I recently reread Raymond Carver's story "Cathedral" again (the fun of short stories is you can easily re-read in an hour or so). You know, the one where a blind man teaches a sighted man to really see by having him draw a cathedral with his eyes closed. There's something about that story that keeps pulling me back to internships, of all things. Because that’s what I do.
In Carver's story, the narrator starts out unable to understand what a cathedral even is. He's never seen one, never cared to either. But by the end, through the act of drawing one blindly, guided by someone who has never seen but somehow knows, he experiences something he can't quite name. "It's really something," he says, which is about as close as language gets to describing the indescribable.
That's an internship, isn't it?
The blind leading the sighted
Think about it: most interns arrive unable to see the cathedral of professional life. They know it exists; this thing called "work" this structure called "meaning” but they can't quite picture it. Meanwhile, their mentors have been staring at cathedrals so long they've forgotten how extraordinary they are. The stone becomes just stone, the soaring arches and beautiful glass windows just architectural features to check off a list. Nice windows, done. check.
But something magical happens when you put them together. The intern brings fresh set of eyes that can't see the obvious while a mentor brings experienced hands that know the shape of things. And somehow, in that collaboration, if done right, both discover something neither could access alone.
Drawing without seeing
The genius of Carver's story is that the blind man doesn't try to explain what a cathedral looks like. He doesn't lecture about Gothic architecture or the symbolism of spires reaching toward heaven. Instead, he puts his hand over the narrator's hand and says, "Draw."
The best mentors do something similar. They don't overwhelm interns with organizational charts, theory books and company history. They don't deliver lengthy explanations about "how things work around here." Instead, they guide the intern's hand and say, "Try this. Feel what happens."
Because here's what every good mentor knows : you can't really explain what meaningful work feels like. You can only create conditions where someone might discover it for themselves.
The cathedral you can't see
In the story, as the narrator draws with his eyes closed, something shifts. He stops worrying about whether his drawing looks right and starts feeling his way through the experience. The cathedral emerges not as a visual representation but as something felt, something lived through the movement of pencil on paper.
This is exactly what happens in the best internships. The intern stops obsessing over whether they're "doing it right" and starts feeling their way through actual work. The real learning isn't in the tasks completed or skills acquired; it's in that moment when work stops being something you do and becomes something you are. That you experience; not as a checklist thing but as something more.
This transformation can't be rushed or manufactured. It happens in its own time, through accumulated small moments of guided discovery. The mentor's job isn't to show the intern the cathedral. It's to help them feel their way toward drawing one.
Keeping your eyes closed
At the end of "Cathedral," when the narrator finally opens his eyes and looks at what he's drawn, he chooses to keep them closed. "It's really something," he says. Not because the drawing is perfect, it's probably terrible but because the experience of creating it changed him in ways he couldn't have anticipated.
The best internships end the same way. The intern doesn't walk away with a perfect understanding of their field or a flawless skill set. They walk away with something harder to name: a felt sense of what it means to build something meaningful with others, to be guided by experienced hands while still drawing their own lines.
And the mentor? They discover something too. What it feels like to see their work through completely fresh eyes. What it means to guide without controlling, to teach without explaining everything away.
Drawing in the Dark
So, lets be honest here: When was the last time you finished working with someone new and felt that same sense of having touched something larger than the sum of tasks completed? When did you last realize you'd both been building something neither of you could quite name?
Because if you can't remember that feeling, then maybe you're trying too hard to see clearly. Maybe it's time to close your eyes, put your hand over someone else's, and start drawing.
The cathedral is there. It's always been there. It’s really something.