The Troika Press has officially retired. However, this is far from the end of the road.

Matt’s new blog is at mattpitchford.com and that’s where it will stay.

If you are feeling nostalgic, here are some of Troika Press’ favorite and most popular posts.

Wonder

The Death of Philosophy

Beauty Dissected

A Willamette Contradiction

Men Without Chests

It is a fear that rises when we realize, despite what we’ve been told or desperately believe, that we might not be good enough. We might not be lucky enough. We can’t necessarily get what we want, what everyone expects of us, or what we expect of ourselves. We fear our inadequacies and failures – the things we try most to hide from others and ignore in ourselves.

We fear that these will end up being our best years of our life.

Even if you haven’t felt this way, or at least felt it in these terms, it’s easy to feel unbearably light about our time here at Willamette. Without the weighty certainty that comes from direct experience or complete self-assurance, we’ve all questioned at least a few of the choices that have caused us to end up where we are today. This time right before the end of the academic year is notoriously full of such introspective doubts.

Courage has always been acting in spite of fear, not the absence of it. So, as we embark onto the next chapter of our life, I can but offer my roommate’s timeless advice -“go big or go home.” Our actions in this life will always be uncertain, but yet we must act. All we can do is put effort into the people and ideas that are significant.

All we can do is hope that is enough. I honestly don’t believe that these will be the best years of our life, but they will be some of the easiest. Here we are given purpose, daily amenities, community and the permission to define our space and interests. But even in the most conducive of environments, we never figure it all out.

So, in the presence of such fear and such difficult calls to action, one has to be rigorous in pursuing – in meaningful ways – the meaning of the time left at Willamette and our time left in the world. I may not be able to answer what that meaning is for you, but it definitely doesn’t come from the places that culture tells us to look.

It seems that there is a sort of “younger sibling syndrome” affecting our generation. We take the outward forms of resistance and activism (read: festivals resplendent in tie-dye, self-medication, and music) without the vital understanding of what those expressions meant. Like when your younger sibling mimics what you do without knowing why, we mimic the actions of what we have idealized college to be.  Both look equally silly.

To appropriate the symbols of past cultures and counter-cultures without standing for anything is to mistake form for substance. Finding meaning in this collegiate experience cannot be merely acting out a pre-established script from our idealized misconceptions.

So, rather than acquiescing to the ideas and ideals that aren’t our own, we have to find a way to act fully in spite of the fear that can so easily overtake us. These years are only a glorious prequel to a story that, ultimately, we have to write for ourselves.  So go big, it’s all we can do.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.

At the conference proper, we attended luncheons and dinners, presented our papers, and generally pontificated on rhetoric theory.  Even the movie we went to for fun also received its fair share of analysis.

But this rhetoric conference touches upon a more deep-seated difficulty that extends to the entirety of academia in general.  The usefulness of this conference was questionable to the extent that it seemed like a group of intellectuals standing around congratulating each other for their respective accomplishments.

It seemed like the process of writing papers, publishing articles and giving awards is an attempt for academia to justify its own existence.  The things that we are learning at college are nothing if, at some level, they are not applicable to how we live our life outside the institution.

Many of the papers we saw presented were not written to be understood outside of the discipline.  The relatable knowledge requires some degree of training and professionalization.  Admittedly, jargon and the specific understandings of a field can be a necessary component to deepen knowledge in a particular subjects.

In that way, academic specialization can be useful to the extent that it furthers, in a very real way, the human knowledge that exists in a particular realm.  In terms of conferences, it can also be useful to be connected to other people in a discipline.

That’s the razor’s edge of academics.  On the one hand, we can dismiss portions of its study for their needlessly narrow considerations of questions that seem to have no particular significance to life or anything outside that realm of inquiry.

On the other hand, academia has, almost by definition, been an instrumental process in increasing human knowledge upon every line of inquiry.  The trick is to try and separate the needless from the useful.

Maybe part of the problem is the superabundance of information that can be found on nearly any subject.  In the quest for originality, scholars seem to have to get more and more specialized in order to say anything new.  This doesn’t mean that the entire field loses its relevance, but it’s easy to get distracted by the details.  Academia can lose the forest for the trees.

In the end of my conference experience, I was struck by how applicable rhetoric can be to understanding nearly every aspect of our selves, culture and communicative enterprises.  But I was also struck by how specific and segmented academia could be.

So, no matter where you are going after college, it is useful to understand the idiosyncrasies and tendencies that define the quest for human knowledge.  Whether you are deepening your academic pursuits at graduate school or simply striking out into the world at large, it absolutely vital that we learn how our particular knowledge applies beyond the academic considerations and publications.  Learn the particulars, but don’t drown in them.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.

Even if you’ve never seen the Cirque, I think that we feel the same way, even if it is to a lesser degree, about any live performance … from juggling to theatre to athletics. In every one of these forms of entertainment, unlike the pre-recorded and completed presentations that are movies, albums, and even books, there is always an underlying possibility of making a mistake.

A live performance has a chance of not being perfect. It’s not a movie; you don’t get to reshoot a misstep, mistake, missed throw, or missed note. In fact, a performance’s glory is in the fact that it won’t go perfectly, but will continue nonetheless.

Life’s glory is in that it doesn’t go perfectly. Or, perhaps more accurately, its glory is in the fact that it doesn’t go according to our preconceived plan. It isn’t a package deal that you can pick up, read along with, and then conclude having tied all the threads together at the end.

There is an element of creation, of chance, of unknown in our life. Sometimes we feel it more distinctly and call it an adventure or an excitement or a “break” from the norm. But more than that, uncertainty makes life livable.

Life, reduced to predictable, repetitious, and certain elements and outcomes is like reading the same book or watching the same movie over and over again. No matter how good it is, there are so many more things that can be experienced, thought, and known.

There is more to life than our attempt to reduce it to the predictable. Sometimes we become too fixated on constructing brackets that contain our life.

Don’t get me wrong; you should definitely live with consistency. But this consistency is founded on working through uncertainty and our mistakes, rather than the removal of any deviation from some plan or preconceived story.

Ever wonder why so many actors and celebrities are miserable at love and relationships? I think it may come down to the fact that when they try to apply living out a rote characterization or a storybook ending to their real lives, it inevitably falls apart.

So in the end, appreciate the juggler more than the book about juggling. Appreciate the theatre more than the movies. Appreciate a singer more than your iPod, because they have grasped a part of life itself. We will not act perfectly nor will life be perfect. There is always a chance of messing up and we undoubtedly will.

But at the curtain call, you will have lived a fuller and more meaningful for having recognized it’s necessary limitations, rather than trying to make it reflect a movie or a book.

Life will never be certain, but it can be good.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.

The question, then, is how you will deal with those failings in yourself and others.

Humility hasn’t exactly been a cardinal virtue in our society for some time. Culture is all about self-promotion, self-advancement, self-gratification, and presenting yourself in the most flattering light possible. Willamette is pretty rigorous academically, and in our pride we sometimes begin to mistake intellectual or social capability for a measurement of value.

But pride goes before a fall. If we spend too much time proving ourselves right, we can begin to forget that we can actually be wrong.

Refusal to recognize personal failure can lead to some pretty sticky situations. Is “winning” an argument, absolving personal guilt or justifying a particular behavior reason enough to sacrifice a friendship or prevent a new one?

Being right, in and of itself, is not the point of existence. What also matters is how you approach being right. Part of that approach is recognizing that we are, at root, full of flaws. Trying to pretend to be perfect or always correct doesn’t help anybody solve problems, work through issues or enjoy being your friend.

It’s a balance to try and live this out. On the one hand, we need to be less prideful and recognize the legitimacy of other’s position and feelings, or perhaps more accurately, recognize the value and humanity of the opinion holder.

But it is also worth noting that some ideas are better than others.

I believe you can argue for what is right and continually examine and discuss the truth of your position. However, this discussion ought to be constrained by recognition of the fact that somewhere along the line, you may be wrong.

Find what is true. Commit to it. But don’t become so wrapped up in your right-ness and righteousness that you become hardened to seeing another side of the issue. We “lock in” positions that we may not even believe, just so we don’t have to feel the pain of recognizing we were wrong.

That’s the rub. Being wrong feels bad, whereas feeling right feels good. All we want to do is win, no matter what, because any other option is not as fun. It’s not so much a tendency for competitiveness as it is a tendency for avoiding pain.

But sometimes these uncomfortable difficulties are the most valuable times of our lives. In such pain we can come to learn more about what we ought to believe and what it means to be right while also acting rightly.

In the long run, the discomfort of admitting you are wrong in the here and now can help ease the difficulty of having to do so later when it costs you more.

It’s an obvious sort of concept, but worth reviewing. College, like kindergarten, is about learning how to live with others. Now all we have to do is teach these fundamental precepts to the greater Internet community. Good luck.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.

Walk into any bookstore, the non-conformist’s urbane choice of Powells included, and your senses will likely be assaulted by the veritable superabundance of books.  I speak not just about teenage paranormal romance fiction, although that is frightening in and of itself.  One can only speculate what historical time period will next feature a zombie invasion.

My money’s on either the famous biography niche market (wanna know how Van Gogh really lost his ear?) or the writings of recently undead philosophers (“An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Zombies.”)

That particular cultural fascination notwithstanding, there are more books than can ever be read.  This used to bum me out, but then I walked down science fiction / fantasy aisle.

As I pondered such weighty titles as Shadow-Warrior, Tales of Shadowland, Rune of Shadows, Shadowfall, Knights of the Shadows, and Shadow Zombies, I realized that it is honestly okay not to be able to read every book.  Not every book deserves to be read.

This fact was swiftly driven home by every romance “novel” ever (“The King’s Courtesan’s Couch of Loveless Desire and Untimely Dementia of Sexual Inhibitions”) and every movie-to-book conversion that serves to disprove the rule about books being better than the movie.  Bad movies can only make worse books.

There are some legitimately (or, more recognizably, “legit-ly”) atrocious writings out there.  But it’s not just in books.  Allow me to express, in the words of our generation’s muses, how I feel:  Tonight’s gonna be a good night and I need somebody to love, someone born this way, that I can hit on (hard), cuz, I’m gonna run this town tonight.

We seem to think that writing a song means rhyming (as in, repeating) a word several times, just like writing a book means adding paranormal prefixes onto historical sentences and sentiments.

Many respond to this insane and inane proliferation of books and music by retreating, like a mole, underground.  If you can’t become an expert on everything, one might as well become an expert in something no one else even knows about. Nerds are to computers as geeks are to comics as hipsters are to music and books.

The smaller the cultural relevance, the greater its relative underground value.  What?  You’ve never heard of this band?  Good for me.

I cannot with good conscience, in light of this superabundance, recommend any action that looks like digging deeper into the dark underground of the little known.  Rather, I recommend a trial and tribunal.  Separate the classes of books according to their worth.

We should viciously and immediately create a literary meritocracy.  Soon, people will shamefully enter the “commoners” bookstores like they enter scummy bars and strip joints today – from the parking lot in the back.

Maybe that way I’ll have to listen to less Ke$ha and have to look at less zombie books when I enter my glorious literary paradise that is the “History of Washington State Bridges” and Stephen King bestsellers.

I’m Irrationally Irritated at publishing agencies the world over for printing such putrid filth and putting it on the bookshelves of our libraries and stores.  Why can’t they discover my blog, Xanga, Livejournal, MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter and offer me a book deal instead of all those crackpot (and often dead) authors?

It seems that we are able to make a decision at all because this choice in the realm of dental hygiene is incredibly trivial. It doesn’t actually matter in the grander scheme of things. But how do we go about choosing something that is overwhelming in terms of choice and actually significant in terms of importance?

More often than not, it seems we don’t. We try to ignore these difficult life questions until the decision is ultimately made for us, made hastily, or made idly – just like buying toothpaste.

We feel it here in college very directly and personally. We fear the power of our choice because it locks us into the commitment of following through. This isn’t just in a relational sense, but in every part of our life. It’s easier to be free from the cost, effort, and certainty of picking. If we never choose, we never deal with the possibility that we missed something more perfect or more appropriate.

In part, I think this explains the pervasive popularity of texting and Facebook. Not only are they more convenient, but they also involve less of a commitment in terms of energy, time, and effort. I can text five friends at once, but I have much more difficulty in calling one friend, let alone five. I can maintain the auspices of friendship with hundreds of people online, but it’s much harder to keep up with people in person.

These modern mechanisms make it more convenient, but they also take away part of the commitment. There is increased ease and decreased effort. “Friending” is more like buying toothpaste than keeping up a relationship.

But we ought never to allow the fear of commitment, as especially manifested by the paralysis of choice, debilitate us from acting.

I would rather be someone who took action and made a mistake than someone who sat comfortably without ever failing. It is tremulous to take up the attempt to choose, especially in terms of our life and career. But it is far better to have a fuller understanding of our self, our abilities and the world around us for having tried than having complacently never committed to anything.

How can we know that we have chosen correctly, in terms of our major, our career, our significant other, our pursuits and life in general? There will never be a proof that provides such perfect certainty.

But I can think of few things that are more saddening than the person, who being confronted with the incredible crossroads of life, chose to sit down and play with the rocks at the side of the road. Adventures lie in every direction, but the going must necessarily involve the commitment to make a choice and follow it.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.

My idealism says that what we do is important. My realism asks if what we are doing only carries the illusion of importance. Are many of the things we do simply what we believe should be done, with a kind of mechanical acceptance of their necessity?

We keep doing things with the hope that someday they will be meaningful and impacting to our lives, the lives of others and our school itself. Sometimes it seems we are running around, trying build up our resume and our own version of Willamette “street cred” by doing as many things as possible.

This tension is unresolved. There is meaning and significance here at college. I truly believe that. But I do not believe that we always correctly discern the meaningful from the meaningless. It is always worthwhile to ask, “what is the point?”

This tension manifested itself most strongly last Thursday when I attended the ASWU candidate forum convocation. Is ASWU important? My idealism wants to say yes, or maybe more accurately “Not now, but it could be.” There seem to be two basic types of candidates. Obviously there are distinct differences, but a general overview shows that an ASWU candidate is either A) an ASWU lifer or B) a Willamette populist.

The candidates who came from a background in ASWU, with a tacit acceptance of its significance, have plans. They have the experience and know the mechanisms that operate at the heart of the University. The other candidates have a different sort of base. Popular, well-known and personable, these candidates have support from the get go, even if they don’t have the particular understandings of office.

What is interesting is how many of these students and candidates did harp on one issue with ASWU in particular. It was phrased in different ways, but usually as an increased need for “transparency,” “communication” or “student involvement and representation.”

These proposed solutions, however, are working from the wrong direction. What ASWU is dealing with most fundamentally is an entrenched apathy from the student body. Can you simply increase communication or assert a need for student input in order to make student government meaningful?

The surest way to make students care about ASWU is to make ASWU relevant to students. As such, I am partial toward the experienced candidates that had actionable plans, not vague notions of increased interest and involvement.

But here again is the tension described earlier. In the next months, next four years or next phase of our life, how does this matter? We should be absolutely brutal in our evaluation of importance. This isn’t to say one should never participate in activities that aren’t as meaningful as others. Rather, we should have the clearest possible picture of our involvements, activities, and pursuits in order to best prioritize.

If nothing else, it is a mark of maturity to understand what is actually important in all of the actions and activities of our life. I hope we can learn that here at college. Until that time and in recognition of this tension, I’ll probably be voting for Tej.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.

Don’t know who won the Oscar last night?  Can’t remember who won an Oscar 23 years ago?  No matter, both facts and billions of others are indexed, categorized, and retrievable in moments.  If you need to find out where you are or where you are going, there is nothing simpler than pulling up a picture of the entire earth and zooming in to your present location.  Even our friendships and relationships meet in this virtual world.  They take on conventions and memes of their own that cross the line between online and offline interactions.

The Internet is becoming an extension of our selves.  As such, we should particularly consider the tendencies and habits that it creates in us.  Whether or not you believe in a coming “Singularity” where technological advancement is too rapid to have any sort of predictable outcome, there are certainly effects we ought to consider in the here and now.

For example, we are rewarded – in response to the incredible amounts of information constantly bombarding us – by not focusing.  To survive on the Internet is to rapidly switch mental gears, rather than sitting and focusing.  What can such developed distraction train us to do in the rest of life?

Being aware of who you are means being aware of what you do.  We should definitely consider what we are “inputting” into our selves.  It is also worth considering the social consequences of advancement and progress.  Just because something is new does not mean that it is necessarily positive.  Just because something is generally positive does not mean we should be aware of its potential downsides.

Take the car as an example.  It has given individuals the power and freedom of movement never before imagined in history.  It has connected our country.  But there are consequences and after-effects to consider.  Obviously, there is the question of pollution and other negative externalities, but there is also a social critique to be found in the “garage door opener” culture.

Neighbors that may have once been contributors to a vibrant community do not even know each other’s names today.  The car has tied the ends of the nation together, while simultaneously separating its constituent elements.

We can’t imagine going back to a time before the Internet.  Nor should we.  Rather, we should deeply and personally consider what it means to be here, today.  The consequences of our modern age may be at the limits of the thinkable in our lives, but it is absolutely worth considering just how we live can impact and influence our habits and even our deeper selves.  Ride the technological waves, but don’t forget to look around every once in a while.

Originally posted in the Willamette Collegian.

What I would do to maintain my motivation, as the countdown continued in the margins of my notes, is remember just how easy those minutes really were. People had held their breath for longer than ten minutes. People survived for days without water and weeks without food. People have lived in horrible conditions for month or even years. Surely I, in the here and now, could last for ten more minutes.

But, as I have considered these thoughts more fully, I realize just how different my countdown was from their acts of heroic survival. The knowledge of when a difficulty will end can give you the strength to finish it. It is the “long dark” that hardest to overcome. Adversity, when faced for an indefinite amount of time, doesn’t fit into our equations about accomplishment.

Rather than a calculation of ability minus difficulty, we are subtracting an uncertain quantity of struggle from our finite capability of strength. We can do almost anything, as long as we know for how long we have to do it.

This fact is part of why there is such fear about the unknown after college. College stretches us and in many ways we become much more aware of our strengths, weaknesses, capabilities and limitations. But when we survey the lifetime that begins most earnestly after our four years at this institution, the unknowns don’t factor into the equation that we’ve been practicing.

College is comfortable because it gives us an immediacy of purpose. Even if we don’t know what will come after college or next semester, we can easily and legitimately lose ourselves in the next class period, the next assignment or the next conversation. College’s classes, clubs and commitments all fit nicely into our plans and degree audits. It is something challenging, but ultimately quantifiable. 32 credits and you earn this-and-such degree.

Life outside of college is not broken into time blocks and credit requirements. What is required to achieve what we value is not so easily or conveniently understood. We cannot lose ourselves in an immediate purpose that was assigned to us. Instead we have to assign ourselves to our own meaningful tasks again and again for who knows how long.

Life is the long dark. Instead of the requirements, structure and order that we have grown in for our entire academic careers, we have a freeform and uncertain future. It is not easy. It is not quantifiable. It is not an equation where we know how strong we have to be for how long.

But this future is not purposeless. In this difficulty, mystery and challenge there is also such vivid potential. Living your life in light of such uncertainty is one of the hardest things you will ever do. But, sometimes the hardest things are also the most worthwhile.

Originally published in the Willamette Collegian.