It's summer, a hot, baking, sunny summer filled with emerald trees and sapphire skies and golden streams of sunshine. On such a jeweled, warm day the corridors of Lind Hall at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities should be empty and silent, yet the muted, strident voice of a teacher echoes down one of the hallways, followed by the ringing tones of laughter that his comment elicits. A glance into the lit room reveals tall, open windows that do little to alleviate the intense heat, an old-fashioned, chalk-marked blackboard, and students in their seats with notebooks and pens at the ready.

This is the NSPA Journalism Workshop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I should be paying attention to the lulling tones of the teacher as he explains newspaper design, but the heat is my downfall, and I sit in a stupor, half-listening, half-daydreaming, while the ongoing buzz of traffic offers an interesting backdrop to the instructor's voice.

On the time-bleached, paint-cracked sill a single ant searches for a path. He creeps forward, his feelers groping in front of him, desperately searching for what lies ahead, tripped up by every crack or wrinkle in his way. He pokes his head momentarily into a crack, then withdraws and rubs his front legs over his feelers for a moment as if he were cleaning them.

His struggling path reminds me somehow of life--human beings struggling forward in time, not being able to see more than a few steps into the future, wandering here and there in history, tripped up by obstacles and encounters of all sorts, just waiting for the moment when Death or Chance comes along and squishes us into non-existence.

And for what means do we struggle to exist? What is our purpose on this planet? We don't even know. We scurry about all our lives, and when they end, we haven't left even a dent on the face of time, a scratch on surface of existence.

For a moment, as he pokes into holes and disappears down cracks, it appears as if he were looking for a way to escape. How very much like we humans this is! How often our lives are spent in a desperate struggle to escape living them, escape the bumps and obstacles that get in our way! And yet, by trying to escape, we only create more obstacles, and more difficult ones, at that.

The ant scampers away to the other end of the sill, and I am brought out of my reverie with a jolt as a paper is pushed onto my desk. With an inward sigh, I turn back to life, and the class.

The heat settles, hanging over the room like an oppressive and ever-present cloud, smothering, stifling us. I flop for a second in my seat, letting my arms dangle and my head roll backwards, giving myself over entirely to the temperature of the room, and my eye is invariably drawn back to the ant.

He clambers for a purchase at the base of the sill. I resist the urge to help him up with my pen. Maybe this is something he needs to do, by himself, without my aid or aid from anyone else. Maybe this is his personal journey to self-improvement, his private Mount Everest to climb, his own struggle to survive that will help him realize his dream.

We all have our own journeys to make in this world, without the help or aid of others. Maybe that's our purpose in life--not to impact history, but to impact ourselves.

The window shades ripple in a sudden, life-giving breeze, and the entire class breathes deep of the cool, sweet air, letting it wash over and immerse them as if it were a bath that would cleanse the dust and sweat from them. I shake myself free of my reverie and return to life—and the class.