Brigham Young University
“Mezzo Cammin”
Avuncular Advice for Associate Profs
JOHN S. TANNER
I have entitled my remarks Mezzo Cammin, which
means “mid journey” in Italian. The phrase comes
from one of the most famous opening lines in all literature, “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.” This is
the first line of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It translates
as “in the middle of the journey of our life.” I greet
you tonight “nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”
midway along the journey of our life.
Dante begins his great epic journey through Hell to
Heaven halfway along his life’s journey. He purports to have composed the poem when he was 35–
or half way through the traditional Biblical life span
of 70 years. On Good Friday, 1300, Dante awakes
from sleep to find himself lost in a terrifying dark
wood, at the outset of a journey that will take him,
like Christ, from Hell to Heaven. Here is the opening stanza, in an English translation:
Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered from off the straight path.
Dante goes on to observe that the wood was not only
dark but “savage and stubborn,” “a bitter place!
Death could scarce be bitterer,” and then adds:
How I entered there I cannot truly say,
I had become so sleepy at the moment
when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth.
This is a haunting image: to wake up in a dark wood,
unable to recall how one got there yet aware that one
has wandered from the path. How like our lives!
© 2005 BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
And especially, how like middle age! This sounds
like a mid-life crisis to me: to feel lost in a dark
wood, anxious that one has somehow lost the true
path, and not quite sure exactly how one came to
be in this predicament. Dante clearly intends these
lines to evoke not just his own condition but the lot
of all those who find themselves “mezzo cammin”
in the human journey from birth to death. Note the
first line reads, rather oddly, “Midway along the
journey of our life” (di nostra vita). Dante’s intent is
to include all of us in this predicament. We are all
pilgrims who find ourselves “mezzo cammin” lost
in a dark woods.
I begin with Dante to remind us all that it has never
been easy to be mid career. This is an inherently difficult moment in the human life cycle. You are not
unique if you find the passage tough going, at times
even a bit hellish. Those who have not received
advancement to full professor don’t have a corner
on this Inferno. It is a condition that seems to have
even troubled Dante 700 years ago. I’ll let you in on
a secret: It is a feeling that, from time to time, even
disturbs full professors–including an academic vice
president I know well.
The idea that mid-life marks a crisis is pervasive in
our society. The very term “mid-life” is almost always now paired with “crisis.” “Middle-aged” also
often bears pejorative meaning in our youth-obsessed society. Middle-aged seems to be a condition
lacking the beauty, charm, and promise of youth as
well as the dignity, wisdom, and honor of age. It’s
telling that we often throw mock wakes for fortieth
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and fiftieth birthdays. Absent is the enthusiasm of
Robert Browning: “Grow old along with me, the best
of life is yet to be!” (Rabbi ben Ezra). Instead, mid-life
is all black crepe and funereal humor, as if the rest of
life is a slow decline to the grave.
Thinking about this last night, I pulled out our Mayo
Clinic Family Health Handbook and read what it had
to say about mid-life. I discovered a long chapter
on what was called the “Middle Years.” The first
issue the section deals with is what title to give to
the chapter. The authors somberly observe that “To
some people, the term ‘middle age’ has a negative
meaning. In our youth-oriented culture, a middleaged person occasionally is viewed as someone past
his or her prime” (p. 220). Indeed! After settling
on a more neutral title “Middle Years,” the authors
go on to describe “Life in the Middle Years” under
such subsections as “Divorce,” “Aging and Death
of Parents,” “Loss of Spouse,” “Drug and Alcohol
Abuse,” “Suicide,” “Depression,” “Midlife Crisis,”
and “Work”–the latter dealing mainly with what to
do when “your occupation no longer offers the satisfaction or rewards it once did” and coping with
“night jobs.” (I am not making this up.) There then
follows a long section about what to expect from
our bodies as we wane toward old age, entitled
“Physical Aging.” This section includes information
on weakened heart and digestive system, arthritic
joints, brittle bones, loss of hair for men and growth
of facial hair for women, prostate surgery, hysterectomy, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and loss of
sexual appetite and ability. Boy, I’m sure glad the
writers didn’t use the term “middle age” in their
title. You wouldn’t want to alarm readers, would
you?
Perhaps the deepest angst we have in the
middle years is the worry over not having realized our potential. This is the anxiety that figures
most centrally in what we call a mid-life crisis. It
is the worry that can wake us up at night and disturb the tranquility of our days in “mezzo cammin.” This feeling is described powerfully by Henry
David Longfellow, who was not only a poet in his
own right but an early translator of Dante as well
as a professor at Harvard. My favorite Longfellow
sonnet is entitled “Mezzo Cammin,” an allusion to
Dante, of course. It contains dark ruminations of a
fellow English professor apparently in the throes of
a mid-life crisis. Longfellow never published this
poem in his lifetime. It was probably too painful and
too personal. Let me share it with you:
Mezzo Cammin
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,-A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.-And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
–Henry David Longfellow
Like Longfellow, many of us in “mezzo cammin”
life feel some regret for the unfulfilled dreams and
aspirations of youth. Life has not turned out exactly as we had hoped. Nevertheless we still harbor
hopes of what we “may accomplish yet.” We find
ourselves, like Longfellow, “half way up the hill” on
our journey heavenward: the “sounds and sights”
of our youth below us and the “cataract of Death . . .
thundering from the heights” above us.
I submit that the question faced by each pilgrim at
this juncture in the journey is not what we have done
to arrive at our particular place on the mountain but
what will we do with the second half of our climb before we arrive at the inevitable “cataract of Death.”
This is the key choice that each of us faces: tenured
or untenured; full professor; associate professor, or
assistant professor; indeed, professor or plumber. It
is easy to forget the real issue as we focus on the rank
and status process. The most important question is
not whether we receive rank advancement but how
we live our lives, both professional and personal. I
doubt that we will be asked if we are full professors
when we reach the Pearly Gates. But I am confident
that we will be asked if we lived a full life as a professor: Did we give a full measure of effort? Did we
take full advantage of our opportunities? Did we
pursue our profession fully and joyfully? For disciples in the disciplines, the choice is never merely
how to manage our careers but how to magnify our
talents in serving God and neighbor.
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So here is my first bit of avuncular advice: Remember that this is your only passage through mortality. Seize it! Be a full professor in the deepest sense
of the word, whatever your rank!
Now please do not misunderstand me. I regard advancement in rank as an important and worthy goal,
both for you personally and for BYU institutionally.
As AVP, I encourage you to seek it diligently. The
university has an institutional stake in your advancement. However, faculty advancement is important
primarily insofar as it becomes a consequential measure of faculty development. Hence, my chief concern is not for faculty promotion per se but for your
promotion as a means of faculty development. And
note that I feel this concern for every faculty member, no matter his or her rank. Some faculty cease to
advance after they achieve “advancement.” When
faculty cease to develop and grow, they cease to
fulfill their responsibility as faculty–no matter what
their rank. Such faculty need to seriously reconsider
their commitment to their profession.
So I hope you leave this seminar inspired to move
on toward the goal of becoming full professors. But
even more, I hope that you leave this seminar renewed in your determination to develop your particular gifts as faculty with renewed effort, enthusiasm, and joy. If you do, this seminar will have been
a success, whether or not you are successful in your
bid for advancement. It is, after all, entirely possible to have rewarding professorial careers without becoming a full professor. You and I have been
blessed and inspired by faculty who never received
the rank of full professor. But I have rarely if ever
been inspired by faculty who did not love their subjects and want to lift their students, and I suspect
that neither have you.
For this reason, I spoke in the pre-school meetings
about the need to remain an amateur even as we become ever more professional. Amateurs, by definition, are lovers; they give themselves to a sport or
field of study animated purely by passion for it. We
need to pursue professional excellence out of genuine love for our students and subjects, no matter
what our rank. We all need to be professional amateurs. If you remain animated by such love, it will
ultimately be well for both you and BYU.
Now some will reply–and not without cause–that
the system is unfair; that it does not recognize my
contributions when I give myself whole-heartedly
to my subject and my students. I readily concede
that this may be true, indeed that it surely is true
for some of you. There is not perfect congruence
between our reward structure and the University
mission. That is why we are always tinkering with
policies. And even if we had policies in place perfectly aligned with our mission, there would inevitably still be inequities deriving from flawed human
judgment in applying policy. In short, while I believe that the Rank and Status policy is remarkably
congruent with our mission and that our practice is
generally consistent with our mission, still I know
no system of rewards and punishments in this life
that is entirely fair, try as we may to perfect it.
So what are we to do in this imperfect world? One
thing to do is to recognize that it’s not as bad as we
sometimes tell ourselves, in moments of self-pity and
discouragement. I know I would not trade my lot as
a BYU tenured professor for almost any other job I
know of. Another thing to do is to recognize that life
isn’t always fair. Life is tough. In “mezzo cammin,”
the woods are dark, the path unclear, and the landscape full of swamps, mountains, thick brush, and
other obstacles to hedge our way through the terrain and keep us from our desired destination. As
President Hinckley remarked, quoting an editorial
by Jenkin Lloyd Jones:
“[The fact is] most putts don’t drop. Most beef
is tough. Most children grow up to be just
people. Most successful marriages require a
high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs
are more often dull than otherwise. …
“Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays,
sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts,
interspersed only occasionally by beautiful
vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.
“The trick is to thank the Lord for letting
you have the ride” (“Big Rock Candy Mountains,” Deseret News, 12 June 1973, A4).
This reminds me of similar line Westley says to Buttercup in The Princess Bride: “Life is pain, Highness.
Any who says differently is selling something.”
Given that in this life reward systems are inevitably going to be imperfect both in their conception
and execution, in spite of the best efforts to craft and
carry them out perfectly, I have another bit of avuncular advice: Rather than fight the system, find a
way to give your gifts in the system. I liked to call
this “owning the assignment” when I taught Fresh--
man Composition. I sometimes now call it “owning
our ought”–meaning duty.
You all have CFS. This means that you not only have
more security but have more freedom over what you
will do with your professional life than do most people. Yes, as faculty, we have obligations; we have
duties, some of which we would not choose if we
could choose. We may have to teach more or other
classes than we would like; have less time or support for research than we feel we need; be required
to attend more committee meetings than we would
prefer. Yet in all of this, we can choose how we will
do what we must do. We can choose to build an
honorable, useful life while we do our duties. We
can own our ought’s.
And finally my last gratuitous piece of avuncular
advice: It’s never too late to change. Change now.
I am perhaps a heretic in that I believe in death-bed
repentance. Why? Because I believe that God desires and accepts genuine repentance no matter how
late it is in coming. Death-bed repentance is illegitimate only if it has been calculated; only if it is the result of a deliberate attempt to “game the system”–in
which case it’s inauthentic repentance and therefore
not true repentance at all. To me, the parable of the
laborers makes it clear that the Lord accepts and rewards those who come to the vineyard even at the
11th hour if they give themselves to the labor with
full hearts. Any hour is the right hour to change.
Change now.
But, you might think, I am too far behind my cohort. Others have moved on far more quickly than I.
True. It’s a fact that people work at different speeds.
I’m a slow reader; so is my daughter. We were lamenting this fact just the other night. “I don’t read
fast but I read well,” I told her, and so does she.
Some people take longer than others to do the same
work. It’s okay if you have taken longer than your
colleagues to prepare yourself for promotion. One
great thing about being post-CFS is that faculty can
be on different timetables in promotion. There is no
set time for when one has to come up for advancement. While it’s hard to see the sprinters reach the
goal so quickly, you can cross the finish line in your
own due time. For “the race is not to the swift, nor
the battle to the strong” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). I’m persuaded that there is a honored place in the Pantheon
for plodders, who labor long into the night and over
many years what others may have achieved with
less effort but no less worth.
Let me conclude these reflections with another poem.
This one not about middle age but old age, but the
point is relevant to all ages. And to end where we
began, this poem also has a tie to Dante. The poem
is called “Ulysses.” It is a dramatic monologue by
Tennyson based on a story about Ulysses which, so
far as we know, Dante invented out of whole cloth.
The story is not found in Greek sources. According
to Dante, after Ulysses had returned home from the
Trojan Wars and settled down to rule his people, he
became bored and restless. He longed for adventure,
for a quest, for the sea. So in old age, he persuaded
his men to join him on yet another journey, this one
westward, like Columbus, into the unknown Atlantic Ocean. “Brothers,” he says to his men,
during this so brief vigil of our senses
that is still reserved for us, do not deny
yourselves experience of what there is beyond,
...
Consider what you came from: you are Greeks!
You were not born to live like mindless brutes
but to follow paths of excellence and knowledge.
(Inferno, Canto 26)
You are tenured BYU professors. You, too, were
“born to . . . follow paths of excellence and knowledge.” I find these lines very stirring. So did Tennyson. His Ulysses exhorts his men in similarly
stirring terms, which I have long loved and which
inspire me still as I think about facing the challenges
of aging. Tennyson’s Ulysses tells his men:
you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with
Gods.
...
Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
...
for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset. . . .
...
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved heaven and earth, that which we are, we are–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
So I come to you tonight not only in “mezzo cammin” but in the spirit of Tennyson’s Ulysses. I urge
you, as I urge myself, “to strive, to seek, to find, and
not to yield.” “Come, my friends, ‘tis not too late to
seek a newer world.”
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