Self Reflection: Oct 8

Let’s just get this over with straight and now, I’m just spitballing at the moment. There’s no serious line of thinking, no grand scheme or mind worm type of idea that’s currently rolling in my thoughts and devouring them. At best, this is just me spouting non-sense as a sort of test of this site as well as just letting myself mentally categorize some things.

To start, who I am is just a student, non traditional in the sense of my age, my major, my background, and my mindset. I come from humble background, I lack a lot of finances to my name. I’m in debt, I’m not going for a degree that’ll net me money to start a life that’s considered average or above. I’m coming to terms with the fact that a lot of goals I had in my twenties ended up being vapor trails and some stuff I carried as important for a long time turned out not to be so. I still hold onto some of the beliefs I carried when I was younger and in my teens but not many have survived the long decade of the twenties now gone and thankfully being swept away by time’s merciless broom.

I’m a history major, and I get a lot of personal attacks which in themselves are questions but wound all the same. People seem to think the degree is useless, having zero in terms of merit or importance compared to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. A guy on an airline told me to my face that he looked forward to me being his caddy on the golf course after I graduated. At the time I didn’t have a comeback, mostly cause I was in enough shock of such a comment that I couldn’t respond.

I’d say to him now, “I look forward to reminding your family that the inevitable heat death of the universe effectively erases all memory from our solar system.” I’m sure he wouldn’t get it, and that’s kind of the point. Being a jerk on an airline is a lot like being a jerk on an elevator or a bus. You gotta sit in the space with the rest of the people you’re being a jerk to and basting in their glares of judgement like some kind of jerk turkey.

Maybe my degree is useless to the grand masses of the world. Doesn’t change the facts. I’m good at what I do in history, I take some manner of pride and joy from it. I don’t know how many people can honestly have the confidence to say “Mmm, a blank page and I need to fill it with coherent sentences for five to ten pages, come up with a point somewhere and prove the point by the end.”. I live for these challenges, I revel in it, because to me these sorts of challenges are the one’s I’m not just inherently good at, but one’s I find are important to me and those at large. I have answers to questions google doesn’t, and that makes me feel better about my position in the world.

I’ll be one of the few people in my family who graduates college, a four year one to be specific. I’m the first to make it to the west coast though that’s not been a feat of any major significance since the 1880’s. When asked what’s the biggest achievement I’ll have to my name, it’s telling people I got to walk across a stage and accept a fake piece of paper by a guy who won’t even recall my name after I leave. That moment will mean more to me than anything because the one person in attendance is who it was all for.

My dad has put up with a lot of my issues for a while. My lack of self motivation, the endless depressive fits I’ve fallen into. The endless search for personal understanding. He’s been there, he’s told me countless times “That’s the way the world works son.”. Doesn’t change the fact that all despite those issues, he seems to keep showing me that the world may work in a cruel and difficult manner, it doesn’t mean people have to. He reminds me of every time I talk to him. Every time I watched him put someone’s happiness before himself, not just mine either, but friends and family who struggled to make rent or buy gas, or just get a decent meal. He never hesitated, never wavered in his commitment to that morally good center within.

I try my best to emulate it as often as I can. To a fault in certain cases. I’ve put myself behind the eight ball a few times just to bail someone else out of a tight spot. I’ve paid for it by losing jobs, losing face, losing respect, but as long as I knew deep down I did the right thing even if it was wrong to those who didn’t understand, it was worth it. It’s what my dad would do, and he wouldn’t even have a regret, unlike myself.

The final thing I guess I’ll end on with as well is how much writing has been important to me as a whole. I found my voice in words at a young age, I used stories as an outlet to let go of things I wanted to do but couldn’t. Words came easy for me, and the more I worked on it, the more I practiced, the better it became. Thoughts became like movies for me, I’d go over ideas in my head over and over till I’d get so certain it’d work that I’d put it on the page without a hesitation. Other times I’d just have that ‘hit’ some writers have where it’d just explode onto the paper with such spontaneity yet feel so natural, an idea so full of kinetic energy I couldn’t contain it and just have a huge 5000 word document in a matter of hours.

I don’t know how it’ll end with this gift if I can call it that. I hope someone or somewhere will one day see this and take a chance on me. I guess we wait and see, which I’ve done for a long time, mostly without pay and without any recognition. I do feel I need to say that those who’ve taken that chance hopefully haven’t regretted it for a second, I’m glad those that have read what I put on a page have found something rewarding in reading such prose and page I have. I hope I can deliver more, give more, and one day do as my father has done and be that person who has the ability to put his morals where his mouth is.

• Drew