What Does a Grad Student Do?

In an earlier post, “Pole Vaulting Over College Into Graduate School,” I identified my occupation as “graduate student,” a kind of non-working black sheep in both my own and my wife’s family. Of our four parents, only my mother had a high school diploma. Where my wife and I grew up, to be an adult and responsible meant to work, to earn money, and to pay your own way. Our families never really understood what I was doing while studying for a doctorate, which meant not working, not earning money.
For my family and its small town setting, my situation begged the question: “If a grad student doesn’t have a job and make money, what does that person do? This post is a brief response to that query.

A grad student in the humanities is curious, asks questions, explores possibilities, analyzes different approaches, and tries to reach reasonable interpretations. Such a person reflects on the human condition, looking for facts and insights to help us understand how we can better live our lives.

You might say I was a grad student in the making from an early age, curious, bookish, always asking questions, on the serious side. Living at Grandma’s house during World War II, I attended her Baptist church, and for the first time found a framework of notions where everything fit together, in a Heaven or Hell dichotomy. The earlier post, “Choose How You Want to Go to Hell” describes how college classes turned me away from commitment to narrow faith, and steered me toward a broader pursuit of truth.

I became fascinated with American Indian life and the ideal of harmony of people with each other, and human harmony with the natural world. One major question that puzzled me was how to comprehend the incredible variety of religious traditions, each with its own view of life and spiritual fulfillment. Trying to solve this mystery is what led me to the University of Chicago.

The challenge to decipher the riddle of the religious heritage of humanity added up to an insurmountable task, almost like attempting to lift the world. Nevertheless, I was convinced that this great institution of higher learning would help me in the quest. A major resource for this undertaking was the library. The University of Chicago’s Swift Hall housed not only offices and classrooms, but the major holdings on religion. I asked to be assigned a carrel, a small desk in the library stack, and enjoyed the atmosphere of learning while reading there.

A favorite pastime was browsing the books on the shelves, selecting an interesting one and seeing what it had to offer. I was like a gold miner, looking for nuggets of wisdom in my pursuit of clues to understand the amazing diversity of religious traditions.

One day, walking past the stacks to my carrel, I noticed an unusual title, A Buddhist Bible, authored by Dwight Goddard. Immediately I considered the title to be a contradiction in terms. I knew that “bible” is sometimes used to mean an authoritative reference, as in “the fisherman’s bible.” But how could the term “bible” be linked to Buddhism? Goddard used his poetic license to label his collection of Buddhist writings as a bible.

Goddard is credited with being one of the first westerners to put together a sourcebook of Buddhist writings for the general public. Starting out as a missionary in China, Goddard’s quest to convert the Chinese backfired as he became interested in, and then captivated by, Buddhism and Taoism. He saw in the teachings of these two traditions a corrective to “materialism and selfish aggrandizement.” The preface to the book announces that “The theme of this Buddhist Bible is designed to show the unreality of all conceptions of a personal ego.” He looked beyond personal selfishness to a higher level of inner peace and social goodwill.

Goddard was no pie in the sky dreamer; he used his engineering degree to produce machines and accumulate a fortune. His personal career was unsettled as he tried to forge a kind of hybrid Christian-Buddhist message. He lost his first wife shortly after their wedding, experienced two failed marriages, and suffered a nervous breakdown. Life is not always easy for those who tackle difficult questions about the meaning of existence.

At the end of his career he spent his time in meditation in his Vermont house near a forest.

In the late 1950s, when I picked up his (self-published) took, I did not know about his influence on American literature. He was the inspiration for many of the Beats, especially Jack Kerouac, who wrote a number of books, including On the Road and Dharma Bums. Goddard helped many writers and poets look inward and find greater peace. Through his own writing, and his influence on a generation of artists, Goddard made a mark on American culture.

In a previous post I mentioned the plaque commemorating the world’s first chain reaction at Stagg Field, which my wife and I read, and then passed every day without acknowledging it.

Similarly, my grad school curiosity led me to look through Goddard’s book, which formed a major event in American literature; but afterward I passed that book on the way to my carrel without glancing at it. This is part of the life of grad students and what they do, picking up nuggets here and there, then looking for other bits and pieces of wisdom.

I write about Goddard because he and his book represent an example of what grad students do. They examine the writings of others to see what they teach us about life. A nugget or golden insight I “mined” from Goddard’s life and publications is that every individual’s life forms a journey, one we know not where it will end. Goddard did not provide me with the solution to the diversity of religious traditions, but he offered me a clue: pay attention to the journey a religion—or a religious person— maps out.
My own explorations, both academically and geographically, have encouraged me to create a drama of spiritual odyssey in fiction.

I invite you to await publication of my unpublished novel, tentatively titled Hiram Upright and the Good Time Feelin’. A Spiritual Journey from Hot Salvation to Cool Enlightenment . . . and Beyond. This story takes a country bumpkin from Illinois and Fundamentalist faith across Route 66 to California, struggling to avoid self-destruction and seeking peace through meditation. Accompanying Hiram Upright on his spiritual journey may enhance your own life’s trip.

My point in this post is not just to persuade you to read my novel, but to share some of my own experiences. I think that each one of us is a kind of grad student, picking up hints and clues to help us on our individual journey through life.