Live, Love, Laugh. C’est le vie, make every day count. These are the mantras that I aspire to abide by. To put it very bluntly, I haven’t been a ‘live your life to the fullest’ kind of person. The authenticity of being has been on my priority list, but that’s about the only attention it gets. Any milestone event- like entering a new college year or birthdays, and even New Year evoke an unpleasant feeling. It’s a dreadful realisation of having wasted another year. Its human tendency to measure one’s life in ages. At a certain age you need to be a certain way and accomplish certain things in your life. These expecations may be set by the society or by one’s ownself. The concept of 20s comes with strings attached. Some are real, some are inspired by pop culture depictions.
Online college had me yearning for the “college life” that I had been missing out on. What really is having a “college life” though? Is it about going for fests, concerts, house parties? Is it finding a super adventrous friend circle who would go places with you? Is it being a college society butterfly? Is it about building relationships and having heartbreaks? Is it about challenging the system and questioning all sorts of exploitations? Is the idea of college life like a rom-com musical where you’re the main character? One thing that all these categories point at is having a publicly active life. My mum say’s that being in college is about breaking out of your cocoon and soaring high like a buttterfly. The only thing soaring out of me are contradictions of making my college life count. But how to make your youth worthwhile when so many possibilities are pulling you from all directions ?
Varrying zeitgist have inspired youth personalities and movements from time to time. During the Indian national movement, people our age were leading politically active lives. Eat, mobilise, protest, get arrested, repeat; this was possibly their regime. They were well read and wrote revolutionary words that continue to be relevant. USA in the 50s, saw 20 year olds abandoning normative doctrines of good life for poetry and psychedelic living. The challenge to capitalism came from their core as they formed collectives based on their philosophy. In a similar fashion, hippies of 60s lived upto their ideals.These youngsters were truly driven by their truth.
In our culture it is acceptable for a person to turn 18, but still act like a child. In other words, under ordinary circumstances, adulting is not really expected out of you. Being an adult comprises among other things, knowning what you want from life. Ironically many college students, despite being legally adults, don’t know what they want from one moment to the next. However, teenagers from time and again have become real adults by 18. Muhammad Bin Qasim commanded his army in the conquest of Sindh, only when he was a teenager. There are many examples from pop industry like Billie Eillish, BTS members, Clairo who have actualized their dream careers. So, being and adult as soon as possible is not impossible.
Lifestyle and gallery dump reels showing youngsters doing productive as well as fun things may have pedestalized the fuller life. Someone once told me that college is about finding a balance between everything. A good schedule and focused mind can find the balance. The key is not getting too overwhelmed by one part of life, thereby not comprising on others.
The ultimate question is- what should I be spending my youth on? And while I have a rough answer, in my day to day choices the answer gets lost as I ruminate on unresolved questions of some previous time. Being young and twenty is about finding the unity between your real and pretentious self.