Saturday’s NY Times contained an opinion piece on “super people.” The author, James Atlas, describes the new “super people” who are now applying for admission to college, or are being prepped for admission to college. These are young people whose college applications look like this: “mastered at least one musical instrument; helped build a school or hospital in some foreign land; excelled at a sport; attained fluency in two or more languages; had both a major and a minor, sometimes two, usually in unrelated fields (philosophy and molecular science, mathematics and medieval literature); and yet found time — how do they have any? — to enjoy such arduous hobbies as mountain biking and white-water kayaking.”
I sent the article to a middle school educator I know, someone who teaches at a college preparatory school, with the following lines extracted for emphasis. I think the message might be useful to (tenure track) academics too. We must take time to do the things that matter, and that includes reflection, and even loafing.
In the end, the whole idea of Super Person is kind of exhausting to contemplate. All that striving, working, doing. A line of Whitman’s quoted by Dr. Bardes in our conversation has stayed with me: “I loaf and invite my soul.”
Isn’t that where the real work gets done?
Praxis in Landscape Architecture 
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