Lee Blessing ’71

It all depends on when we meet. Am I back at college, or is the person I was at Reed knocking uncertainly on my door in the present moment, as though searching for some ever-elusive father figure? If he’s here, does that mean he gets to skip three-plus decades of struggle, strife and ATM fees?

What if we meet in the middle? 1990 say, when I’m half-formed in my career (and in my personal life). Will I be as excited as he? Will I be willing to tell him that while the successes in front of him may be more deeply satisfying, the failures will be all the more difficult to endure?

Will I confide that as bad as the world has gotten since graduation, it will definitely grow worse—that nearly every negative trend will continue, unstoppably, to deny him larger and larger portions of the world he hoped he’d someday see?

Will he have only to look at me to know? Perhaps my expression will tell him: “The rich continue unchecked. Genocide is back in style. In the near future dozens of nations may possess nuclear weapons.”

Will I need to go on? Must I point out that, in public debate anyway, concepts like truth have been redefined out of existence? Will he intuit that as we degrade the planet with accelerating fervency, we populate it even faster—as though we can’t wait to say, “See children, this catastrophe was made specially for you?”

Perhaps I’ll avoid it all—guide him instead to the closest bar and talk professional sports. But since that too would be a conversation about crime, drug-use and the excesses of the free market, I may skip it.

What would be safe? Bromides are always welcome: “The world is not for the faint-hearted.” No it’s not, and he knows it; he just hasn’t felt it yet. In what amounts to a second chance at life, all I want is that it might go smoother for him (and for all of us), with less harm, less pain. But that would not be realistic.

“All your life you will rub your heart against the world’s disappointment, for which you must be grateful.” That’s more like it, I suppose. Oh, and yes—“You’ll feel joy anyway—which no one can explain.”