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Today, I'll be reading a passage from my favorite book, "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.
"Then he sat down again. He didn't say anything for quite a long time.
"I don't want to scare you," he said, "but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one
way or another, for some highly unworthy cause." He gave me a funny look. "If I write something
down for you, will you read it carefully? And keep it?"
"Yes. Sure," I said. I did, too. I still have the paper he gave me.
He went over to this desk on the other side of the room, and without sitting down wrote
something on a piece of paper. Then he came back and sat down with the paper in his hand.
"Oddly enough, this wasn't written by a practicing poet. It was written by a psychologist named
Wilhelm Stekel. Here's what he -- Are you still with me?"
"Yes, sure I am." "Here's what he said: 'The mark of the immature
man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he
wants to live humbly for one.'" He leaned over and handed it to me. I read
it right when he gave it to me, and then I thanked him and all and put it in my pocket.
It was nice of him to go to all that trouble. It really was. The thing was, though, I didn't
feel much like concentrating. Boy, I felt so damn tired all of a sudden.
You could tell he wasn't tired at all, though. He was pretty oiled up, for one thing. "I
think that one of these days," he said, "you're going to have to find out where you want to
go. And then you've got to start going there. But, immediately. You can't afford to lose
a minute. Not you." I nodded, because he was looking right at
me and all, but I wasn't too sure what he was talking about. I was pretty sure I knew,
but I wasn't too positive at the time. I was too damn tired.
"And I hate to tell you," he said, "but I think that once you have a fair idea where
you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school. You'll have to.
You're a student -- where the idea appeals to you or not. You're in love with knowledge.
And I think you'll find, once you get past all the Mr. Vineses and their Oral Comp --"
"Mr. Vinsons," I said. He meant all the Mr. Vinsons, not all the Mr. Vineses. I shouldn't
have interrupted him, though.