{"id":1334,"date":"2014-04-10T08:54:46","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T15:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/?p=1334"},"modified":"2014-04-10T08:54:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T15:54:46","slug":"the-opposite-of-loneliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/?p=1334","title":{"rendered":"The Opposite of Loneliness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marina-Keegan\"<\/a>1.<\/strong> Don\u2019t be afraid to recalibrate your goals.<\/strong>
\nIn her introduction, Fadiman recounts a story told to her by Keegan\u2019s parents, about a sailing competition Keegan had entered when she was 14. Though she was a junior sailor, Keegan believed she could beat everyone, no matter how much more experienced they were. But the day was stormy, with 40-knot winds and 3-foot waves that caused her boat to capsize repeatedly. \u201cMarina\u2019s original goal had been to win,\u201d Fadiman writes. \u201cHer new goal was to finish. She came in second to last, to incredulous applause. She was soaking wet, her hair was bedraggled, and her hands were bloody from gripping the lines.\u201d
\n2. You\u2019re not alone in thinking you\u2019re unworthy. Just keep it in perspective.<\/strong>
\n\u201cI\u2019m so jealous. Unthinkable jealousies, jealousies of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel I\u2019m reading and the Oscar-winning movie I just saw. Why didn\u2019t I think to rewrite \u2018Mrs. Dalloway\u2019? I should have thought to chronicle a schizophrenic ballerina. It\u2019s inexcusable. Everyone else is so successful, and I hate them.\u201d But, she adds, \u201csomeday the sun is going to die and everything on Earth will freeze. This will happen. I used to think that printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now.\u201d
\n3. You don\u2019t have to pursue goals that you despise.<\/strong>
\n\u201cWhat bothers me is this idea of validation, of rationalization. The notion that some of us (regardless of what we tell ourselves) are doing this because we\u2019re not sure what else to do,\u201d she writes in an essay about how 25 percent of Yale grads would enter the consulting or finance industry. \u201cThat\u2019s super depressing! I don\u2019t understand why no one is talking about it. I feel like we can do something really cool to this world. And I fear \u2014 at twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five \u2014 we might forget.\u201d
\n4. Value life \u2014 all of it.<\/strong>
\n\u201cPeople are strange about animals. Especially large ones,\u201d she writes in one essay. \u201cDaily, on the docks of Wellfleet Harbor, thousands of fish are scaled, gutted, and seasoned with thyme and lemon. No one strokes their sides with water. No one cries when their jaws slip open. I worry sometimes that humans are afraid of helping humans. There\u2019s less risk associated with animals, less fear of failure, fear of getting too involved.\u201d
\n5. It\u2019s never too late (even if you\u2019re not in your 20s).<\/strong>
\n\u201cWhat we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds,\u201d she writes in the book\u2019s titular essay. \u201cWe can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it\u2019s too late to do anything is comical. It\u2019s hilarious. We\u2019re graduating from college. We\u2019re so young. We can\u2019t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it\u2019s all we have.\u201d
\n 
\nMarina Keegan<\/strong>
\n(killed in a car accident, 5 days after graduating from Yale,22 years old)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Don\u2019t be afraid to recalibrate your goals. In her introduction, Fadiman recounts a story told to her by Keegan\u2019s parents, about a sailing competition Keegan had entered when she was 14. Though she was a junior sailor, Keegan believed she could beat everyone, no matter how much more experienced they were. But the day ...continue reading \"The Opposite of Loneliness\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-afternoon-tea","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry","9":"h-as-article"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpeter.ccreadbible.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}