The first time I felt void of meaning was in my bedroom, hidden somewhere between the third and 86th pages of my sloppily written stanzas. For a second, my reflection in the deathly glow of my Mac split who I was and who I was trying to be. A blank document that had brimmed with possibility was now filled but shapeless; I was a writer with nothing to say.
In the midst of that emptiness, I was drawn to an almost mind-numbing search for purpose. I found myself addicted to videos of students reacting to their college acceptances. And by addicted, I mean the watch-it-while-brushing-my-teeth-and-heating-up-my-lunch addicted.
All these students set themselves apart, whether that be with an exceptional SAT score, a national award or a particular extracurricular activity that proved they had what it took to change the world. In return, they received an unspoken sense of difference bestowed upon them by a college webpage with a green check instead of a red “x.” That trademark headrush and accelerated heart rate, accompanied by a yelling parent’s embrace, meant those 18-year-olds held the world in steady hands, the future elastic at their fingertips.
They were different. I felt anything but.
So, seventh-grade me did the only logical thing I could think of. I capitalized on my interest in writing to crank out a 90-page poetry book filled with some of the most convoluted, tempo-less garbage you can imagine. The plan was to make a book, send it to publishers and have my claim to fame as a college applicant five years down the line. It seemed bulletproof... to a 13-year-old. Yet after an entire summer of hastily sitting down for an hour a day to write, I felt almost as empty as I had when I first glanced at my empty Google document in early June.
The creeping, superficial feeling of creating for someone other than myself, solely to show others that I deserved acceptance, was an unexpected byproduct of wasting my summer on a project that never saw the light of day. For five years, that document sat dormant, waiting for the next time I would be curious (or nostalgic) enough to look back at it.
This summer, after what can only be described as a rollercoaster of a college application season, I sat down with my old writing. I tried to make sense of who I was and who I am becoming. In an endless pursuit of performative excellence, I had lost the genuine kid who loved to write. I had lost what had made my voice mine. In my search to find differences, I had only fit to the norm in that much more.
As college students, many of us feel the need to demonstrate our talents — not to be unique, but to show others that we belong. That we deserved the green check and that we are worthy of being here. Too many of our experiences are based on the need to show, not the need to do.
So, this semester, think about whether this is really what you want. If you really want to join pre-med society, Mock Trial and SGA all while balancing 18 credits a semester, go you. But maybe you’re content playing ping-pong once a week in the basement of AMR 3. Or you might just want a column in The News-Letter to talk about your life. Just don’t let performative excellence trump what it means to be authentic at the expense of your brief, singular time at Hopkins.
As I arrived on campus for the first time during orientation week, I began to rediscover my enthusiasm for the craft I once loved. Not out of demonstration, but because of the need to fill a page with words that felt a little more like home. Here, Charm City’s brightest minds fill the bustling city streets with a familial light blue, an omnipresent reminder of my greatest blessing and how far I have come.
In writing, I am trying to make sense of my new life here at Hopkins. That’s why my column is called Looking up at Water, an homage to the planned title of my never-before-seen poetry collection. That name is fulfilling not because it means something to others, but because it means something to me. I’d like to think it’s also for the 13-year-old kid who missed his voice.
I’m starting again — this time, writing the beginning of the story I want to tell.
Bryce Leiberman is a freshman from Madison, Conn. studying Political Science and Philosophy. His column records a search for authenticity exploring the past, present and restless work of becoming oneself.
