start browsing Netflix looking for something to watch you scroll through

different titles you even read a few reviews but you just can't commit to

watching any given movie suddenly it's been 30 minutes and you're still stuck

in infinite browsing mode so you just give up you're too tired to watch

anything now so you cut your losses and fall asleep I've come to believe that

this is the defining characteristic of our generation let's call it keeping our

options open there's this philosopher Zygmunt Bauman he calls it liquid

modernity we never want to commit to any one identity or place or community so we

remain like liquid in a state that can adapt to fit any future shape liquid

modernity is infinite browsing mode but for everything in our lives I've been

thinking about this recently because leaving home and coming here is a lot

like entering a long hallway you walk out of the room in which you grew up and

into this place with thousands of different doors to infinitely browse and

throughout my time here I've I've seen all the good that can come from having

so many new options I've seen the joy a person feels when they find a room more

fitting for their authentic self I've seen big decisions become less painful

because you can always quit you can always move you can always break up in

the hallway will always be there and mostly I've seen all the fun folks have

had experiencing more novelty than any generation in history ever experienced

but as I've grown older here I've also started seeing the downsides of having

so many open doors nobody wants to be stuck behind a locked door but nobody

wants to live in a hallway either it's great to have

options when you lose interest in something but I've learned here that the

more times I do this the less satisfied I am with any given option and lately

the experiences I crave are less the rushes of novelty and more those perfect

Tuesday nights when you eat dinner with the friends who you have known for a

long time who you've made a commitment to and who won't quit you because they

found someone better I've discovered in my time here that the people who inspire

me the most are those who have left the hallway shut the door behind them and

settled in I think of Fred Rogers recording episode 895 of Mister Rogers

neighborhood because he was committed to advancing a humane model of moral

education I think of Dorothy Day sitting with the same outcast folks night after

night after night because it was important that someone is committed to

them I think of Martin Luther King but not just the Martin Luther King who

confronted the fire hoses in 1963 but the Martin Luther King who hosted his

thousandth tedious planning meeting in 1967 when Hollywood tells tales of

courage they usually take the form of slaying the dragon it's all about the

big brave moments but I've been learning from these heroes that the most menacing

dragons that stand in the way of reforming the system or repairing the

breach or the everyday boredom and distraction and uncertainty that can

erode our ability to commit to anything for the long haul it's why I love that

the word dedicate has two meanings first it means to make something holy second

it means to stick at something for a long time I don't think this is a

coincidence we do something holy when we choose to commit

to something and in the most dedicated people I have met I have witnessed how

that pursuit of holiness comes with a side effect of immense joy we may have

come here to help keep our options open but I leave believing that the most

radical act we can take is to make a commitment to a particular thing to a

place to a profession to a cause to a community to a person to show our love

for something by working at it for a long time and to close doors and forgo

options for its sake we often assume that some acute and looming threat be it

a foreign invader or a domestic demagogue will be our downfall but if we

were to end that end is just as likely to come from something far less dramatic

our failure to sustain the work it is not only the bomb or the bully that

should keep us up at night it is also the garden untilled and the newcomer

unwelcomed the neighbor unhoused and the prisoner unheard the voice of the public

unheeded and the long simmering calamity unhaulted and the dream of equal justice

unrealized

but we need not be afraid for we have in our possession

the antidote to our dread our time free to be dedicated to the slow but

necessary work of turning visions into projects values into practices and

strangers into neighbors that is why in this age of liquid modernity we should

rebel and join up with a counterculture of commitment consisting of solid people

that is why in this age of infinite browsing mode we should pick a damn

movie and see it all the way through

before we fall asleep let's get to work