College
So four years ago I took a look back (in this journal in fact) at the things that had changed over the preceding four years of high school.
Seems fit to do it again now that I’ve (almost) graduated college.
My name is Luke Roth. That hasn’t changed. Though I am now open to the idea of being called Lou, however only if the prefix ‘Sweet’ is always - always - applied to it.
Think of it. ‘Hey Sweet Lou, lets go rip the town a new one!’ It works.
However, you can’t self impose nicknames, so I’d likely have to settle for Lou. I’ve just decided to keep myself open to the idea of taking it on sometime later in life, like my grandfather did.
In high school, I was constantly plagued with the thought, ‘who am I?’ Since there was no definite answer to that question, I tried being many things, especially near the end. I was so very lost but was determined not to let it show. Don’t misunderstand - I had a rocking good time in highschool. It was the best time to playfully try out the hard lessons of Dad’s ordeal. Happiness was a choice. You’ve got your life and you better be damn lucky for it and do as much as you can. So I went overboard, sure. I was happy as a clam with my self-importance. People let me be, and more importantly, forgave me when I overdid it. I’ll never be able to repay them for that.
College brought a modicum (I mean it) of self-awareness to my actions. With everything I had convinced myself I was, the question became, ‘who am I not?’ Of course, this experience was destined to be far greater than high school. My hard work on self-identification had been done. Now, I would throttle back the intensity, and watch what stuck. I went to classes and put just enough in to graduate with slightly above a B average. I slacked way more than I should have, but learned good things. You are what you repeatedly do, and you sure as hell are only as good as the friends you make. And other than that, I watched what ‘stuck.’
The overarching goal stuck. Clumsy and foolhardy is as it might sound, I sincerely believe I was put here to make the Roth family great again. But we’ll talk about self-imposition when we get to religion.
So, it has always been obvious I’m a bit of a Momma’s boy. Though, like all my other quirks and weirdnesses, I have always owned up to it. However, recently I realized that I represent a vital part of her life, as a mix of the woman she is and the man that he was. When I told her I was thinking about staying in Chicago, she meekly remarked, “I thought you were planning on coming back to Des Moines.” I realized she is fearful of getting older without some sort of link to her past and a look into her future with my family. I mean come on, I’m almost sure she started that goddamn staffing service because she was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a job. And so that I would come home. Here’s a prediction right now: If she doesn’t sell it, she’ll bring me on board within the next ten years, then run it until she’s 80, and then she’ll sell it or I’ll take over. Even if I never met someone, I’d be from Iowa. I’d have lots of friends. And you know what? That’d be a great life.
My thoughts on Anne and Clare have remained constant. Those girls shine with radiance unheard of nowadays. Anne is going to be a politician, and a damn good one. Clare, a famous journalist for sure. However different the girls are, they share their sense of compassion. Sure, Anne gets short sometimes, but she has to be tough. Clare can care a little too much sometimes, but I can’t blame her for that because that’d be calling the kettle black. The simple fact of the matter is, I could not love Katie, Anne, and Clare anymore than I do. They are my family. They are they way I believe in God.
Which brings us to religion. Not a few pages back I did a ‘state of the union’ address regarding faith in general, and most of that still applies. Instead of just believing in God now I enjoy the ways which help me believe in Him. A nice song. Dinner with friends. The simple stupid stuff. It is just the best way to believe. However, I got a helluva lot more real with some friends near the end of college, and that bears worth repeating. Religion is frankly a fantastic way to provide a moral, ethical framework to the masses. And in the same breath, count me in as one of the masses. Values are not equated with religion - I’ve met plenty of moral atheists. Seriously, when you boil Christianity down its just humanism with rituals and crackers.
My belief is self-imposed - I understand now what it means to have faith. It is accepting it as crazy and going with it anyway because everything has worked out pretty good so far. I accept the reality God might not exist. God might exist, but may be hugely different then my conception of him. It doesn’t matter - my ‘meaning of life’ is completely shaped by the circumstances upon which I stand here today. It is completely self-imposed. I don’t give a shit. It makes me happy. I enjoy my belief in God because, while irrational, it gives me hope and a set of rules to follow. At the end of college, my evaluation is that the faith is worth keeping. The best part? When times get rough, its nice to think I’ll see Dad again at the end of this all.
That usually shuts people down in arguments. I’m a total whore for using it.
Which brings us to my nature. My freshman year a good friend remarked that after taking myself supa-seriously the proceeding four years at Dowling, I was now off the leash for the following four. And really, it worked out like that. I just acted like a kid and watched what happened. The elements of my nature that crossed over were my favorites - I made lots of friends, some really good ones. I was naïve as hell, obnoxious as fuck, and shy around girls I liked. I retained the ability to get big, but also tried being small. Sometimes I couldn’t help it. As my roommate Charles put it, ‘the more awkward you feel, the bigger your personality gets.’ And my, isn’t that true everybody?
And before I completely write myself off as a blabbering manchild, there were some things I took seriously over the years.* While it may sound lame, Student Ambassadors was my first real sales job. I took it seriously enough. The podcast in my final semester required a lot of hard work. And finally, the one I really love pointing to is my now-150 days without a cigarette. If I wasn’t thinking in some capacity about my future I would have NEVER made it this long. So. The serious person is still in there, and I must reconnect with him.
I’m always going to be this way. If those qualities are still here now, then they sure as hell aren’t leaving. I’m always going to be a massive ball of energy. I’m going to over-do it sometimes. I’ll play dress up and carry on important-esque conversations, but there’s always going to be apart of me that wants to be home playing video games. I’ll take myself too seriously, but my work will be top notch. I’ll blunder, of course, but I will do my best to make my blunders accidental. As Greg Earl so eloquently puts it, “You’re a man of good intentions Luke.” Sure, I’ll grow up more over the years, but I really don’t think I’m ever going to stop being this weird.
But man, this sort of weird has tons of perks. The friends I make are always genuine and almost assuredly as nuts as I am, at least in some way. My friend Ali, an atheist of Turkish Muslim descent turned to me once and said, “I can see now that you have no hate in your heart.’ And I don’t. Everybody who I care about knows I care about them. There is no finer way to live.
Now, with my internship at DeWaay, its time to go home. In reality, one of my favorite parts of Chicago was wearing my SMASH shirts. I never really fit in there - truly the best part about living in Chicago was being from Iowa. Now it is time to actually be from Iowa. I could be proud of it, in the way that there is little to be proud of. Instead of having something impressive about the state that everybody knows, I strived to show people what actually is impressive about Iowa - the people. I have accumulated many good friends and very few enemies (and those people were nuts to begin with).
At the end of my time in college I still consider myself one lucky sonofabitch. I have few regrets, and don’t let them plague me often. And the only reason I do is so that they can just be mistakes I learned from. I miss Dad, however am confident that he misses me too, and more importantly, beams with pride when he thinks about me. That is all I need most days. Thank God for it.
To Happiness,
Luke
* Pat Murphy (my last roommate) would argue all I was senior year was a blabbering manchild, and, sigh, like always, he’s a little bit right.
Seems fit to do it again now that I’ve (almost) graduated college.
My name is Luke Roth. That hasn’t changed. Though I am now open to the idea of being called Lou, however only if the prefix ‘Sweet’ is always - always - applied to it.
Think of it. ‘Hey Sweet Lou, lets go rip the town a new one!’ It works.
However, you can’t self impose nicknames, so I’d likely have to settle for Lou. I’ve just decided to keep myself open to the idea of taking it on sometime later in life, like my grandfather did.
In high school, I was constantly plagued with the thought, ‘who am I?’ Since there was no definite answer to that question, I tried being many things, especially near the end. I was so very lost but was determined not to let it show. Don’t misunderstand - I had a rocking good time in highschool. It was the best time to playfully try out the hard lessons of Dad’s ordeal. Happiness was a choice. You’ve got your life and you better be damn lucky for it and do as much as you can. So I went overboard, sure. I was happy as a clam with my self-importance. People let me be, and more importantly, forgave me when I overdid it. I’ll never be able to repay them for that.
College brought a modicum (I mean it) of self-awareness to my actions. With everything I had convinced myself I was, the question became, ‘who am I not?’ Of course, this experience was destined to be far greater than high school. My hard work on self-identification had been done. Now, I would throttle back the intensity, and watch what stuck. I went to classes and put just enough in to graduate with slightly above a B average. I slacked way more than I should have, but learned good things. You are what you repeatedly do, and you sure as hell are only as good as the friends you make. And other than that, I watched what ‘stuck.’
The overarching goal stuck. Clumsy and foolhardy is as it might sound, I sincerely believe I was put here to make the Roth family great again. But we’ll talk about self-imposition when we get to religion.
So, it has always been obvious I’m a bit of a Momma’s boy. Though, like all my other quirks and weirdnesses, I have always owned up to it. However, recently I realized that I represent a vital part of her life, as a mix of the woman she is and the man that he was. When I told her I was thinking about staying in Chicago, she meekly remarked, “I thought you were planning on coming back to Des Moines.” I realized she is fearful of getting older without some sort of link to her past and a look into her future with my family. I mean come on, I’m almost sure she started that goddamn staffing service because she was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a job. And so that I would come home. Here’s a prediction right now: If she doesn’t sell it, she’ll bring me on board within the next ten years, then run it until she’s 80, and then she’ll sell it or I’ll take over. Even if I never met someone, I’d be from Iowa. I’d have lots of friends. And you know what? That’d be a great life.
My thoughts on Anne and Clare have remained constant. Those girls shine with radiance unheard of nowadays. Anne is going to be a politician, and a damn good one. Clare, a famous journalist for sure. However different the girls are, they share their sense of compassion. Sure, Anne gets short sometimes, but she has to be tough. Clare can care a little too much sometimes, but I can’t blame her for that because that’d be calling the kettle black. The simple fact of the matter is, I could not love Katie, Anne, and Clare anymore than I do. They are my family. They are they way I believe in God.
Which brings us to religion. Not a few pages back I did a ‘state of the union’ address regarding faith in general, and most of that still applies. Instead of just believing in God now I enjoy the ways which help me believe in Him. A nice song. Dinner with friends. The simple stupid stuff. It is just the best way to believe. However, I got a helluva lot more real with some friends near the end of college, and that bears worth repeating. Religion is frankly a fantastic way to provide a moral, ethical framework to the masses. And in the same breath, count me in as one of the masses. Values are not equated with religion - I’ve met plenty of moral atheists. Seriously, when you boil Christianity down its just humanism with rituals and crackers.
My belief is self-imposed - I understand now what it means to have faith. It is accepting it as crazy and going with it anyway because everything has worked out pretty good so far. I accept the reality God might not exist. God might exist, but may be hugely different then my conception of him. It doesn’t matter - my ‘meaning of life’ is completely shaped by the circumstances upon which I stand here today. It is completely self-imposed. I don’t give a shit. It makes me happy. I enjoy my belief in God because, while irrational, it gives me hope and a set of rules to follow. At the end of college, my evaluation is that the faith is worth keeping. The best part? When times get rough, its nice to think I’ll see Dad again at the end of this all.
That usually shuts people down in arguments. I’m a total whore for using it.
Which brings us to my nature. My freshman year a good friend remarked that after taking myself supa-seriously the proceeding four years at Dowling, I was now off the leash for the following four. And really, it worked out like that. I just acted like a kid and watched what happened. The elements of my nature that crossed over were my favorites - I made lots of friends, some really good ones. I was naïve as hell, obnoxious as fuck, and shy around girls I liked. I retained the ability to get big, but also tried being small. Sometimes I couldn’t help it. As my roommate Charles put it, ‘the more awkward you feel, the bigger your personality gets.’ And my, isn’t that true everybody?
And before I completely write myself off as a blabbering manchild, there were some things I took seriously over the years.* While it may sound lame, Student Ambassadors was my first real sales job. I took it seriously enough. The podcast in my final semester required a lot of hard work. And finally, the one I really love pointing to is my now-150 days without a cigarette. If I wasn’t thinking in some capacity about my future I would have NEVER made it this long. So. The serious person is still in there, and I must reconnect with him.
I’m always going to be this way. If those qualities are still here now, then they sure as hell aren’t leaving. I’m always going to be a massive ball of energy. I’m going to over-do it sometimes. I’ll play dress up and carry on important-esque conversations, but there’s always going to be apart of me that wants to be home playing video games. I’ll take myself too seriously, but my work will be top notch. I’ll blunder, of course, but I will do my best to make my blunders accidental. As Greg Earl so eloquently puts it, “You’re a man of good intentions Luke.” Sure, I’ll grow up more over the years, but I really don’t think I’m ever going to stop being this weird.
But man, this sort of weird has tons of perks. The friends I make are always genuine and almost assuredly as nuts as I am, at least in some way. My friend Ali, an atheist of Turkish Muslim descent turned to me once and said, “I can see now that you have no hate in your heart.’ And I don’t. Everybody who I care about knows I care about them. There is no finer way to live.
Now, with my internship at DeWaay, its time to go home. In reality, one of my favorite parts of Chicago was wearing my SMASH shirts. I never really fit in there - truly the best part about living in Chicago was being from Iowa. Now it is time to actually be from Iowa. I could be proud of it, in the way that there is little to be proud of. Instead of having something impressive about the state that everybody knows, I strived to show people what actually is impressive about Iowa - the people. I have accumulated many good friends and very few enemies (and those people were nuts to begin with).
At the end of my time in college I still consider myself one lucky sonofabitch. I have few regrets, and don’t let them plague me often. And the only reason I do is so that they can just be mistakes I learned from. I miss Dad, however am confident that he misses me too, and more importantly, beams with pride when he thinks about me. That is all I need most days. Thank God for it.
To Happiness,
Luke
* Pat Murphy (my last roommate) would argue all I was senior year was a blabbering manchild, and, sigh, like always, he’s a little bit right.