Ella Kitchens, Editor-in-Chief

The iceberg is silent in the jet black water. There is nothing holding it down, nothing keeping it from floating far away. There’s nothing stopping it from melting, destroying every semblance of what it is and what it could be.

A lot of people at Denison, and in college in general, initially reminded me of an iceberg. While people had things that they cared about and were passionate about, a lot of them didn’t seem to have something mooring them down. Many people seemed to be drifting through life, unsure of what they actually believed and what they wanted out of all this.

On the other hand, I wanted to be a rock. People who reminded me of rocks had straightforward and clearcut paths. They had a strong moral code. They had people they cared about, who they were strong for, and they didn’t just drift from one person to another. People who reminded me of rocks had something that made them tick. They have something that makes them go, whether it’s what they do or who they love or who they are. I tried to find that in religion, in relationships, and then in a career. All I knew was I didn’t want to be an iceberg. The problem was what to tie myself to.

I took a career seminar class last semester, and I told my professor I didn’t know what to do. I wanted so badly to be one of those people who knew exactly what they wanted. Someone who knew since they were 5 years old that they’d be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a pilot. I didn’t want this uncertainty. I didn’t want to melt. I asked my professor how I could find the job that I could make into my purpose.

But my professor told me that uncertainty was the best place to be because it meant flexibility. You have more options, not just a narrow path you have to follow. If something goes wrong in your life, you can more easily change course and start with something new instead of incessantly following the same dream.

But those who live for something are often the ones who have much more meaning in their lives. For example, a student wants to go to medical school more than anything else. That student works long nights and early mornings until they get what they want. People start knowing them as “the pre-med,” they start seeing themselves as that, it becomes their identity and it keeps them steady when nothing else does.

In the movie “Marty Supreme,” the main character has one goal in mind: to be the best ping pong player in the world. He cared about that more than anything: more than his pregnant girlfriend, more than his safety or self respect.

“I have a purpose. You don’t,” he said to his girlfriend. “If you think that’s some kind of blessing, it’s not. It puts me at a huge life disadvantage. It means I have an obligation to see a very specific thing through. And with obligation comes sacrifice.”

A rock is tied to something so deeply that they have to accept the fundamental flaws of the ideas, the career or the people that they are attached to. And they have to go without things that might benefit their life, people who they might meet and ideas that could change their perspective. The pre-med student has to sacrifice nights out with friends and the art course that doesn’t quite fit with the med school requirements. The devoutly religious person has to sacrifice worldly pleasures that could bring them closer to others and keep them from feeling isolated. The person tied to their dream job has to move to a new city away from their family.

So is it better to be a rock or an iceberg? Is it better to float through the water seeing everything from afar, gathering new experiences just to let them go, unmoored in the great flat expanse? Or is it better to be tied so deeply to something that even the largest waves can’t make you move? I wonder if it depends on what you’re tied to. Maybe if you’re attached to the right thing, the rock mentality will be worth it. But do you need to drift in order to find that right thing in the first place?

Maybe there’s a way to switch between the two, to be the iceberg sometimes and the rock at other times. Maybe there’s a middle ground that’s neither. Maybe there are a million other things we can be. Or maybe we’re all part ice and part stone, both floating and sinking, just keeping our heads above the waves and trying to enjoy the water.

Ella Kitchens ‘28 is a journalism and global health major from Lexington, Kentucky.