The Shape of a Life
The argument
No one lives a life alone, so the shape of a life belongs to other people too. Reading Augustine alongside Proust, Homer, and David Foster Wallace, the address presents a life story as a palimpsest written with and through other lives. Augustine takes that interwoven shape as evidence of God, since the pattern exceeds any one person and shows a larger order. Proust's apparently wasted time becomes meaningful afterward, and Homer's wheel of fortune makes rise and fall a common human condition. The address answers Wallace's "This Is Water" by moving from the problem of noticing a world to the recognition that the world and its patterns have already formed us, and that we help form them for others. At Kenyon, students inherit patterns and traditions, change the community by being part of it, and carry a changed shape of life into new communities.
Publication details
- Author
- Katherine Elkins
- Publication
- Baccalaureate address, Kenyon College, December 20, 2024.
The Shape of a Life on ResearchGate →
Key concepts
Augustine; Proust; David Foster Wallace; This Is Water; narrative; life story; palimpsest; providence; God; fortune; shared structure of life; community; Kenyon College.
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Philosophy, Literature, and Information →
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