The Elements of You
“Finding my purpose or having some grasp of it not only allowed me to answer the prompt, but have that control, that independence I wanted for so long. And, it honestly feels good. Like a calming rain after the hot sun.”
Questions. Questions. Questions. A question is defined as a sentence formed to elicit information. We ask it. We hear it. But could we decipher it all? I asked this as I sat in the same seat I remember sitting in from 2021. In the production room, the home of The Python Post, Kelly’s preaching ground and my favorite spot. As with every student it starts with opening the laptop, hoping that you won’t have to spam the power button for it to finally turn on.
The flash of the screen, the illuminated keys, and now you’re on.
I’m pressured by the future to work on college work, that being filling out a scholarship application.
As I mentioned previously, in life we experience so many questions in many shapes and forms. It runs the world and keeps the curious, curious. Sometimes in life we’re graced with the privilege to dismiss questions or just not answer it at all. While opening this scholarship application, I was hit with a question I couldn’t dodge nor dismiss. It's the type of question that keeps you awake at night. Almost like an existential question, the “who am I” and “what I’ll do” questions. Something you can’t swat nor escape from, like taxes or like a chore from your mom, telling you to take the meat out the freezer. You know that's something that must be done, no cannot simply be the answer.
For whatever reason I believed that this question would require little pondering, but a pondering I thought would last a few minutes lasted the whole class period. The voice of Kelly echoed behind me, announcing that it's time to transition. “2 minutes to pack up, get out! Get out,” he said humorously.
There goes my pocket, my chance to freestyle. Gone because of a single question. But this is not the end of my fight.
I waited till afterschool to take on this question. Spending most of my time pondering and pondering onwards and onwards. The long boring walk home was more interesting than usual. The silence that would usually deafen my ears are now filled with voices of me thinking about an answer to this question. But still to no avail. I could feel time melt in front of me. Trees move, adapting to the changing weather. And the sun passing by like a flick of a switch.
“What if I’m thinking of this question a little too broadly?” I said. “What if I just dug deep?''
At first it's hard to find anything interesting when you’re asked at the spot. Let alone answering a question that wanted you to have some clue about your purpose or attempts you’ve taken to find it. It's almost like a weird question, something not asked commonly by people. An unfair question, as if they knew it's a hard question to answer. Especially for a teenager, who is at the precipice of only experiencing life.
I became conflicted, asking if the money is really worth this struggle. “Do I really need to answer this question?” I asked. There are definitely other scholarships that don’t ask questions that pick into me like this one. But, what if other scholarships do have these questions, or worse – elements similar to this question? It was an inevitable question, someone will eventually ask me this in life.
“Fuck it,” I said eagerly. “The hard work I do now will help me later on in the future.”
This question wanted to know my purpose or what attempts I made towards finding it. Honestly speaking, if you were asked to explain your purpose in this world today, right now, here – would you? Or would you at least try to say words that are expected. Desirable sentences like, “My purpose in life is to make others happy and positively change the world.” Yeah, that is what we all want to hear, but would that really be done? Try asking a random person their purpose or intentions in life, you would hear how they panic to form a sentence or say what we all desire in life for one person to do. Lies and fabrication. In other words, people really be cappin.
Now, it's okay to say “I don’t know” or “I’m still finding it”, but to say something we want to hear is another. Don’t feed yourself lies to feel better inside. But truthfully speaking, this is the path people take to not feel judged or picked on for their honesty. Like I said before, to ask for one's purpose is an unfair question. We spend so much of our time attempting to achieve the American dream or sitting on six figures. We don’t have time to answer existential questions or truly understand our rationale behind the things we do. We only do what we think is good and expected, not a chance for us to really unwind and take a left here and there. So yes, I must admit at first that I too wanted to answer this question with what was expected. But while reading my response, it felt so generated and fixed. It doesn’t feel authentic, nor does it feel like ME.
So I decided to spill that tea, drop the vase, and show what's organic and not processed.
I said how it was difficult to answer this question and dove deep into cuts that make me who I am.
I started by typing this.
Piece one:
At a young age I was told that for one to find their purpose they must live life as if they're looking through a telescope. Since it would focus on the important things in life and ignore the irrelevant. For some time I believed this saying, wearing it around my head like a beanie and using it all the time. But, I end up feeling empty and shattered at every step I make towards what may seem my purpose.
I would ask questions like, my purpose in life is to be looking for one, or if I should be living it my own way.
While writing this I felt different than the previous fixed response, I felt as if my heart bled. Not bleeding for the wrong reasons, but bleeding for the truth. I felt a small breeze and euphoria, which wrapped my bleeding heart. Controlling the blood.
The warm calm flow of my blood and the blush of hope, fertilized the soil for my truth to be bloomed.
My blood became my paint and the paper my canvas.
I painted in the peace that bestowed upon myself and pondered on my next steps in this response.
The unreal waves of emotion, the steady breaths I would take, and the moments of stress. Good Stress.
I remembered every moment I had to stop writing to go to school. Paying attention to the usuals that would go around me. The screech of the iron rail that the 6 train would go over. The marmalade shine that would enter the train as the train went past Hunts Point onwards to Elder Avenue. The cold winds of the morning and warm ones of noon. It was of course living the same cycle, but different. It was, like in my writing, a chance for me to live life without this telescope and gaze upon the mass.
I ended up writing how this telescope blinded me for a huge portion of my life and highschool. And, how I was able to find liberty or a sense of independence when I abandoned this telescope. I talked about how I spent my time reliving life again, and finding my path through the traffic. Finishing the response with this:
As I sit down in the mahogany-lit room where the tic’s of the clock drowns out the world around me, I still see that telescope shining in the distance, but now collecting dust. Losing the influence it once had on me and slowly fading away into my memory. It's like looking into a mirror, but that mirror only reflects you as a youth blinded by the perceptions you believed would guarantee you a good life. You laugh or maybe cringe at the decisions you’ve made before now that you discovered your own perception, your truth. What was before a violent tsunami is now a calm wave washing against your temple. Sometimes your feet get wet but you’ll still smile, since you're not fully submerged like before. A unique reflection in the sunlight, where I learned that in life you don’t chase your purpose, you let it slowly bloom with the right environment.
I could finally say the word “finally” and have the lovely sigh of relief I longed for. Though the race was over, I knew the marathon continued and this was only a pit stop. I still return to my ordinary life, but with a sense of conviction and a different perception of the world around me. It's the same run as usual, but on a different track. That different track being my purpose. Finding my purpose or having some grasp of it not only allowed me to answer the prompt, but have that control, that independence I wanted for so long. And, it honestly feels good. Like a calming rain after the hot sun. Sensationally, cooling you down after facing the vicious rays of the sun.
In life we face many challenges and waves of adversity that stray us away from understanding ourselves. This side effect causes many of us to move throughout life senseless or blind. Only consuming what is told in order to prevent the waves of adversity from reoccurring or to avoid the difficult challenges. In other words, achieving the “Good Life”. We’re told Pain is bad and Pleasure is good and that we should entirely avoid what's painful to us. Which is true. But, you can’t spend all your time just experiencing pleasure while living life blind. It is pain that makes us feel the way we feel. It is pain that stimulates our motivations. But my argument is not to say pain is what we should now focus on, that's odd. My argument is there's a reason why things happen. Everything requires a growth period, a reflection, something to learn from. The real question we should ask ourselves is how we get closer to understanding ourselves, rather than feeding ourselves with what we believe is good.