How do and should students develop--emotionally, socially, intellectually, morally, and spiritually--on a college campus and, more particularly, as members of a residential learning community? What advantages does a learning community offer over the more fragmented and specialized cafeteria of courses in place on most campuses? What new structures can overcome the narrow, objectivist epistemology that fragments most campuses? The author poses these questions to himself at the end of his formal teaching career, as a way of summing up some of the most important lessons about learning and speculating on his successes and challenges. The only thing he can safely conclude is that one theory cannot capture the many and complex interactions that take place in college or in a learning community, and the truth of what does happen must be different for each player: the hall director, the student, the faculty member, the student affairs professional. While that conclusion doesn't say much, he is convinced that the rich stew that is created in most residential learning communities does account for an acceleration of multiple kinds of student growth. In this article, he recounts a small part of the story of his own search for some answers, interspersing real-life snapshots of community life in order to put meat on the bones of theory. (Contains 7 notes.)