"If you win the race, you're still a rat"- Anna Quindlen
Ever since I came to Berkeley my life plans and goals have changed drastically. My standards is set higher than ever before to the point where I have lost my passion and purpose. Attending one of the greatest universities in the world is not cut out to be what I imagined. I learned more about the greed of the world than the humbleness of the world.
The world of academia that we are consumed in which makes its claim to make progress and change for the world only confirms the way the world will remain in its hierarchical form. The students from a particular class will continue to preserve the life they have always known. It is rare to see a child who was raised from an elite family ever venture off into a humanities major to expose themselves to the life of the people who are at the bottom of the social class which make up the majority of our world. They reason that if those from the lower class want to become successful men and women such as themselves that they can do it too, not realizing the obligations that they cannot so easily escape from. While those that have successfully escaped from those obligations to lead a supposedly better life have done it, but that identity will still linger within them and compartmentalized in the back of their mind.
This is not to say that I will take what I have learned in college and apply this to the reality of life, because I am fully aware nothing that we regurgitate from the books are accurate accounts of life experiences. Everything works in a system which people can cheat to get their way to the top. Just for the sake of repetition, good people get screwed and bad people get rewarded. But of course this all depends on our definitions of what is "good" or "bad".
Reflecting back upon why this past semester was the worst yet was because I had a hard time being happy. Now that I am back home, in this neighborhood where I practically was "raised" I am reminded of the privilege I had that half of my former classmates would have died for. The dorm life, as what many students considered not "spacious" and "private" enough was the most freedom and space I can ever imagine ever receiving. The poor grades I received this semester and this is not by the U.C Berkeley's student standard of a "poor" grade is, against my former classmates life; earning minm. wage or at least a little above minm. wage working 40 hrs a week, attending community college getting their AA's means NOTHING. It means nothing because they can still have a smile on their face, enjoy the small things in life and be HAPPY. The ordinary people which I am surrounded with for another week, which I admit I have looked at them indifferently towards thinking how loser-ish the lifestyle they lead is, is actually helping me regain my sense of individuality. Not that I feel superior against them, but it reminds me how I was able to cope with the environment and the ability to cope does not just dissapear.
At Berkeley, instead of being surrounded by unmotivated students I am surrounded by perfectionist and the distinction between the two is surprisingly not that much. Both circumstances present similar societal pressures. So then, I will conquer this and move forward. One thing that I have learned from all of the pain, suffering and hurt is that you can always walk away.
"People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you' ve gotten back the chest X ray and it doesn't look so good, or when the doctor writes 'prognosis, poor'"- Anna Quindlen
Emma Rolos Photography
