Whatever Happened to Rigor?

The beauty of a rigorous life

When I was a child, I was enthralled by the Harry Potter books. I read them over and over again, year after year, and knew them by heart. Although I loved Hermione, I did not relate to her in many ways (although her bushy hair, buck teeth, and struggles to make friends all readily related with my adolescent insecurities). I buried myself in books because I enjoyed them, never because I needed to get every point on a test correct or needed to know everything about everyone. It was never about grades, just enjoyment.

When I was sixteen and got the chance to travel to England for a month, it is no surprise then that I sought out King’s Cross Station and got my picture taken at Platform 9 3/4. What was a surprise was that it was not this that stood out to me, but rather the daily life of a professor in Cambridge. I fell in love with spending my days walking to pick up the groceries, visiting a Monet in the museum, and reading on the hill. I learned to cook exquisite meals and retire to the study to discuss literature, theology, and philosophy late at night over an espresso. At the market in the square I watched students wander to and from classes, some in Shakespearean costumes, others in suits. I listened to the King’s College Choir sing Vespers, and for the first time in my life, I saw the beauty of the intellectual world and the privilege it is to partake in it.

I came home that summer and went off to college, and didn’t want to be worthy of it. Each class that I sat through, I expected to encounter such high standards for my work and conduct that I could never hope to meet. Instead, I wrote papers that received consistently high marks, I kept up with my class readings, participated confidently in class discussions, and was. . . disappointed.

I wanted my whole worldview to be shaken, just as it had been by my month in England. I wanted to struggle not only to keep up with the assignments I was given, but also to wrestle internally with the content. While I learned to analyze literature, debate philosophy, and translate texts, I could not shake the conviction that my professors were not hard enough on me. As I reached my senior year, I became so desperate for a challenge that I registered for 27.5 academic credits in one semester (a feat that administration chalked up to computer error, rather than human stubbornness). Despite this workload, it was my best semester: I participated in two plays, had hours of choir rehearsal daily, and more papers to write than anyone else at school. But still, my grades came back and I was not satisfied.

One week, in which I wrote a 12 page paper on Marxism in 30 minutes at 3am (which not only did not follow but vehemently denied the assignment’s entire premise), I met up with one of the English professors for coffee. I told her about my paper, and that its response had been high praise. “I’ve rarely received such a well-thought argument , and had it so well written as well” — how could I expect to grow as a writer and thinker if my late night ramblings were accepted with such undeserved praise? She heard me, and from that moment until I graduated, she and her husband graded me without restraint. I suddenly received Cs on papers and tests. They demanded my participation in classroom debates without reserve. Their willingness to force me out of my comfort zone made me fall even more in love with those classes and books.

Since graduating, I have sought out that unrestrained pursuit of knowledge everywhere I can find it, and it has made me realize that our modern mindset has lost all concept of rigor. Rigor (“the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate”) is at the heart of true learning. It is what sets apart the great writers, philosophers, scientists, and artists throughout history. You need only look at the personal schedules of successful writers to see the rigorous standard they hold themselves to, or read a biography of Van Gogh or Michelangelo to see the extreme lengths to which they went to pursue their crafts.

Retrospectively, I have been rigorous about most things in life. I have been thorough in my personal reading and writing. I have been exhaustive in my pursuit of friendships. I have been relentless in pursuing accuracy when it comes to details, formats, and even baking. I’ve learned that many people do not perceive me as scholarly. I loved my friends. I loved the opportunities I had to sing in choir, to act, to travel. But I loved learning more. My senior thesis is, to this day, one of the things I am most proud of, and also the the thing to which most people attribute little significance. To many, a paper and a presentation are a headache to move past, but to me, they were the greatest opportunity I had to push myself to the boundaries: to be extremely thorough, exhaustive, and accurate about a topic I cared passionately about.

This is the trait I most hope to instill in my children: a love for rigorous pursuits. Whether they be plumbers or politicians or professors, I hope that they spend their whole lives being extremely thorough, exhaustive, and accurate in all manners of their lives. I spent an afternoon with a friend recently as she worked on her own senior project, and we talked about how rare it is to find someone who pursues their interests with passion and rigor. We promote education and careers as means to an end; sometimes, we even promote marriage and parenthood as such. But none of these things are singular: they are all ongoing opportunities for rigor. We ought to approach our education with rigor, learning as much as we can throughout our life. Our careers would benefit from all the effort and passion we place in them. And do our marriages and children not deserve to be treated with rigorous care and passion? We should not define ourselves by our vocations, because we do not achieve our life’s meaning from our vocations. Rather, our vocations give us outlets through which to live a life of meaning.

I can hope that the resurgence of classical education in America means that virtue will be reintroduced into our daily thoughts. I can hope that with the pursuit of a virtuous life, rigor will be reborn. I can hope, but I can also be extremely thorough, exhaustive, and accurate in my determination to raise passionate children. I can be rigorous in my attempts to serve my children, both as a mother and a teacher. Rather than attempting to predict what vocations they might be called to, I can simply raise them to be capable of passionate pursuits so that, when those vocations arise, they are well-armed to meet them. What a blessing that is.