i sometimes try to take an inventory on what makes me happy so that i can figure out what i really want to do. to be honest, it's very difficult. the semester always ends leaving me with this feeling of non-closure and an empty space of time ahead of me that i'm supposed to paint with life experiences. every time i'm faced with time, it forces me to ask myself why.
why do i give up my soul for school, why do i take difficult classes, why do i go through the motions and why do i submit myself for judgment in this system? jaded thoughts, i know. school is wonderful. education is wonderful. you just sit there and people just tell you stuff about your world and you are free to just sit there and soak up new knowledge. it is incredible, don't get me wrong. it's just that i thought all this learning would bring me closer to knowing who i want to be and what i want to do with myself.
WHY do i do anything? and WHAT do i want to be? what even makes me happy?
i initially was going to be a journalism major, a track that i might be returning to. i was always drawn to the idea of being a journalist because i can turn a phrase with the best of them and because i can sort out complex ideas and lay them in order. i'm beginning to question whether i can even do that. i turned away from this endgame when i began to feel that being a journalist implies spectatorship and not being involved with the action, and i might just spend my life regurgitating stories while my ass gets cushiony, or giving up and making a last-ditch attempt to write a book when i'm forty-five, jobless and lonely.
in high school i began to see the appeal of science. until this point, i'd never thought about it at all. it was when i took AP biology that i realized that i was good at science and above that, it fascinated me. it was tangible and measurable-- the idea that our body is this system that works, that we can depend on, that has evolved in a way that maximizes efficiency, an efficiency that technology can't hope to emulate as hard as it tries.
...but i wasn't an automaton about it like some of my peers. i've never grabbed onto the idea of systematically learning/memorizing stuff and applying it and being tested on it and moving on. i'd never been good at studying-- i'm still really not. this changed a lot in college as it became easier to want to study things, but still i feel i'm not winning at my game. i fear most that i'm burning myself out with my plethora of interests, my constant need to have more than one job, my failure to have hobbies other than singing in a band and watching online television and doing a radioshow, my thoughts that are constantly about people, even though eleanor roosevelt thinks that only small-minded people are concerned with other people (this thought ALWAYS occurs to me whenever i think a thought about another human being, and i'm just like, "Shut up dead Eleanor, you don't know me!")
more and more, i start to feel like the only way to really do anything great is to singly focus on that one thing. immerse yourself, learn everything about it. the fact that i know a little bit about everything and spread myself thin thinking about lots of things will not serve me well in the afterlife. the aftercollegelife, that is.
it's funny, but sometimes i think the only thing that consistently pleases me in life is watching television. i get so involved with the plots and the humor and the characters and the writing. and i wonder if maybe i'm overlooking a fantastic life as a comedian or a script-writer for television. but just because i enjoy television doesn't mean i'm any good at writing it, and i'm already too old to go audition for things and make a name for myself, without doing something that will make my parents disown me like moving to new york or something. plus, all the people who are hilarious on my tv, they all started out doing stand-up. i'm funny and i could probably even make up and memorize a monologue, but nothing could ever prepare me for the torture of playing a silent room. i think if that ever happened to me, i'd just launch into an a cappella of bohemian rhapsody. what else could i do?
the only major i feel sure about is international studies, which is funny, because i might drop it to pick up journalism. i love how focused it is in boiling down current events. learning something in one of these classes just makes you a better citizen. it's true. although it gets unnerving how much you have to learn about global warming and how there is such a large probability that your teacher is biased or a hippie or both.
ah well, i promise i will not waste this time i have been given. i promise i will use it to make myself better in some godforsaken way. maybe i'll find a biocore syllabus for next semester and do all of those readings. or cook. or languish. alas.
why do i give up my soul for school, why do i take difficult classes, why do i go through the motions and why do i submit myself for judgment in this system? jaded thoughts, i know. school is wonderful. education is wonderful. you just sit there and people just tell you stuff about your world and you are free to just sit there and soak up new knowledge. it is incredible, don't get me wrong. it's just that i thought all this learning would bring me closer to knowing who i want to be and what i want to do with myself.
WHY do i do anything? and WHAT do i want to be? what even makes me happy?
i initially was going to be a journalism major, a track that i might be returning to. i was always drawn to the idea of being a journalist because i can turn a phrase with the best of them and because i can sort out complex ideas and lay them in order. i'm beginning to question whether i can even do that. i turned away from this endgame when i began to feel that being a journalist implies spectatorship and not being involved with the action, and i might just spend my life regurgitating stories while my ass gets cushiony, or giving up and making a last-ditch attempt to write a book when i'm forty-five, jobless and lonely.
in high school i began to see the appeal of science. until this point, i'd never thought about it at all. it was when i took AP biology that i realized that i was good at science and above that, it fascinated me. it was tangible and measurable-- the idea that our body is this system that works, that we can depend on, that has evolved in a way that maximizes efficiency, an efficiency that technology can't hope to emulate as hard as it tries.
...but i wasn't an automaton about it like some of my peers. i've never grabbed onto the idea of systematically learning/memorizing stuff and applying it and being tested on it and moving on. i'd never been good at studying-- i'm still really not. this changed a lot in college as it became easier to want to study things, but still i feel i'm not winning at my game. i fear most that i'm burning myself out with my plethora of interests, my constant need to have more than one job, my failure to have hobbies other than singing in a band and watching online television and doing a radioshow, my thoughts that are constantly about people, even though eleanor roosevelt thinks that only small-minded people are concerned with other people (this thought ALWAYS occurs to me whenever i think a thought about another human being, and i'm just like, "Shut up dead Eleanor, you don't know me!")
more and more, i start to feel like the only way to really do anything great is to singly focus on that one thing. immerse yourself, learn everything about it. the fact that i know a little bit about everything and spread myself thin thinking about lots of things will not serve me well in the afterlife. the aftercollegelife, that is.
it's funny, but sometimes i think the only thing that consistently pleases me in life is watching television. i get so involved with the plots and the humor and the characters and the writing. and i wonder if maybe i'm overlooking a fantastic life as a comedian or a script-writer for television. but just because i enjoy television doesn't mean i'm any good at writing it, and i'm already too old to go audition for things and make a name for myself, without doing something that will make my parents disown me like moving to new york or something. plus, all the people who are hilarious on my tv, they all started out doing stand-up. i'm funny and i could probably even make up and memorize a monologue, but nothing could ever prepare me for the torture of playing a silent room. i think if that ever happened to me, i'd just launch into an a cappella of bohemian rhapsody. what else could i do?
the only major i feel sure about is international studies, which is funny, because i might drop it to pick up journalism. i love how focused it is in boiling down current events. learning something in one of these classes just makes you a better citizen. it's true. although it gets unnerving how much you have to learn about global warming and how there is such a large probability that your teacher is biased or a hippie or both.
ah well, i promise i will not waste this time i have been given. i promise i will use it to make myself better in some godforsaken way. maybe i'll find a biocore syllabus for next semester and do all of those readings. or cook. or languish. alas.
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