Today I visited Waterford. If you're anything like me, the word that your mind says--intentionally or unintentionally--after "Waterford" is "crystal." It's not like my family had gobs of Waterford Crystal around the house growing up, but I guess that their branding is very good. Plus I have no other association with Waterford. (Tomorrow I'm visiting Wexford. You can guess which word my mind shouts after that.)
Because I can't think "Waterford" without also thinking "crystal", I decided to feed the brain monster by visiting the factory. Allow me to narrate the timeframe in the production of a beautiful piece of crystal.
An undifferentiated ingot of lead-infused silicon dioxide is affixed to the end of a metal straw and placed in a furnace above 1500 oC. It dreams of its infinite possibilities while the mother furnace sings "que sera, sera" to it.
The glass emerges from the oven above its glass transition temperature as a malleable, molten blob. It really could become any piece of crystal: vase, candy dish, Christmas ornament, BCS Bowl Championship trophy, etc. The glassblower spins and inflates the material, and this adolescent crystal starts down a path that will in part determine its final form.
The glassblower places the soft--but quickly cooling and hardening--orb into a mould, thereby finalizing its shape and function. The punch bowl may sulk, thinking "oh, I'll never be a goblet. Poor me," and though the bowl would function just fine as is, it doesn't know that it still has several stages of development left.
The punch bowl is transferred to the hands of the glass cutter, who carefully and deftly carves patterns into the crystal, enhancing it. After a lengthy process, it emerges as a work of art.
For the last little while, I've been working through the realization that I assume many people in their late-20s/early-30s go through: that by choosing a path, one is indirectly denied passage on other paths. This is something that is completely new to young adults, because up until that point, they've been told that "the possibilities are endless" and "the world's your oyster."
Of course, I realize that not everyone has enjoyed the same range of opportunities that I have had, and I am grateful for my many options. As one of my engineering professors said, my classmates and I "won the cosmic lottery." It's unfair.
From K-12, a child's future is relatively malleable, with the world ahead of her. Then in college and postgrad school, her path starts to take shape and harden. Yes, she could technically go back to undergrad and start again (not over, but again), but more than likely her panic is not due to being faced with a career that she dislikes, but realizing that she can no longer pursue mastery in things that she might have liked. And I agree that life can be enjoyable when multi-faceted, but it's logistically impossible to be a concert pianist and a field biologist and a gourmet chef and a star architect. That's a terrifying thing to come to terms with.
It reminds me of an allegory written by Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. [...] I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
I can take two lessons from the punch bowl:
1) At this point in my life, I have just been formed by the glassblower. I am a functioning adult (when did that happen?), and though it's easier for me to think about how I can't become a vase or crystal bell or butter dish, I should instead consider the exciting future stages of my development. I've lived longer than I ever have before, but not as long as I will have!
2) Although I could go on about my life as a plain bowl, I must be proactive if I am going to take advantage of my opportunities to be the best danged glittering, carved, and frosted punch bowl I can be.
Because I can't think "Waterford" without also thinking "crystal", I decided to feed the brain monster by visiting the factory. Allow me to narrate the timeframe in the production of a beautiful piece of crystal.
An undifferentiated ingot of lead-infused silicon dioxide is affixed to the end of a metal straw and placed in a furnace above 1500 oC. It dreams of its infinite possibilities while the mother furnace sings "que sera, sera" to it.
The glass emerges from the oven above its glass transition temperature as a malleable, molten blob. It really could become any piece of crystal: vase, candy dish, Christmas ornament, BCS Bowl Championship trophy, etc. The glassblower spins and inflates the material, and this adolescent crystal starts down a path that will in part determine its final form.
The glassblower places the soft--but quickly cooling and hardening--orb into a mould, thereby finalizing its shape and function. The punch bowl may sulk, thinking "oh, I'll never be a goblet. Poor me," and though the bowl would function just fine as is, it doesn't know that it still has several stages of development left.
The punch bowl is transferred to the hands of the glass cutter, who carefully and deftly carves patterns into the crystal, enhancing it. After a lengthy process, it emerges as a work of art.
 |
| The finalized punch bowl, with its developmental predecessors behind. |
...
For the last little while, I've been working through the realization that I assume many people in their late-20s/early-30s go through: that by choosing a path, one is indirectly denied passage on other paths. This is something that is completely new to young adults, because up until that point, they've been told that "the possibilities are endless" and "the world's your oyster."
Of course, I realize that not everyone has enjoyed the same range of opportunities that I have had, and I am grateful for my many options. As one of my engineering professors said, my classmates and I "won the cosmic lottery." It's unfair.
From K-12, a child's future is relatively malleable, with the world ahead of her. Then in college and postgrad school, her path starts to take shape and harden. Yes, she could technically go back to undergrad and start again (not over, but again), but more than likely her panic is not due to being faced with a career that she dislikes, but realizing that she can no longer pursue mastery in things that she might have liked. And I agree that life can be enjoyable when multi-faceted, but it's logistically impossible to be a concert pianist and a field biologist and a gourmet chef and a star architect. That's a terrifying thing to come to terms with.
It reminds me of an allegory written by Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. [...] I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
I can take two lessons from the punch bowl:
1) At this point in my life, I have just been formed by the glassblower. I am a functioning adult (when did that happen?), and though it's easier for me to think about how I can't become a vase or crystal bell or butter dish, I should instead consider the exciting future stages of my development. I've lived longer than I ever have before, but not as long as I will have!
2) Although I could go on about my life as a plain bowl, I must be proactive if I am going to take advantage of my opportunities to be the best danged glittering, carved, and frosted punch bowl I can be.
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