To the student lost or lonely, I say hang in there. Be patient and be calm. Uni is a strange place: people everywhere, most of them your age, yet you can struggle to make friends, form alliances or connect on any lasting level with the thousands of people swirling about you.
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
I think of that saying, life is elsewhere. That’s how it felt to me, when I was an under-graduate: that everyone knew something or someone that I was yet to find; that everyone was busier than me, more certain and more social; less anxious, more at ease.
I found that difficult and occasionally embarrassing. I was the earnest one at the party: the one forever waiting for life to reveal its meaning; for contradictions to die; for my inner chaos to quell.
But that rarely happened. So on I went, as best I could.
Not that my time was wasted; I learned things for myself. You, perhaps, could do the same.
Find an author you like, and then find the books that influenced him or her. Read them, too.
Go to a gallery. Any gallery. Of all the paintings on the wall, which speak most directly to your deepest sense of self? Ask, if it’s possible, to meet the artist. Which artists influenced him or her? Find those works, too.
If you hear a busker whose music moves you, talk to the busker. What music influenced him or her? Buy those albums. And buy the busker a beer. What do you have to lose?
That’s how you get your education: bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, day-by-day.
Years after leaving university, any memories of feeling lost or lonely no longer provoke in me the heat they once did.
These days, I am grateful that I had that time to live beneath the radar, free from too many obligations, threading together some sort of identity in this poor and magical, curious world.
I reckon one day you might feel the same. Meanwhile, be trusting and go well.
First published in Platform magazine, Victoria University, November 2008
Image: Wandering; Paul Bateman, 1991
