Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Formula

You know, whenever I'm home, I almost always feel like an underachiever.

My ex-boyfriend is travelling the globe to compete in canoing competitions. He just got back from Vancouver. He's pursuing an Aeoronautical engineering degree at UC San Diego.

My best friend is currently coordinating and directing her own summer camp to teach kids the value of creativity. She is attending Stanford (major undecided)

My close friend is making a series of fashion music videos and is designing her own fashion collection to show at three shows in the Bay Area next year. She is pursuing a chemical engineering degree at UC Berkeley.

My art friend is making two 5-minute animations: one completely drawn by hand, the other completely done in Maya (3D models) in preparation for when he applies to work PIXAR in a few years. He is incorporating self composed music and voice acting. He goes to SAIC.

I've always wanted to be different and explore my abilities and the world.
I want to do something daring, and out of the ordinary. But at this point, I'm just plain...I'm in the school band, I play video games, I do martial arts, I play badminton, I have an internship... I do everything that is ordinary and organized. And I've always felt like a reason for that is I was always told I should be organized and businesslike to be a success, but the older I get the more real it becomes to me that that isn't the only way to success.

I saw a movie last night called "Acceptance" about how everyone is stuck in the "birth, school, college, job, kids, retire" formula.

Does anyone else feel like their skills are being contained because of this need for our society to follow that mold?

So my main question to you is:

If your parents were cool with whatever you did, and you could do anything with your life, what would you do and why? And if you couldn't think of anything, do you think it's because you have been brainwashed or do you really support this formulaic way to life?

I personally would join Drum and Bugle Corps International.
I'd make my own fashion and mask line and make my own website to promote it.
I'd start my own ska band and compose music, and maybe even try to become a pop star in LA.
I'd travel around the world for inspiration and just to see and soak in all the other cultures in the world.
I'd also move to San Francisco or New York City, or even Berlin!
And of course...
I'd make Jeremy Chen (MVHS) and Madeleine Robson (CMU) design a house modeled after buildings seen in Zelda and continue to collect random Zelda trinkets :D

Maybe I can just be one of those Silicon Valley stars that makes tons of money before they are 35 and then retire early and do most of those things :) There's still hope!

4 comments:

  1. Travel, take art classes, INTENSE ones, where I'm not the person the teacher uses as an example for the other students. X_X I never learned anything in those classes. Travel to italy to take this Renaissance-style painting class I heard about once.

    Travel in general and eat tons of food. Learn how to cook as much of it as possible. Take cooking classes!

    Also I'd still probably want to go to college and get a degree in something, but if I had the time to do so I'd probably take it at a much slower pace. I'd probably also try to take as many crazy interesting classes as possible since having unlimited time would mean I could schedule whatever I wanted and take years to do this.

    I'd also play around with fashion design and music stuff too, but more of a just for fun thing than having any real goal.

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  2. Really really, I think I would at least major in a bunch of foreign languages and translate at the UN for a while. I'm not sure if my not doing this is a limitation from my parents, but actually a societal limitation, so, aah. The ideal job, though, would be Stephen Colbert's: TV show host, so you can influence a bunch of people and have them know you, and /then/ do a billion crazy things, like learn how to luge from the U.S. Olympic team, train to be an astronaut, do crazy things!

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  3. Yeah!

    I think being a CIA agent would be cool too.

    You have to be smart, cunning, and brave!

    One of my many dreams as a child was to be an FBI agent...partly because I thought Mulder and Scully kicked ass.

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  4. Shit, I wish I knew people like that O_O. Although it would probably make me feel incredibly inferior XP.

    I don't know, I've never really had big dreams in life =_=.

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