Perhaps it’s the time of year when midterms make me introspectively moody, but my outlook has been blue recently. Especially as I navigate the Arctic tundra and gaze upon the undulating ocean of blue Canada Goose jackets occupying College Hill this winter, with the fur hood trims flapping like whitecaps off breaking waves; I sometimes find myself awash in a sea of sameness.
Not that I feel loneliness or socially isolated, but somehow this materialistic homogeny registered something in my head that’s been gnawing at my conscience. As my time at Brown nears the final lap, I feel Brunonia’s enveloping aura slowly unraveling as the reality of the greater world comes into frame. I am not one to experience an existential conundrum, but it’s an uncomfortable realization when the happy bubble starts to noticeably shrink away, allowing the once-ignored whispers of “what happens next?” to break in and grow into audible provocations. As I write this looking down from the top of Sayles Hall at the bobbing blue sea, I worry the coping mechanism to this mounting phenomena is conformity.
In a recent focus group meeting, some fellow students and I were asked what was the best thing about Brown. Each person produced a response that contributed to the framework of what we endearingly call the “Brown Experience.” For me, the preeminent aspect of Brown is the constant opportunity of discovery. I could not think of a better place that instills the importance of exploration and individualism to create a climate where the possibility of real discovery is a reality.
Unfortunately, it is an isolated one. Beyond the nurturing walls of Brown is a different reality that is built on the pervasive convention of expected conformity. At Brown, we use our intellectual curiosity in one hand and our desire to change the world in the other as tools to create the platform for meaningful existence. But as we get older and supposedly wiser, we slowly wake up from the dream and mentally brace for the coming storm of conventional expectations. The pressures of career, establishment and other preoccupations of once-unworldly adulthood take root inside our heads. Our little insular city upon the hill can no longer hold back the frustrating truths of what is expected of us.
We fight so hard against the labels of “generic,” “expected” and “normal” during our time here. We arrive at Brown only on the verge of understanding our inherent uniqueness and untapped capabilities. We distinctively percolate in this culture of dreamy abstraction, growing in person and shaping in mind while we soak in Brown’s infinite pool of possibility. But what concerns me is that as the semesters pass, people allow their possibilities to become unwantedly coupled and degraded by repressive pragmatism. “What can I do?” is replaced by “what should I do?”
As life beyond Brown materializes, the battle for our unique path appears to be lost for the sake of convenience and known security. Shipping off to consulting and finance careers, grappling with the limitations of academic discovery while tackling pre-professional curricular tracks, considering yourself in marketable terms is rough for a curious mind that wants to keep living in the dream world. With a flip of a switch, the pool becomes flooded by the incoming tides of the sea of sameness roaring in from the real world.
It saddens me when I see my friends and peers, once starry-eyed with the excitement of the infinite choices before them, schlep to interviews for jobs they could not care less about or wallow in coursework that does nothing for their mental exhalation. We tell ourselves that persevering through these undesired obstacles will put us on the right path to achieve our aspirations. But the right path according to whom or what?
Of course, what person would not want to do what is best for him or her to achieve success, or his or her definition of success? And often times it requires following an established route, where taking in a place, holding position or mustering through the early core curricular program in graduate school is an expected part of the long-term process. But when we take these first steps, we cannot forget what Brown has allowed us to become: individuals.
The paradigm of conformity punishes those who want their life to always have a springboard into the pool of life’s possibilities, not a linear rocket launch into a fixed trajectory of boom or bust. Jumping into the sea of sameness is easy. But when we enter new careers and prepare to jump, we forget what college taught us and what Brown is about: infinite possibility. As the sea of sameness continues to rise, I hope the Brown aesthetic will keep me afloat and someday help me transform it into my pool of possibilities. As John Lennon once sang, “maybe I’m a dreamer, but I hope I’m not the only one.”
Feel free to share your thoughts with Reid Secondo ’16 at reid_secondo@brown.edu
