The article, “The Ideal English Major” by Mark Edmundson best describes what it is like to live in a literature and language focused mentality better than I ever could.  I live in that state of wonder and hunger, and the more one accrues knowledge, the stronger the lust for even more.  I am such a glutton for experiences whether they are mine or not.  When I pick up a new story, I like do so with the intention of living a different life, just as Edmundson describes.  It is both a blessing and a curse to have such emotional freedom, to allow myself to feel what characters are feeling in hopes to add to my mental library and to have the personal pride in the knowledge I have acquired.  Such yearning bleeds into the things I give value to: philosophy, religion, art, and adventure.  I want to know all about the world, but I also wish I am never filled, never satisfied.

“There’s always another perspective to add.”

Challenge breeds growth, and growth breeds strong character and higher level thinking. Edmundson explains that English majors are people that are open-minded.  Not necessarily easily swayed, no, he makes that distinction very clear.  An English major is open to changing his or her mind, but not without first being educated on the matter and not without being given time to think long and hard on it.  Though he defines English majors as people with a “love for language, hunger for life, openness and a quest for truth”, I believe such brilliant characteristics should be attributed to only English majors.  The attributes he lists are simply a part of what it means to be human.  This is the question my honors cohort has been picking apart and diving into this semester, and all of us love it.  Odd enough, there are very few English majors in that class.  In fact, the majority of the honors students are going into engineering or a science.  But in the way that we lust for answers and challenge what we think to be true, in the way that we hunger to use our knowledge to gain better understanding of our faith and our Creator, in the way that we come together and bond over this shared need to know more and see from all perspectives, we are as human as we can be.  And I love it.  Where I am right now, bombarded by new experiences and challenges, I am alive.