These are not my laws. These are not my rules.
I'm taking what I have and trying to make it fit.
Why the fuck won't it fit?
It's like I'm playing with one of those children's puzzles, where the object is to place the block into the corresponding slot. Square to square, circle to circle. All I have are octagons, and there is no corresponding slot.
Please don't mistake this for whinning... really, I'm not. I'm just trying to figure it all out. I keep thinking that I'm on the right path... and then, boom! Shock and awe, and I'm back at the beginning. I know what the problem is. Of course I do. I keep trying to shove the fucking octagon into the wrong slot. I know it doesn't fit, but I really, really wanna play.
I thought college was going to be my salvation. I would finally meet people who made me feel like I had a place in this game. Instead, I felt ashamed of who I was and where I came from, and pretty annoyed with the majority of the people I encountered. I would sit in class and think to myself, "This is the future of America". Kids who sat back in Sociology 101 rolling thier eyes and dismissing everything as leftist rhetoric, social activists who had never set a foot in the ghetto, black students from white suburbia who felt the need to prove how black they were by being caricatures, and some so blatantly stupid that it made my struggle to get accepted into Northwestern seem insignificant as fuck. "This is the future of America".
Every now and then I'd spot another octagon-holder. Sometimes we would acknowledge each other, but in most cases we would shove our mishappened shapes further into our bags and avoid eye contact. We were the ones who were different. We were the ones who were wrong.
Often I felt guilty. I was letting down the people who wanted me to succeed. I was letting myself down by not having the All American College Experience (that is how I used to think of college, too. It would flash in my head, just like that, ha). I was supposed to be facing my adversaties head on. A mixed-race girl from the hood makes it big at the Ivy League of the Midwest! That was my destiny. Unfortch, I don't do destiny.
Sometimes I'm dissapointed in myself for not becoming the hard-hitting journalist that I always thought I should be. Sometimes art seems too self-serving. I think back to when I was making a difference. Maybe I wasn't happy in my former activist life, but at least I was trying to change things. Isn't the goal to be happy, though?
I know that I have to stop banging this octagon around... I have to take responsibility for who I am. I have to find that middle ground between what I should do and what I want to do. I have to... DUN DUN DUUUUUUN... grow up. I'm back to the basics... the four noble truths and the eightfold path in full effect. I'm actively practicing and studying Buddhism again.
In short: Fuck it. I'll make my own game. Fuck your squares and circles. Octagons only, plz.
P.S. If you made it to the end of this possibly annoying and repeditive blog, you're totally my hero. My next set is dedicated to you, dearest reader.
I'm taking what I have and trying to make it fit.
Why the fuck won't it fit?
It's like I'm playing with one of those children's puzzles, where the object is to place the block into the corresponding slot. Square to square, circle to circle. All I have are octagons, and there is no corresponding slot.
Please don't mistake this for whinning... really, I'm not. I'm just trying to figure it all out. I keep thinking that I'm on the right path... and then, boom! Shock and awe, and I'm back at the beginning. I know what the problem is. Of course I do. I keep trying to shove the fucking octagon into the wrong slot. I know it doesn't fit, but I really, really wanna play.
I thought college was going to be my salvation. I would finally meet people who made me feel like I had a place in this game. Instead, I felt ashamed of who I was and where I came from, and pretty annoyed with the majority of the people I encountered. I would sit in class and think to myself, "This is the future of America". Kids who sat back in Sociology 101 rolling thier eyes and dismissing everything as leftist rhetoric, social activists who had never set a foot in the ghetto, black students from white suburbia who felt the need to prove how black they were by being caricatures, and some so blatantly stupid that it made my struggle to get accepted into Northwestern seem insignificant as fuck. "This is the future of America".
Every now and then I'd spot another octagon-holder. Sometimes we would acknowledge each other, but in most cases we would shove our mishappened shapes further into our bags and avoid eye contact. We were the ones who were different. We were the ones who were wrong.
Often I felt guilty. I was letting down the people who wanted me to succeed. I was letting myself down by not having the All American College Experience (that is how I used to think of college, too. It would flash in my head, just like that, ha). I was supposed to be facing my adversaties head on. A mixed-race girl from the hood makes it big at the Ivy League of the Midwest! That was my destiny. Unfortch, I don't do destiny.
Sometimes I'm dissapointed in myself for not becoming the hard-hitting journalist that I always thought I should be. Sometimes art seems too self-serving. I think back to when I was making a difference. Maybe I wasn't happy in my former activist life, but at least I was trying to change things. Isn't the goal to be happy, though?
I know that I have to stop banging this octagon around... I have to take responsibility for who I am. I have to find that middle ground between what I should do and what I want to do. I have to... DUN DUN DUUUUUUN... grow up. I'm back to the basics... the four noble truths and the eightfold path in full effect. I'm actively practicing and studying Buddhism again.
In short: Fuck it. I'll make my own game. Fuck your squares and circles. Octagons only, plz.
P.S. If you made it to the end of this possibly annoying and repeditive blog, you're totally my hero. My next set is dedicated to you, dearest reader.
VIEW 14 of 14 COMMENTS
I got a Bachelor's and only working a part time job paying me $8.30 an hour that just cut my hours again.
I was thinking I could be working at a video game company doing little enviromental models or some animation. But alas.
I do laugh that most of the people who I know dropped out of college are doing quite well for themselves...then again, they came from families with businesses.
Also, I am sure you can get somehow fit the octagon into the circle. Even if you have to push hard enough to break it. Then again, that would be me getting stubborn and persistant.