The agony of wanting something. The joy in finding something to want.

I was a mediocre college student. It’s not that I didn’t squeeze out a bunch of 3.5-4.0’s, I definitely did. But my efforts and focus were sub-par, at best. In a typical trimester I’d take a disjointed trio of classes: Bio, Lit, Intro to Drawing. Or, Oceanography, Jazz, Color and Comp. I was all over the place. But at a prominent Liberal Arts College, that’s kind of the point.

The envy I felt for my “focused friends” was palpable. “Betty” knew she was going into pre-Med. “Bobby” knew he was going to be a teacher. “Mary” knew that she would be an architect.

I knew nothing. I wanted nothing except to want something.

I wandered aimlessly through my first couple years craving some direction. Longing for a longing. Working to find something to work for. At some random point I must have given up. I granted myself the title “mediocre” and focused on doing the minimum in class and the maximum in my social life.

It wasn’t until I was being forced to pick a major that I visited the one person who must have SOME direction in mind for me even if I didn’t. His name was Professor Eugen Baer. His Introduction to Philosophy class inspired and stunned me. More than Socrates and Plato, HE stunned me. Never had I met such an interesting man—warm, intelligent, funny, spoke 13 languages, was a member of the Swiss Olympic Ski Team, you name it. The guy rocked.

I confided in him that I had some interests, but not a single one knocked my socks off. I told him I rarely felt deeply driven and that only some things interested me. I shared that Art, English, Science, Music were “cool” but didn’t LOVE a single one of them, entirely.

He sat back in his chair. Took a slow breath. Twirled a pen in his hand. Laid a big smile on his face and said, “My dear, you are a Renaissance woman!”

A Renaissance Woman? Huh? What did that mean?

He continued, “You have the gift of enjoying many things. You MUST try them ALL! You must dabble and play and explore everything in this life. THAT is your direction: to create, to explore, to discover.”

He did it, again. He had stunned me. I remember little about the rest of our conversation but I know that 20-years-later, his words ring like a bell in my heart. It was the single most important moment in all of my years of searching.

If you were to look at my resumé on paper, you’d see disjointed entries. Journalism, Photography, Writing, Project Management, Skin Care, Reiki, Violin Teaching,… Painting.

But what I see (because of Prof. Baer) is a whole lotta Renaissance-ing.

There’s something different about the final entry, though. Painting. Well, painting, you have captured my heart. It’s the life practice I was looking for all along. Betty is a doctor. Bobby is a teacher. Mary is an architect.

Erin is a painter.

Now, I still wander, discover, work hard to find answers. But now I do it with less self-criticism. With more attention to and love of the exploration, itself. And that has made all the difference.

Thanks for reading.
e