This paper was born of a profound sense of wonder and longing; it’s about Eliot and his poetry, but it’s more about mortality, physics, existentialism, and an ever-present confusion around how we got here and where we are going. I wanted to study the art of a poet exploring these questions, but I really wanted to vocalize this tension around uncertainties of existence that I think everybody experiences, but most of us have learned to internalize. This is what goes into a 2 A.M. phone conversation before your 8 A.M. exam when you can’t sleep because you’re too distraught by not knowing who you are, what your purpose is, or if you are truly alone.
SHEILA SAGEAR is a sophomore studying Astrophysics in the College of Arts and Sciences. She does research on exoplanet detection around ultracool dwarfs and hopes to go to graduate school to continue working in experimental astrophysics. She enjoys traveling, playing music, and making faces at her python scripts when no one else is in the lab. She would like to thank her writing professor, Anthony Wallace, for inspiring her to become a deeper and more observant thinker, writer, and human being.