Only those who’ve gone to the same school for sixteen years straight will get this. Each segment of education, i.e. grade school, high school, and college, it’s hammered into you that each level prepares you for the next, until you’re eventually prepared for the ‘big world’. Grade school prepares you for high school, high school prepares you for college, and so on. And near the end of each, you’re reminded, whether as motivation or consolation, that the preparation, as hard as it presently is, will never be enough.
We had a college student, once, come over and share with us his experience of college, having, himself, been a true blue. He told us that the tight deadlines, difficult math problems (he was from ME, the quintessential statement of overachievement), and over zealous religious prefects, could hardly prepare us for the monumental challenges of college. I couldn’t disagree more when I eventually got to college. And the cycle repeated itself as many employed alumni had returned to the alma mater with stories of the world Down from the Hill. Yet again, we were told what we had now wasn’t enough; that we were pampered by anyone’s standards. Cynical from the repetitive and hard sell cycle, I learned to shove it into the back of my mind, preferring instead, to believe that I was fortunate to be here.
It wasn’t so much the lack of preparation, perhaps that struck me, but the wrong kind. The school, being the pinnacle of morals that it is, had neglected to inform us that the strong disciplinary measures imposed on us for all 16 years would be absent once we left.
We were taught to make a difference. That these morals we grew by would be the foundations of a better future. Call it egotistism, messianic complex or what have you. You’d be kinder had you gone through this masturbation of an education yourself.
At first you’d blame your alma mater, your immediate environment, and perhaps your cursed sheltered upbringing. Your failure to grasp the sheer chaos around you slows you down. You need time to take it in, perhaps even more to absorb the fact that it’s just not fair. You envy those that have had it harder than you, already immune to what is still striking you as shocking. You don’t know how to operate in a world that doesn’t appreciate hard work, much less honesty and truth. Perhaps in time, you will forget the little bubble that you once viewed as home, will tear away the walls that once skewed the periphery into a perfect world. With a little experience, you will eventually learn to cope with how everything really looks, feels, and operates. It’s not pretty, but you don’t have much of a choice. And soon you’ll look back with nostalgia at simpler and more ignorantly blissful times.
It’s not like the school could have prepared you for it if it wanted to. Lord knows what the parents would think, let alone the religious figures that have chosen the vocation which your parents are only too eager to patronize. After all, with such a prestigious education, you’d be well equipped to face the harsh reality that awaits outside the towering steel gates. Many of us are still mesmerized by romantic images of turning swords into plowshares, of the pen being mightier than the sword.
I’m still thankful for those times I was thrown headlong into what used to fear. I still carry those lessons with me up until now; the tears more than the reassuring words, the pain, more than the explanation behind it. It’s so much being thankful for what you presently have, but for seeing what’s real without the obstructions. You’d forgive them for aspiring to be blinded.
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