All ye still young enough to believe, still young enough to have that ever terrible emotion of hope, still young enough to look forward to an undefined future, to be ever aware of the eternal possibility of fulfilling the what if’s your lives: read on.

Reality is crushing. It’s a brutal tidal wave that drowns out individuality, it’s a land slide that smothers spontaneity, it’s the gale force wind that smashes your being into fragments.

Graduating is like being hurled into a black abyss. Your life flashes before you, almost tangible, echo’s still present in your bedroom, taunting. The first teenage phase of bouncing off the boundaries not your own, of hatred, passion and rebellion. Then the college phase, growing into your skin, silently screaming, whispering aloud, shouting across a quad and not caring how odd your voice sounds. Closing your eyes and discovering the voice that whispers inside, the voice that defines a ‘you’, a you finally understood. Of screaming out loud your inner being, throwing it out to peers with a bravery you never thought you possessed, being accepted, even successful.
Approaching the end with the last arrogant vestige of youth, facing your question mark of a future and tackling your resume job interview prep like you would write your 7000 word essay which is now a three hour process because you have the formula down pat.

Then realize that corporate life and academia are worlds apart. You struggle, naïve, idealistic, enthusiastic, trying to apply your essay writing formulas and your all nighter skills to getting volume of work done so you can get graded. Then settle in, understand the slow motion lifestyle that everyone works in, understand why work stops at work and should never be bought home, realize that this is not something that will end in a semester or a quarter, this is it, this is going to be happening for as long as the path stretches before you. You understand this is not a 50 meter sprint, it’s a long distance marathon instead, and all your skills, all your motivation, all your formula’s are for the wrong race. You plough on, slowly steadily, running, running, running.
You’re tired, crushed under the monotony and the repetition, the politics and the blue smoke exhumed by carcinogenic lungs.
You look up one day, and realize that the collar that chafed is unnoticeable. That the invisible shackles you forgot about are still binding you to your ankle chains.
You try to rebel, but its too late. You’re all alone, you’ve been assimilated into a faceless entity that is an adult, your life has ended and society has taken over.

And you’re too tired to care.

All you can do is write your mediocre blog, in memory of the what ifs you could have had, of the what ifs you could have been.