If I learned anything Sophomore year, I learned about people.
I’ve been aware of the cacophony emitted by “good” and “bad” people living in the same sphere since my I could walk. I’ve always known sometimes the “good” neutralizes the “bad,” and sometimes it’s just not enough.
But before Sophomore year, I didn’t understand dimensionalism. I simply didn’t have enough faith in my age group to believe anyone actually pondered the big questions: Our deaths. Our lives. The purpose of life if it culminates in death. Passion, what it means to love and be loved, the scary domino effect of our actions — please. Teenagers discussing the definition of progress? Sixteen year olds worrying about things other than social media and SAT scores? I’d have seen my leprechaun in my backyard before verifying that.
Oh, how wrong I was.
The truth is, we’re terrified of all of these things.
Perhaps it doesn’t seem so because of how we deal with them, but that’s because we don’t know how to deal with them. Difficult stories on the news and drama circulating adult lives bang on our eardrums every day and, sometimes, we open the door. When we do, we’re conflicted. We don’t know how to help. What can we do, really? We’re stuck in a phase of our lives where we’re aware of bad happenings but our voices aren’t ripe yet. Most of us aren’t aware of our worth or the quality relationships we could give each other if we really tried.
As we grow, our ignorance crumbles, reality says “Yoo-hoo!,” and our experiences number, making us more adept … but also a little more sad. The glitter of leading an independent lifestyle starts to dull when we realize the responsibilities that’ll weigh us for the rest of our lives. Not only money issues, or school issues, or daddy issues if you will, but world issues. We’re the proprietors of this grand and beautiful mess of a realm and it’s up to us to sustain it. We realize that life’s a damn Spanish bull and it’s about to be provoked.
You guessed it, this is when the profundity starts to kick in.
Not in all of us, but in a meaty portion I’m grateful to have met and formed friendships with.
I had meaningful conversations with many people about everything from pressing world affairs to the consequences of chivalry’s supposed death. People I’d barely met approached me with subjects that left us feeling raw, vulnerable, and refreshingly … human. I met a righteous guy extremely invested in power that melted into a puddle at the voice of his sweet little sister. I saw classmates infamous for “being uptight” break loose on the dance floor, and nearly broke down in tears when 40 zealous students joined the Philosophy club T started.
I realized that innately, we’re all emotionally driven.
The thing that leaves the deepest chasms in our hearts isn’t sadness or anger — it’s the absence of it. It’s the absence of imagination, of hope, of both the fear and prospect of the future. In the grand scheme of things, even eye-rolling teenagers understand that, so we do things to fuel it. Not always the sanest or safest things, but it’s just proof that we want to experience. Desire leads to the divulgence of the unknown, and wanting the truth is hardly ever a feeling to suppress.
Dimension exists in all, though its depth varies with the individual.
I guess it’s just up to us to root out out who lives with meaning, but first, we have to give them a chance. Good people are sparse and hard to find, but when they’re found? They satisfy the stirrings in our souls, only to replace them with more intense ones.
It’s funny how intrapersonal growth flourishes under interpersonal relations.
It’s beautiful.
Thank you all for reading today. If you want to share your views on this, I’m all ears! <3
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