dreams

Inside The Ivory Tower

Everyday

During my senior year of college, I took a course entitled, “The Cultural and Intellectual History of Europe from 1780 to Today.” Despite the long and boring title (and the fact that we were expected to read all of 12 books in three months), it became one of my top five favorite courses I ever took. The things I learned in that class really stuck with me and changed how I see the world. One of those things was the concept of the Ivory Tower.

Throughout the semester, my professor led me and my fellow students on a crusade to discover the critical thinkers and power players of the intellectual explosion in Europe during those pivotal years. We read Karl Marx and George Orwell, studied the Spanish Civil War, and analyzed wartime poetry and political essays. Each time we met a new great thinker, my professor would mention something he called the Ivory Tower. You see, all these great thinkers spent time secluded from the world/culture/society physically or intellectually before they stepped out into the real world and made their mark. They worked in their “ivory towers” until their thoughts and ideas forced them to action. They’d stew over ideas for new governmental systems and dream up new ways to treat workers and wallow in their own suffering. Their time in the Ivory Tower was valuable, pivotal even. But there came a time in each of their lives when they had to stop theorizing and dreaming and thinking and get out there and live it. And they changed the world.

I really locked onto the idea of the Ivory Tower. I’ve found that it is as meaningful today as it was back in the nineteenth century. After all, we all have our own ivory towers inside of our heads. It’s where we ponder and scheme and dream and think. But there comes a time when we can’t think or plan anymore. We have to go out into the world and make our dream a reality. We have to write that novel. Or start that small business. Or apply for that position. Or join that protest. We have to break out of the ivory tower or else let our dreams gather dust on the shelf.

For the past several years I have felt like I’m trapped in my own Ivory Tower. While I don’t compare myself to great world-changers by any means, I do feel like I can accomplish much more than what I’m doing right now. Right now I’m just reading and thinking and deciding what I think about the world. But shouldn’t I be doing something about it? But something else my professor taught sticks with me. The Ivory Tower isn’t a dungeon: it’s a thinktank. It’s a place where no idea is stupid or plan too lofty or dream too unrealistic. It’s a place to play, learn and experiment. It’s a playground of sorts. A gift. We just shouldn’t stay there forever.

Now, I’m trying to enjoy my time in the Ivory Tower. I pray that when I leave it, I’ll be ready to change the world in my own way.

What are you doing in your Ivory Tower? Have you left it? I’d love to hear about your brain journey.

Feb. 13, 2001

Everyday

Below is an entry I made in my diary exactly twelve years ago today. I was eleven years old.

photo

The first thing that I realized upon reading this (other than my poor spelling and grammar) was that this was written during the early days of the internet when it would crash for no apparent reason during the worst moments possible – namely in the middle of a very gripping Neopets game of Dice-A-Roo. It was also the point of my life when we only had one family computer. It lived in the hallway at the top of the stairs and its usage was on a very strict time schedule (we had to be fair, you know). This was a time before Google, when you had to ask a presumptuous butler to answer your random questions. A time when you had the dial-up tone memorized and your mailbox would greet you with “you’ve got mail.” A time when chatrooms were totally da bomb, you had to upgrade your AOL with a computer disk that came in the mail, and when not getting to be on the computer would ruin my day. And make me so, so, so mad. It was a simpler time.

It’s always weird for me to read my old journals. I think it’s because, although I can’t really remember what the weather was like or what clothes I was wearing, I can always remember how I felt at the moment I wrote an entry. Like some weird sixth sense connection I have with my past self.

I sometimes forget that little girl didn’t disappear. She’s been with me all along. She’s a little taller and a little bolder, but she’s still the same little girl who was afraid to grow up. The girl who loved climbing trees and making mud pies. The one who wanted so much to be appreciated for being herself. To have her schoolwork posted on the refrigerator and to be called upon by name. The little girl who, when everyone wanted to be models or mothers or princesses, had wanted to be a writer.

And look at her now.

 

The Little Bug That Could

Everyday

The Little Bug That Could

If this little guy can make it to the 20th floor of a high-rise, I have no right to ever doubt that I can make it, too.

Q&A

Everyday, Ponderings
Q: Haley will you miss college after you graduate? Or are you ready to be done?

A: I’m ready to be done. I don’t think I’ll miss college in itself, I think I’ll miss the learning environment. Once I get a job, extra learning will have to be self-reinforced and done on the side which will be hard and time consuming. I would love to be a permanent academic. I love learning and feeling intellectually challenged and stimulated.  However, I’m ready to have my own apartment and “free time” – and yes, it’s amazing that I’ll have more free time after school. I want to be able to cook my own food and put nails in my walls and have furniture that isn’t designed for a dorm. I want to be able to finally commit to leading a junior-high Bible study. I want to only work ONE full-time job and have quiet hours all the time. I want my career to depend on my success as an artist and not on a grade. I am ready to get out into the real ad world and make some great work – work that truly rewards the consumer and treats them like a cohort, making them feel like they have personally benefitted from the campaign. Sure, I’ll miss the dorm life, the unlimited food, the companionship, the creative freedom, the relationships. But I’m ready to be done. I’m ready to make a difference and affect something other than my own future. I want to do something bigger than this campus and bigger than myself.
It may sound corny, but I want to change the world.