Granted these questions may possess no answers. My inability to resolve them may be a perennial symptom of youth or maybe even the human condition and no reflection on the merits of my education. However, my refined ability to argue a thesis in five to seven pages, double-spaced, does me no good at all in even attempting to broach them. If anything my swollen rational capacities make it more difficult for me to find anything to believe in, any source of beautiful illogical inspiration.

My current discontent may be an entirely personal failing, and Governor Bush's call for moral education may have been merely a tactical ploy to court soccer moms. Yet I cannot help but regret that my path through the American educational system has armed me with so much cynicism and has not afforded more opportunity to contemplate what I truly want out of life.

Noah D. Oppenheim '00 is a social studies concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.