The “scholarship boy” “abstracting from immediate experience” as an attempt to reformat or understand his drastically different life within the classroom and household is something that I feel I have noticed not only within myself but as Rodriguez mentions within the rare scholarship children whose ambition gleams from their eyes and dwindles their confidence.
What I took from The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning “Basics” was that there is a space in which some children might stumble upon, especially those of working class/minority families, where they must decide, at a relatively young age, what is most important to them considering what they know they are capable of and most importantly what their environment is like.
The “scholarship boy” here aka Rodriguez became passionate about knowledge not knowing the level of intimacy academia requires or what he would have to give in order to fulfill his desires. These desires happen to fall out of line with not only his immediate family but his culture and effectively alter his experience with them. Although I have never considered myself much of a “scholarship boy” to this extent, I will say that I can relate to his feeling of guilt and withdrawal. Children generally have little conception of management or balance and wildly chase their desires unaware of the bewilderment it could cause around them. He mentions his passion separating him from other academics in college, what was once rewarded in primary and secondary school is now frowned upon as an adult because apparently no one of his background should know as much of or care as much for academia as he does which again can be confusing and frustrating. After years of struggling to find his pace yet still deepening his love for knowledge Rodriguez is finally able to describe his roller coaster with learning and accept it.
This ending is very heart-warming to me. Seeing that Rodriguez persisted among his constant reflection and dissatisfaction gives me hope that we are all able to do the same, being that we are consistent in our search and willing to fail on the way there. This excerpt makes me think of the phrase “ignorance is bliss” especially when he quotes one of his teachers who says “The importance of the praise of given the un-solitary, richly passionate life is that it simultaneously reflects the value of reflective life” I think that means – those who live more passionate lives are usually not reflecting (unlike the reflective one) they are acting in the moment and giving their truest selves and opinions within their judgments rather than allowing what they know to cloud their proposals. As for the one who is more reflective, they will only allow themselves to be as passionate as their understanding of the moment allows them to be, “Abstracting from immediate experience”
E367: Writing and Diversity 
Anthony,
I’m glad you picked out that line from Rodriguez to highlight, since I think the “abstraction” he talks about is simultaneously and achievement and loss. As he puts it, a few lines before the sentence you quote, “If, because of my schooling, I had become separated from my parents, my education had also given me in the end a way to speak and to care about that fact”. The very thing that gives academic work its power and allure is also what cuts it off from ordinary experience.
Joe
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