Halfway is a strange place to be. You have as much left ahead as you have behind. Maybe this motivates you, maybe it terrifies you. There are approximately two ways to think about the passage of time, as I see it: like Dante in “Inferno” or like John Hammond in “Jurassic Park.”

First, some remarks on torturing myself. I rarely feel accomplished when I hit the 2.5 mark on a 5-mile run. Sometimes I’m just baffled by how much ground I still have to cover. Being halfway through college isn’t very similar to that sensation. Time is a separate variable from distance; The ticking of the clock remains constant even as your pace along the route fluctuates. My dad has always said that time waits for no man, and now more than ever, I have realized that he is right. When I am halfway through with a run, I would probably opt to fast-forward through the rest if fate somehow gave me that option. Conversely, there are countless moments I’ve had with friends during these two years at Yale that I would trap in fossilized amber just to preserve them forever. They are perfect specimens of what life ought to be, it seems. It would be a waste to let the passage of time exact its decaying force on them.

I use the amber metaphor very intentionally, because my attitude towards college is somewhat similar to that of John Hammond, billionaire philanthropist and founder of Jurassic Park in the eponymous film. In the movie, he talks about the recreation of the past as an “act of sheer will.” Even though the prehistoric beasts he resurrected broke free from their cages in his amusement park and wreaked havoc, Hammond thought success was inevitable. He could eventually contain the power of the past, just as he had contained the prehistoric mosquito in a sample of amber which crowned the end of his walking cane. All he had to do was keep trying, rebuilding his park until it was truly built in his image, rather than only appearing that way before the facade crumbled.

The truth is, however, life is more unpredictable than that. You can’t bend the arc of time to your will. The universe is too chaotic for any of us to play God with all our favorite memories and most momentous decisions. I can’t be a college student forever in the same way that I can’t guarantee I will get my dream job. Even scarier is that I can’t guarantee my dream job will even stay the same. Whatever you trap in the amber eventually breaks free.

I can try my best to say all this in a cool, pithy way, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty obvious. Yes, life’s pretty disorienting sometimes. But it doesn’t change the fact that you have to try to make things happen according to your plan. Otherwise, the world just eats you alive.

This is also true, to an extent. But Yalies want to move the world so badly that they never stop to think about the value of any inertia they encounter. This is where Dante comes in, writing:

Midway upon the journey of our life

  I found myself within a forest dark,

  For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Inferno, Canto I, 1-3

Halfway is a strange place to be. You have been around long enough to see just how uncontrollable life is but probably not long enough to learn how to deal with that fact long-term. That’s a difficult place to be. Whether you choose to rewind or fast-forward — if you had those choices — you would probably feel better either way.

Dante, after all, had to go through nine circles of hell plus purgatory to finally reach his beloved Beatrice. He did finally get there though. And, when you read the opening of the Inferno, you get the sense that Dante feels he has no other choice but to descend into hell. Life is as chaotic and aimless on earth as it must be in the abyss. A she-wolf blocks his path and refuses to let him move further; Consequently, Dante has nowhere to go but down. He has to suffer before he can move past the obstacle in his way.

Perhaps arguing that we have to suffer to find our place in life sounds too ascetic, especially since most of us live cushy lives in comparison to the average person on planet earth. I’m certainly not saying you have to flagellate yourself while walking barefoot to the nearest monastery. I only mean that if you feel like you’re suffering because life is so chaotic right now, you may be on the way to learning something that helps you move forward. 

After all, if life really is that unpredictable, it’s pretty unlikely that you both always feel comfortable in your current situation and you are being honest with yourself about the state of the world. The world can be a scary place when you grow increasingly separated from cherished memories and scramble to secure a future stable enough to make more of them. But it’s hard to learn when things are easy. And you figure out what’s really important to you when you’re faced with the necessity of change.

Maybe believing this makes me naive, but I think it’s my best bet for staying sane. Maybe you think so, too. Either way, if halfway feels as strange to you as it does to me, just remember that it doesn’t last forever.

ELIJAH BOLES is a junior in Ezra Stiles college. His column runs every other Thursday. Contact him at elijah.boles@yale.edu.