Thoughts #2: Physics, Writing, and Stuff
Tuesday, October 1st, 2024.
It was a usual walk in the hallway from my class to the parking lot when my eyes caught the figure of someone familiar, studying in a classroom. It's him. A kid from my 8th grade class. I looked at him. The physics prodigy of our class in 8th grade, or at least that's what people say. His eyes reveal the swirls of passion he has for the subject, I can see it. And for a second, I feel an old, familiar ache somewhere in my heart.
We're the same. We both have this deep passion for a very meaningful subject to us. He likes physics. I like writing and filmmaking. I would do anything to be able to pursue a career out of it, and I'm sure he would too. After all, if you could pursue a career out of a subject that made you feel like even ten classes of it aren't enough, why not?
But even if we could, I fear we will have different futures. He will make a name for himself; a bright young scientist with life-changing innovations and discoveries. A job that pays. A job that could give him a reliable salary that could actually feed him. While I worry I won't. A filmmaker? A writer? They're not the job that could give me a living. They're the job that would make me come home late at night, still wondering how to pay my rent with my belly still empty. They're the job that other parents would introduce it to their kid as a job that's not "real" and if I do become a writer, they will use me as a bad example of how bad life could become if you pick the wrong career.
Sometimes I wish I could be him. He's passionate about things that he could make a living out of it. Things that matter. He's not going to be a failure to his parents; instead, he will make them happy, and proud even. He too would be happy. Me? I'm going to be the "artist" of the family line. The one that pursues a career of something that isn't real and will end up as the butt of the jokes of every family dinner. The one that talks and writes about things that don't make any sense. The one that dreams big, but somehow got lost in the shadows of thing that never mattered.
Should I stay true to my heart, or should I pursue a "real" job and suffer my whole life?
And it really doesn't change anything even if I wrote it out like this. I'll still be good in things that doesn't matter. Maybe I am designed to be the cautionary tale character whose life is a book of tragedies and almost-fulfilled dreams. In summary, capitalism sucks.
Night Shift - Lucy Dacus
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