remember the first day of freshman year of college when we were nothing but a name and a dot on the map at the front of the hall?

remember when we did not cry when our parents left us in those rooms too cramped for all of our expectations (and, perhaps, naïveté)?

remember the first time we met and you told me that you were still open, but you were pretty sure you’d declare a major in philosophy or english because you wept the first time you read perks of being a wallflower and we shared a sacred and unquenchable lust for bad science fiction remember how hopeful we were – that this school would allow us to “find ourselves,”  “change the world,” and other slogans we recited from all the view books the ones we stitched to our throats  when they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up

so when you changed your major to econ, so when you pledged that fraternity, so when you replaced t-shirt with j-crew,  so when you accepted that ‘prestigious’ position at an investment bank  and expected me to be proud of you because you were going to ‘dismantle the system from within’ because you were different from ‘them’ i couldn’t help but wonder at what point we become the tucked in shirt, the wallet in pocket, the 9-5 we grew up fearing

you, whose love of learning stuck longer than the stickers your teachers adorned your homework with you, who couldn’t fall asleep after reading marx in debate camp because things finally made sense again you, who came to this university with a spirit unable to be disciplined 

what happened to you? you who sacrificed dream for diploma, revolution for resume, in that factory that produces profit out of potential prophet where change falls from hearts into pockets don’t give a fuck bout teaching you to stop it 'cuz gotta make that endowment rocket!

‘liberal arts college degree’ becomes a fancy way of saying ‘can spend 8 hours designing power point slides’   OR ‘can forget all promises for promotion’ OR 'can quote classic literature at business dinners to seduce the clients'

so what if i told you that they lied to us about what we’d be taught? would you believe me? so what if the best way to dominate a world is to pretend that you are saving it?  so what if this education was really about making you so ignorant that you forgot how to think for yourself? 

you, the twenty something year old idealist gone corporate in your  first suit throwing your theory at a Wall that will swallow you up and spit you back on the Street discharged like the cold hard cash of an ATM machine your heart beat reduced to a series of transactions when you hugged me goodbye i almost expected you to ask me for a receipt: proof of purchase for a friendship you consumed when it made cents for your career trajectory. sorry i did not make the cut for the walking resume you mistake as a body But I want to believe you because I want to believe in the power of a creativity undisciplined: that time we read our first book, saw our first eclipse, saw her smile. The joy and chaos of it all. So what if it’s just chaos?  That space and time before friendship got postponed by deadlines future segregated into interviews and internships

So what if we are really insignificant like the dot on the map from freshman year? Why does it matter?  What if we are nothing? What if that is beautiful?  What if we cried when our parents left us but didn’t tell each other?  What if I am crying because you are leaving me but will not tell you because I do not have the market value  to make you listen that I think you are worth more than any salary increase they will give you, that your mind cannot be transcribed on a spreadsheet of numbers, that I am waiting here for you, broke, but not broken, remembering what you could have done before you sold out.

-alok vaid-menon