“Growing Up”

Its alarming, what two years could do to you.

You ever get a hit of nostalgia when you come across something and then suddenly you cant stop the onslaught of memories. You brace yourself for the train of thought and eventually the shock/amazement/quiet acceptance about how different things are now.

Well, college is full of epiphanies like that and I had my own, recently. I was talking to a junior of mine and I was telling him what to look out for, and things I wish I had known in my first year. Did I finish the conversation and get on with my life? Of course I didn’t. I decided to spend the next few hours reading my journal entries from back then.

Now, nostalgia is a bitch. It makes things seem more beautiful than they were but there is something I can’t deny.

I have become more bitter,cynical, misanthropic, exhausted and resigned than I was, when I finished school. Don’t get me wrong, I have met some amazing people and life’s been good to me. I’ve just grudgingly conceded to what I had to. See, your college life is like a petri dish for social paradigms. It will show you the kind of people and the mindsets that you have to live with, once you get out there as an adult. You are not going to like it, but we aren’t aiming for cheerful acceptance, we’d be perfectly happy with resigned acknowledgement.

You will realize that life isn’t fair and that there are things which you can’t change.You will realize that almost everything you see is a charade and people aren’t really the best species. Yes, if you don’t come to hate humanity at some point of time, you haven’t grown up, sweetheart. You will slowly lose interest in everything around you until ‘screw it’ becomes your solution to everything and you find yourself sitting in your bed, wide awake at 2 in the morning, wondering what you’re doing with your life.

Maybe that’s just engineering students. Or maybe just me. I alternate between ‘meh’ and existential crises.

Now I’m sure there are people who are ceaselessly enthusiastic and tirelessly loving despite the drudgery of the humankind. In my defence, not everyone has that kind of patience lying around, do we?

Do I have the perfect worldview? Probably not.

Is it realistic, though? Hell yeah.

There you go, I’m all “grown up”!

Originally published at aparnashridharan.wordpress.com on October 3, 2016.