Closing Argument

This email, titled “Parting Thoughts,” is the last of many that I sent to the Chicago Debate Society this year.

Dear Debesties,

As of last weekend, I’m technically retired, but you’ve received enough emails from me this year that I figure one more can’t hurt.

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to offer some unsolicited advice on making meaning in college and seeking the Good Life. While these ideas are unoriginal, they’ve helped me orient myself over the last four years. I hope they can be of use to you as well.

1. Explore, then exploit.

You spawn in a new world in Minecraft with a pickaxe in hand. How should you go about gathering ore? One approach—exploring—is to survey multiple biomes and dig many shallow holes to find ore deposits. Another tactic—exploiting—is to mine straight down from your spawn point. Your best bet is somewhere in the middle: explore first until you find diamond ore, and then exploit that deposit.

Just as you are unsure about where the diamonds are located in Minecraft, you are also uncertain about where value lies for you in the real world. But I would wager that too many of you are mining straight down without pausing to ask whether you’re digging in the right place. So I encourage you to explore more! Put yourself in biomes where you’ve never been. And if you don’t find any ore, cut your losses early and move on. I’ll share three examples of this idea in practice.

• I’d never tried theater before UChicago, but I acted in Theater24, a festival where students write and stage short plays in 24 hours. In my show, I played a lesbian Hillary Clinton in a Russian spy caper. Ultimately, I didn’t like it enough to commit to a full production, but it was a nice Costco free sample of theater on campus.
• I climbed most of the climbable trees on campus in my first two years. Now, I know which trees are best, and I only climb those trees.
• There is such a thing as a free lunch if you browse events.uchicago.edu for talks to attend. You might find surprisingly interesting events from outside your field. There’s also no shame in attending a talk, realizing it sucks, and walking out early while taking food to go. No diamonds? Next biome.

2. Be agentic.

Timothée Chalamet gave a refreshing speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards this year. Here’s an excerpt:

“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is this was five and a half years of my life… The truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.”

In some circles on campus, it’s fashionable to self-denigrate, to wear a mask of modesty. You’ll compete to see who got the lower test grade, bemoan how stupid you are, and squash your lofty desires because voicing them would be cringe.

This behavior is a mistake. Arrogance is not a virtue, sure, but self-belief and ambition are. So put yourself in the driver’s seat. Your life is not a deterministic game. It can get much better or much worse depending on your actions. Start a club, or a blog, or a startup. Learn a new skill. Apply for the job, even if you don’t think you’ll get it. You don’t have to walk alone: part of being agentic is communicating your goals honestly to others and mustering the courage to ask them for help. Go to office hours, cold email cool people on the internet, or ask the stranger next to you in class to be your pset partner.

And yes, you are responsible for your failures, too. When you lose a debate round, it can be tempting to say “I didn’t want to win that bad anyway” or to write the result off as a judge screw. Don’t do that. Sit with your anger and frustration for a bit, and then reflect honestly on what went wrong.

A caveat: “be agentic” does not equal LinkedIn-maxxing and grinding for investment banking interviews because that’s what everybody around you is doing. The point of agency is to define and pursue your own goals (which may or may not include investment banking) rather than following the crowd.

3. Play on hard mode.

A common refrain in weightlifting is to “train to failure.” In other words, do an exercise until you physically can’t complete another repetition. This tactic is useful beyond lifting. The best way to improve at any skill is repeated and high intensity practice. And the most important muscle in your body is the muscle of doing hard things.

Train that muscle! When you commit to something, follow through. If you’re an econ major, take the honors 200s, or at least give them a try before dropping. Read your own cases in debate rounds. Use LLMs when your goal is to complete a task (e.g. writing a cover letter), but not when the point of a task is for you to learn something (e.g. your homework).

Another caveat: “play on hard mode” does not mean working until you burn out. Weightlifters spend plenty of time on recovery and are not in the gym 24/7. But while you’re in the “gym,” you should focus and try your hardest.

4. Preferences are adaptive.

A fox reaches for grapes, and finding herself unable to reach them, declares the grapes are probably sour. A cheetah caged in a zoo forgets the joy of sprinting on the savannah. Before the 1900s, women rarely expressed the desire to go to college. Now, women outnumber men at undergraduate institutions.

My point here is that preferences are adaptive: the things we value are shaped by our environments and the people we spend time with. Thus, you should be intentional about who those people are. You are a chameleon; consider whether you like the color of your branch before settling down. And if you do end up with people whose preferences you disagree with, be careful not to let your true colors slip away.

For example, the people in my study abroad cohort were universally awesome. I imagine that’s because Oaxaca, the second-poorest state in Mexico, attracts people who are genuinely interested in learning about Mexican history and culture. That genuine interest rubbed off on me and deepened my own curiosity in the subject. In contrast, I think studying in Europe, where a fair share of people are there for clubbing, could lead to damaging value drift.

5. All that you are is the things that you do.

I’ve been vegetarian since October. For a while before that, I was a guilty omnivore. I ate meat, yes, but at least I had the decency to feel bad about it. That had to count for something, right?

Nah. There’s a scene from Bojack Horseman that I like:

DIANE: Do you remember the last time I saw you, and you asked me if I thought you were a good person, deep down?

BOJACK (sarcastically): Do I remember that? Yeah, vaguely.

DIANE: You really caught me off guard. I- I didn’t know what to say.

BOJACK: Well, do you? Think I’m a good person. Deep down.

DIANE: That’s the thing. I don’t think I believe in deep down. I kind of think all that you are is just the things that you do.

BOJACK: Well that’s depressing.

Here’s another way of expressing the same idea. In actor debates, we don’t have epistemic access to what an actor truly believes; their thoughts are a black box. The best we can do is infer the actor’s morals through revealed preferences. Suppose somebody wrote a case where you were the actor. What preferences would you reveal?

In life, we are defined not merely by our intentions, but also by the impacts of our actions. If you hold values that are dear to you, then live a life that is consistent with them.

With that, I’ll step down from my soapbox. Thank you, and take care.