We have about 80 years to live, and about one-third of that we spend unconscious. And I don’t mean because of an accumulation of hard nights at Midtown. Throw in work, education, eating, daily household and personal hygiene chores, and the roughly five years everyone spends in a line of some sort just waiting for something like a red light to turn green.
Unlike Dorian Gray, we have no portrait of immortality, so why do we allow ourselves to live within our own “Truman” shows? Because our society glamorizes the standard.
I turn on the TV. Hmm. It’s HGTV. For the fourth time in two hours, “House Hunters” is on. It’s an entire show about normal people buying houses in a particularly unexciting way. Great. *Click*
MTV, “The Real World,” season – I don’t know – 241. So, 20 people in an unreasonably luxurious house are living there … I’m waiting for an actual plot … any reason to actually continue watching this show …
*Click*
Lindsay Lohan is in jail, again, and, for some reason, this dominates every news channel. And for some reason they want our opinions on the situation via Twitter.
*CLICK*
Sure, that’s just television. But what does society consider a fulfilled life? Well, you go to school to get a job, and then you get a job to pay for school. Then you work until you can afford to not have to worry about anything, just like life was before school. It sounds cruel, but this is the necessary cycle of life in modern society.
Stay with me, I am certainly not advocating people quit their jobs and drop out of school. In fact, one of society’s major problems is that we allow people to simply throw their hands up and quit the cycle, and then we allow them to live off of everyone else for free in the form of government entitlements. Instead, we as a society should be advocating individual greatness.
Where is the cultivation of greatness and competition? When do we start to refocus on living life uniquely, independently and creatively? Why do we allow ourselves to conform to stereotypes so easily?
I’m a frat guy who doesn’t own a polo shirt. I like that. I’m a Republican who enjoys indie music and concerts. I like that, too. But I want more than to just break stereotypes. I want to make this one shot at life everything it is potentially capable of being. And as much as I desire this, I also like to encourage this in others.
I don’t want the occasional dinner at Bennigan’s with friends who grow farther apart the older I get. I want Great Gatsby parties and dialogues worthy of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
I don’t want to live in the suburban house with hardwood floors and granite counter tops. I want to live in a castle with a secret bookcase and a conservatory.
I am not talking about being rich. I am talking about being different – not for the sake of being different but for the sake of the inherent fact that we are all different. Yet we allow each other to set our own standards of living and normalcy.
That’s simply how I define my “greatness.” It is worth it to ask yourself what constitutes yours.
Don’t let life go by you without throwing in a jab. Some cannot appreciate serendipity; but it deserves more legitimacy than it is currently given.
Everyone I spoke to about this summer’s big blockbuster, “Inception,” loved it, especially because the concept of constructing a unique world as one chooses is broadly appealing. Well, why do we have to be dreaming to make the world our own?
On a note of encouragement, a simple message: It doesn’t have to be black and white; paint the roses whatever color you like.
Bryan Griffin is a first-year law student.
