On Being a Torrey Nerd

I went to a lecture tonight about possibly working with Wheatstone in the future. Because it is run by Torrey people, it is just as nerdy as Torrey, and I love it.

The speaker outlined the two dominant Torrey alumni dream lives. I found this hilarious because I want both of those things, too.

Option #1: Live in a little cottage in the mountains with your family where you have children and raise them to love God and books while you read poetry, love art, write books, discuss everything and tend to your garden or apple orchard.

Option #2: The life outlined in Dr. Reynold's Torrientation speech, where you spend four intense years learning about great books, God, goodness, truth, beauty, and Plato, then go out and change the world because the fate of Western civilization lies on our shoulders.

Needless to say, this is hard to reconcile because I desperately want to do both. But I think it can be done some way. (And the speaker gave us ideas, and didn't just let us ponder it for two hours like a Torrey tutor would.) And I want to do it. I want to live a virtuous life, engage the culture in the intellectual life it is missing, mentor teenagers, write blog posts, live in the mountains with goats and chickens, and rock the world.

I love being a Torrey nerd. I love the people I get to be nerdy with, I love the tutors and mentors, I love the challenge, the books, the thoughts, community, the jokes, the world-changing attitude, the encouragement to live for God and be the best you can be. I want to bring this to more people. I want high school students to see the adventure in learning and learn not for the sake of the grade, but for the sake of the betterment of their souls. I want to show teenagers that thinking is awesome and wonderful and much more satisfying than television. I want to teach world-changers in the same way that I am being taught to change the world.

And now to get into the practical application of all this: reading Augustine and figuring out a thesis for my paper.

(I apologize to all the non-Torrey people out there who have no idea what I am talking about.)