostly I've seen all the fun folks have
had experiencing more novelty than any generation in history ever experienced
but as I've grown older here I've also started seeing the downsides of having
so many open doors nobody wants to be stuck behind a locked door but nobody
wants to live in a hallway either it's great to have
options when you lose interest in something but I've learned here that the
more times I do this the less satisfied I am with any given option and lately
the experiences I crave are less the rushes of novelty and more those perfect
Tuesday nights when you eat dinner with the friends who you have known for a
long time who you've made a commitment to and who won't quit you because they
found someone better I've discovered in my time here that the people who inspire
me the most are those who have left the hallway shut the door behind them and
settled in I think of Fred Rogers recording episode 895 of Mister Rogers
neighborhood because he was committed to advancing a humane model of moral
education I think of Dorothy Day sitting with the same outcast folks night after
night after night because it was important that someone is committed to
them I think of Martin Luther King but not just the Martin Luther King who
confronted the fire hoses in 1963 but the Martin Luther King who hosted his
thousandth tedious planning meeting in 1967 when Hollywood tells tales of
courage they usually take the form of slaying the dragon it's all about the
big brave moments but I've been learning from these heroes that the most menacing
dragons that stand in the way of reforming the system or repairing the
breach or the everyday boredom and distraction and uncertainty that can
erode our ability to commit to anything for the long haul it's why I love that
the word dedicate has two meanings first it means to make something holy second
it means to stick at something for a long time I don't think this is a
coincidence we do something holy when we choose to commit
to something and in the most dedicated people I have met I have witnessed how
that pursuit of holiness comes with a side effect of immense joy we may have
come here to help keep our options open but I leave believing that the most
radical act we can take is to make a commitment to a particular thing to a
place to a profession to a cause to a community to a person to show our love
for something by working at it for a long time and to close doors and forgo
options for its sake we often assume that some acute and looming threat be it
a foreign invader or a domestic demagogue will be our downfall but if we
were to end that end is just as likely to come from something far less dramatic
our failure to sustain the work it is not only the bomb or the bully that
should keep us up at night it is also the garden untilled and the newcomer
unwelcomed the neighbor unhoused and the prisoner unheard the voice of the public
unheeded and the long simmering calamity unhaulted and the dream of equal justice
unrealized
but we need not be afraid for we have in our possession
the antidote to our dread our time free to be dedicated to the slow but
necessary work of turning visions into projects values into practices and
strangers into neighbors that is why in this age of liquid modernity we should
rebel and join up with a counterculture of commitment consisting of solid people
that is why in this age of infinite browsing mode we should pick a damn
movie and see it all the way through
before we fall asleep let's get to work