COLUMN: From dreams to reality

From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '98 From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Fien Print," Fall '98Last Saturday I realized that I will never play left field for the Boston Red Sox. And it wasn't because Troy O'Leary is already out there fielding my position. It wasn't just that I haven't played baseball in a decade. Or that my mobility limits me to first base even in softball. We are a university of overachievers, a university of prodigies. Most of us remember the glow of being the first in our class to read, or soccer captain as a sophomore, or newspaper editor as a freshman. All along, we were told that we could be president, or that we could play in the NFL, or we would be hand-selected by Maurice Starr to be a member of the newest five-guy teenie-bopper boy band. In elementary school, or even in high school, we were so far away from the ceiling that we never imagined limits existed. Now, though, when I look out, for the first time I see a divider, a threshold. Part of the ceiling comes from being a senior. With a dozen letters a day from Career Services chief Peggy Curchack and endless phone queries from friends and relatives, those of us in our final undergraduate year are painfully aware of the jobs and futures that are being offered, and we are even more poignantly aware of what hasn't been offered. Major League Baseball scouts just aren't flocking to The Daily Pennsylvanian to recruit columnists. Go figure. Hollywood agents aren't lurking in Bennett Hall waiting to offer you a sitcom based on a witty retort in poetry class. Chrysler isn't holding a raffle to make you their youngest CEO. The things that we listed as our "Future Goals" in senior yearbooks -- things like "supreme ruler of the world" or "Brad Pitt's butt double" -- just aren't out there. As if being a senior wasn't enough, all of us have to deal with the rush of amigos celebrating 21st birthdays. The binge drinking orgies signal more than just a technical legality. They signal the last true age milestone that any of us will encounter for a long time. First we got our driver's licenses and then the right to vote. But after discovering that being carded isn't as cool as we'd hoped, what is there to dream of? While I eagerly await the opportunity to run for president on my 35th birthday, that may not be enough. Years of drinking underage or illicitly backing the family car into the lot helped to temper our dreams, keeping them attainable with only the simple passing of time. But now that "21" has happened, and everything is legal, where is there to go? That first legit pint may taste like beer, but to me it tasted like fear. Mathematically there wasn't much chance that we were all going to become star athletes, musicians or billionaires. There's only one Bill Gates. Only five active positions in the Backstreet Boys (being in 'N Sync doesn't count). And even with platoons, the Red Sox haven't had more than five left fielders in my lifetime. The fact that I am never going to win an Oscar as a preteen (Tatum O'Neal and Anna Paquin beat me to it) or play baseball before I need to shave (Joe Nuxhall's record is safe with me) or call a press conference to announce that I'm leaving school to enter the NBA draft (well, I could, but nobody would care) only ends one part of my future planning. We've all had to temper our dreams. People who came into college convinced that they would complete their first novel by their 20th birthdays are buried in LSAT books, less than two chapters into their own tomes. The idealism has shifted course and now everybody insists that they want to go to law school -- but that they'll only work for Greenpeace, or the ACLU, or as public defenders. Here's hoping that you all stay on that course. Even if you end up graduating and making six figures in New York, it's the evolution of our dreams that keeps us going. It's scary to think anything else. I don't have a clue of what my next step is after I flee these climes, but I assume that I need to keep moving forward. The idealism that let us believe we would walk on Mars still exists, but we manifest it in an understanding of our realistic future positions. Nurses see how they can heal, nurture and research. Education majors remember the way that the best of their teachers shaped their lives and they hope they can do the same. English majors dream of writing poetry that the enlightened two or three may actually truly understand. And Wharton students look forward to how much money they can make. Realism abounds. And serendipity always remains, too. My father, for example, dreams of playing his violin in every cathedral in England, even though he hasn't played the violin since he was a youngster. It may never happen, but you can dream of such things without putting your whole future on the line. On the other hand, if you want to keep aiming for the stars, don't let me stop you. Mary Baker Eddy was 87 when she founded the Christian Science Monitor. Martha Graham was still preparing her dance troupe when she was 95. And at the age of 99, Kin Narita and Gin Kanie had a hit single in Japan. It's good to have dreams.