Mr. Antolini's lecture to Holden Caufield in J.D. Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye.
"I
have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of terrible, terrible
fall. But I don't honestly know what kind...It may be the kind where, at
the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in
looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you
may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret
between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing
paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know...This fall I
think you're riding for--it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.
The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He
just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men
who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something
their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their
own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. they
gave up before they ever really even got started...I don't want to
scare you...but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or
another, for some highly unworthy cause...If I write you something down
for you, will you read it carefully?...Oddly enough, this wasn't written
by a practicing poet. It was written by a psychoanalyst names Wilhelm
Steket...Here's what he said: 'The mark of the immature man is that he
wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that
he wants to live humbly for one.'...I think that one of these
days...you're going to have to find out where you want to go. And then
you've got to start going there. But immediately. You can't afford to
lose a minute. Not you...And I hate to tell you...but I think that once
you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to
apply yourself in school. You'll have to. You're a student--whether the
idea appeals to you or not. You're in love with knowledge...And I think
you'll find, once you get past all the...Mr. Vinsons, you're going to
start getting closer and closer--that is, if you want to, and if you
look for it and wait for it--to the kind of information that will be
very, very dear to your heart. Among other things, you'll find that
you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and
even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score,
you'll be excited and
stimulated to know. Many, many men have
been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.
Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from
them--if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer,
someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal
arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry...I'm not
trying to tell you...that only educated and scholarly men, if they're
creative and brilliant to begin with--which, unfortunately, is rarely
the case--tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them
than men do who are
merely brilliant and creative. They tend to
express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for
following their thoughts to the end. And--most important--nine times out
of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker...Something
else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any
considerable distance, it'll begin to give you an idea what size mind
you have. What it'll fit and, maybe, what it won't. After a while,
you'll have an idea what kind of thoughts your particular size mind
should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary
amount of time trying on ideas that don't suit you, aren't becoming to
you. You'll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind
accordingly."
The Catcher in the Rye is my
all-time favorite book, and this part, this lecture, holds the most
meaning for me. It says to me that no matter who we may be, we must take
everything that we can from what is available to us. If we don't, we
will only ever merely wear the exoskeleton of the person we want to be.
We can't spend all of our time hating the behavior that we see; we can't
hate the changing times and what they turn into. We will get lost
looking for what we will never find. If we are to be happy, we should
get our ideas in order and make them real, instead of just searching and
waiting. We can't always find who we are; we have to create ourselves.
This
book, especially this little part, was beautifully written. Every word
can be applied to any one person's life. I will always hold this close
to my heart as a reminder that we are all human, and we all stray from
the path we should be on. Sometimes we must put searching aside and
bring creation to the table.
