on identification and the unfamiliar [lifestyle]

It’s humorous to assume how a lot the passage of time can change {our relationships} to concepts, hobbies and beliefs. This is one thing I’ve been grappling with recently: How a lot of our current selves are outlined by our previous identities? 

It is clear that a lot has modified within the yr and a half I’ve been in faculty. I take into consideration the best way my highschool self would have reacted to every part happening in my current life: how I’ve diverged, the habits I’ve adopted and fallen out of, and the folks I’ve met which have formed me into a unique individual. I take into consideration the texts in English literature and philosophy—my meant concentrations—that I’ve absorbed, and the beliefs I’ve adopted consequently. What makes me completely different from who I used to be earlier than coming to Brown? Should I be involved in regards to the extent to which I’ve modified, or that I haven’t modified sufficient? 

College offers you a specific amount of freedom that’s each a blessing and a curse. Suddenly, you might be accountable for your whole actions, and construction is changed by uncertainty and spontaneity. It is humorous to consider how my highschool self, hooked on watching faculty day-in-the-life and dwelling alone vlogs, may solely dream of those moments. My somewhat-monotonous highschool life, spent principally in the identical suburban neighborhood, pales compared to the assure of near-total independence and freedom that faculty in a totally new surroundings has given me. 

As with most unfamiliar and thrilling issues, I quickly realized that independence comes with much more liabilities than anticipated. For power overthinkers, freedom and independence can imply considering and rethinking each choice, whether or not as massive as choosing the proper courses to take that semester or as small as deciding what particular time to do laundry on the weekend in order to not disrupt the remainder of the day. Am I taking full benefit of each alternative accessible right here? If I had made a unique selection that day, or used a unique phrase whereas speaking to that one individual, how would it not have affected the trajectory of the remainder of my faculty life? As the times go and weeks blur, I typically surprise if my decisions are the suitable ones, or if I’ll cringe trying again on them, as I so typically do.

Perhaps the journey of creating flawed selections is meant to show me to do higher sooner or later. Perhaps all of the uncertainty of school may be boiled all the way down to that interval of indecisiveness I had final summer time, staying in a sublet with my associates and being accountable for cooking my very own meals for the primary time—the place an hour of scrolling by “easy meal recipes” on TikTok and a further hour of attempting to not burn down the kitchen led to a batch of overcooked rice and rubbery eggs. Maybe I ought to take each choice I make with a grain of salt, as one which almost definitely won’t have an effect on the close to future and even the subsequent 10 years, as I one way or the other naturally assumed. Maybe my identification is set by one thing aside from the handfuls of errors and flawed decisions I appear to make day by day.

In highschool, identification was shaped from passions, however passions had the behavior of slipping away when designated as work or obligation; trial and error with durations of packed schedules and nearly-inevitable bouts of burnout proved this again and again. As the variety of “AP”s previous the names of the courses on my highschool transcript elevated with every semester, I discovered myself decreased to somebody motivated solely by doing the naked minimal, unable to muster the power or power to benefit from the actions I labored so laborious towards enhancing, together with aggressive classical piano. By the top of senior yr, not even my beloved “piano :)” playlist on Spotify or the movies of Seong-Jin Cho’s performances I’d rewatched on YouTube most likely lots of of instances appeared capable of revive this preliminary spirit; my piano books sullenly accrued mud on their bench. 

Upon reaching faculty, the place spontaneity is inspired and deadlines solely appear actual while you’re face-to-face with them, uncertainty turns into an inevitable a part of the human situation. Yet it’s from this uncertainty that passions come up, whether or not beforehand unfamiliar or reborn out of outdated, worn pursuits. As I let go of preconceived notions of obligations and let myself do no matter I would like—embodying the spirit of the Open Curriculum, some would say—a way of real curiosity returns, one which I appeared to have misplaced for some time. Who knew {that a} break from the hectic ambiance of aggressive classical piano for a yr would end in a totally new curiosity, even fondness for the artwork, leading to virtually weekly journeys to Steinert at midnight? Would my highschool self—struggling by enriched biology and questioning what the aim of life was—imagine that I’d be discussing Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason each Monday and Wednesday in faculty?

Perhaps I ought to view myself because the sleep-deprived struggling pupil in suburban Minnesota dreaming of the day I’d transfer to a unique surroundings—now in mentioned completely different surroundings. Perhaps I ought to view myself as having left that identification behind, with my current identification being precisely what that prime schooler imagined. Or possibly it will be higher to attempt to focus extra on the current second: Maybe the entire miniscule selections I make in a day actually do compose my self-identity (maybe I ought to view myself because the power unhealthy free-day scheduler, the place I one way or the other handle to aim to do laundry every Saturday similtaneously each different particular person in my dorm constructing). 

When I look again on this text within the subsequent few years, I’ve a sneaking suspicion I’ll discover almost all of those questions nonetheless unanswered, as often is the pure state of those that reside sooner or later, or at the very least in apprehension of it. Or possibly with time, I’ll develop to take pleasure in this uncertainty, one which I’ll settle for as an inevitable a part of my expertise on this life.