Give In To It To Make A Difference

It turns out I sort of double-lied about the blog; I said I'd do it, and didn't, then I said I was setting it aside for a while and I started working on it. Basically, I finally have figured out how I'm going to design the layout [don't worry, I'm getting rid of the blue] and although I did start making it, I'm going to end up scrapping it and starting over because it still wasn't quite right. Still, I'm well on my way.

But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about my life, and it's important in a way that nothing on this blog ever has been before, because it involves a fairly big decision that may very well upset some people.

Over the last year I've become completely apathetic towards college. I don't even know why I'm here anymore. The only classes that I feel any kind of passion towards are one credit extra-cirricular things (band, broadcasting, etc.) that ultimately don't matter at all to a degree. I don't care about all the extra classes you need to take to graduate, I don't care about the extra classes in every major program, and most importantly of all, I don't care about the degree.

I tell everyone that I'm going to school to study music, creative writing, and computer science. But think about it--nobody in the music industry cares if you have a degree. Most fiction publishers make their decisions based on the story, not the background of the author [this is different of course in journalistic careers, which I never ruled out, but likely were not going to be my career path anyway]. And every manual you'll ever need to learn to program is on the internet if you know where to look.

So at this point I have two choices: I can stay here, and keep feeling like everything I'm doing is completely useless--or I can leave.

I haven't made any final decisions yet but I'm almost positive now that I'm going to take a year [at least] off from college. If I'm going to get anything out of this, I have to want to be here and right now I'm just not at that point in my life. The more I thought about, the more I realized I never wanted to go to any particular college to begin with. I just went because that's what was expected of me. Because I was in the top percentage of my class, because I was smart, because I'd be wasting my life if I wasn't out getting a professional education.

I went to Knox because I wanted to get the hell out of Wisconsin. And I came to UW-L because I wanted to live in La Crosse. And I stayed in the same rotation of summer break and class that I've been in since kindergarten because it was expected of me.

My parents are probably the people who will have the biggest issue with this. My parents also, from time to time, read this blog, and while it may not be the best way this is how I plan for them to find out. And to them I apologize, for all the money they've stuck into colleges, and for ruining their image of their bright young son who in reality stopped caring halfway through high school.

I want to find a passion, and I want to live it. If it takes me back to school, that's awesome, and if it doesn't, that's fine too. The other night I helped Nick move out of his apartment to get away from his roommate. Nick's been trying to get clean and get his life together. His roommate was too, for a while, but recently had a total relapse and he made the apartment a pretty bad place to be for someone who needs to get away from all that. Anyway, we've been talking a lot lately about addiction and hypocrisy, and how people make so many excuses, and if you want to do something, just do it.

There's a certain point you reach in life where it's really just too late. You're stuck where you are and whatever chances you might have been able to have, it's too late, you missed. The thing is, I'm not there yet. I'm still young [and yes, I realize that most people my age also don't know what the hell they're doing] and there's still plenty of time. Even if this whole thing ends up to be a total cataclysmic failure, at least I'll have taken the chance, and at least I'll be young enough to bounce back.

I think I could keep going on and on and on but I'm afraid I'm going to start repeating myself. And I hate sounding serious for this length of time anyway. You all know that I don't get dramatic but it's hard for this to come across any other way.

I realized today that there's a fundamental flaw in the question everyone asks. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" (Two, if you count being grown up as a totally incalculatable and ridiculous time period.) It's the word want. They should be asking what we will be because otherwise it just doesn't seem real. Throughout high school we were told over an over to be ourselves but they never bothered to explain what that meant. (On a related note, google narcissism and college for more on how being told we're all special has screwed up our generation.)

I am very interested to see what kind of comments I get on this.