One of the best parts of University was my late-morning walks across campus to class. Headphones in, music on, observing the world. I couldn’t be happier.
Something I found myself noticing quite often was how weird everyone in university looked. No longer was I walking through the high-school hallways seeing puck bunnies, hockey kids, magic kids, improv stars or sketchy kids everywhere I walked.
I didn’t know if the people had really changed or if my worldly perceptions had just shifted and matured.
Either way, it was uncomfortable. Not because I liked the dehumanizing facade I previously placed over my fellow schoolmates, but because everyone was beginning to look the same.
Instead of childish clichés, I was seeing foggy renditions of what used to be striking individuals.
I used to love looking at people in my high school and picturing their reality. Sometimes I was deeply saddened by the realities I saw and other times I could literally feel the joy and passion pouring out of the kids’ hearts.
I saw boys who had a true passion for hockey or basketball and girls who had a true passion for getting attention from the boys.
I saw kids running full-speed down the hallways, their imaginations running wilder than the characters in their video games.
I saw shape-shifters, boys and girls who had an amazing talent to quite literally turn themselves into someone else, even just for a few minutes of stage-time in the theatre.
I saw personality. It ran like wildfire, lighting up the classrooms and hallways and sparking when it collides with a disliked rival.
The people I see walking around campus now are overworked, under appreciated and far too burnt out for my liking.
I see the charred remains of what societal expectations have turned personality into.
Kids sit all around me, pinned down by the suffocating pressure of their burnt out individuality.
They’re too distracted by the lofty desire and need to succeed to notice the fact that they can barely breathe through the thick smoke of their smouldering personalities.
But if we don’t see personality, individuality or imagination in each other any more, if we don’t see wildfire in the eyes of our classmates, then are we really succeeding?
