This is a post I've been wanting to make for a very, very long time, but I never found the real gut of the message until now.
We practice control. We need control. We need control over how the rest of our lives pan out because if we don't, we're letting our lives go wherever, and often times that means no where. We study on our finals to get the futures we want, and workworkwork in order to get grades, ignoring our fun distractions in pursuit of that A and acceptance letter.
If you knew me in AP Euro, you will remember that I was one of those kids. The bright, seemingly always funny and talkative members of the class, a true class participant to say the least. The teacher would make fun of me, as he did to all his favorite students, and I would do stupid things (mostly by accident) like say "cat" during a free association game when the prompt was "door" and be typecast as the crazy/out there roles during our projects, those little things. But I don't think anyone in my class noticed this, but the more outlandish and self-deprecating I was, the more tolerant I was of people making fun of me, the worse my grades were.
Not in AP Euro, but in general. For me, sophomore year was a time of trying to be happy, living in the moment or whatever. It was my happiest year with my worst grades. I didn't care because it didn't feel that important, college felt so distant and irrelevent, and why the heck should I care? It doesn't make a difference, right? There was little innovation that year, no great and sudden changes or creations, not like now or anything. I had no real commitments to anything. All my friends except for three were fleeting, people who only talked to me when we had the same lunch or class period. I was fine with it, because I thought things were okay. When my grades got bad, I distracted myself by being the class jester in the few classes that the teachers did encourage that kind of behavior, the teachers that didn't mind poking fun of what was strange or unfamiliar because it was strange and unfamiliar to them. I hated it, but tolerated it. Most people from those classes still think I'm smart, that I'm funny and bright and interesting. It's really not that simple.
We want control because, in the end, it's what we don't really have given to us. Every decision is unconscious or unaware of the implications, unaware of what we really want because we can't see past what's in front of us or can't see in that direction at all. We have control, more power than we're ever aware of, but most of us don't know how to fully harness it. We don't know how to do exactly the things we need to do to get the things we want, or to realize when we're working for something that we don't really want that thing at all. It's hard to realize, especially when you feel like you're drowning in a sandpit and you just have to keep going, going and going because one day this semester will end and everything will make sense. That's what I thought, and believed. I wish things were different. I wish I could be like the peers in my two AP classes that work hardhard because they know what they want, and they're constantly creating and acting to make it happen, already knee deep in what they want to do or make with their lives whether it be journalism or acting or writing. I wish I was like that.
I'm supposed to be studying for Physics, but my teacher's website isn't working when it needs to work, and it has everything on it so I can't practice and review until it works. I'm staying up until it does.
It makes me sad though, that I'm not really like other people in that matter. I can't just wish to do well in a class or know exactly how to study for a class I don't really understand. I wish I could control myself, so I could get the things I want out of myself. Like when you squeeze a orange or lemon or whatever, and all the lemon juice tripples out. You know what squeezing the lemon will do, so you do it because you want to see the consequences for yourself.
Life is weird. Maybe things will be different one day. I'll be friends with the cool people I want to be friends with and all that shnazz. Maybe. I can't tell.
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After Finals: Books to Read
The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa
The False Prince
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.
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