By Suchita Thepkanjana
The first stage of life was filled with dreams. Every child had one, and so did I. You could ask
any child what they wanted to be, and they’d answer, with utmost confidence, “I’m going to be a
singer/artist/firefighter”, or something along those lines. We were so assured that we would become
exactly who we were meant to be, but all of this would change.
Soon came the next stage of life, called “Growing Up”. It started with the cold, jarring
introduction to prestigious colleges and “real” jobs (doctors, engineers, business owners, of course).
As time passed, friends turned into competitors, “real” jobs replaced naïve dreams, and passions
became hobbies (because “you just can’t make a living with them, sweetie”), until, by the time I was
fourteen, not even an ounce of the bright-eyed, optimistic three-year-old could be found. I had become
one of thousands of uptight, burnt-out students on a path to becoming someone we don’t even
recognize. One of thousands of students who have learned to lie so naturally to other people about
who we are and who we want to be, lying to ourselves has become just as easy.
Now, at sixteen, we spend millions on tutors, academic coaches, and new
foundations/organizations/charities we pretend to care about. We’re completely engulfed in this race
in which slightly-varied versions of the same fabricated, perfect-student prototype desperately grapple
at opportunities to tell admissions committees, “Please let me into your college! I’m the most special!
I care the most!”. No, we’re not, and no, we don’t. What we are are manufactured, near-identical
products, fresh out of the mold, moving acquiescently down the assembly line. What we have is a
shell of an identity that is not quite ours. We each refer to ourselves as “an individual”, but can we
really say that when there’s no individuality left?
Looking back on myself, I’m reminded of a sandstorm. Frenzied currents of wind blow sand
against rocks, eroding them little by little, chipping away one unnoticeable particle at a time, until all
that remains is an empty space where the rock used to be. It is now dust, assimilated with grains of
sand in the swirling wind, being carried off to who knows where?
What are we even doing this for?
Eventually, we are struck with the painful realization that we’re never going to be somebody,
so all we can do is avoid becoming nobody. We just aren’t unique anymore, and all we have left to pin
our hopes on is a fragile piece of paper from a prestigious university or a paycheck from a famous
company, declaring that once upon a time, we were at least a little more special than the average
person. So we welcome, with open arms, the wind blowing sand against our surface. We let the
sandstorm carry ourselves away, hoping we never wake up one day, look at our reflection in the
mirror, and suddenly wonder “Who could I have been?”
