Different

One way that I have always defined myself is by being different. By thinking differently, feeling differently, and living differently, I've been able to separate myself from a lot of things that I don't agree with and don't want to be. It also helped me to succeed - despite my almost reflexive dislike for homogeneity, my ability to think differently allowed me to get ahead of people who were otherwise just like me in terms of social background, beliefs and customs.

Yet here I find myself without that shelf to rise above - there is no blatant common ground against the people who are now my peers. I love it so much more than wondering what else life has to offer, as I spent most of last year doing. But here it's harder to set myself apart. When there is such a wide range of thought patterns and backgrounds, my advantage of "thinking differently" has faded. It's a good thing, really, and I don't mean that I'm any more disadvantaged than I used to be. Here, though, I find people who can compete with me better than a lot of people in my past could - not just academically, but creatively too. For once in my life, I really feel that it's an even playing field, and I'm finally OK with being just like everyone else because it means that I don't have to be any one thing in particular.

Let me just say, before I go on, that I'm not trying to brag. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal, to flaunt the fact that I'm good at what a most people consider to be painful and a means to an end. This is just how my life has been, all facts presented.

This change in my advantages warrants a change in my outlook on life. I never had to fight that hard against competition because usually there wasn't much - I still loathe the idea of life being a rat race with only a few winners. But now I'm motivated to take myself where I want to be, and I realize that I will have to work harder on it from now on. Maybe it's different for us, the people who are sure they're going to medical school, because in a way this is just high school all over again - only instead of impressing colleges, we're living to impress med schools. My point, though, is that things are different. I could afford to be lazy before, because literally, as long as I read the book and/or went to class, I'd do better than 80% of the rest of the class. But finally it's not that easy anymore. Finally it IS a competition, finally I have to apply myself to rise to my capabilities. It's for me now - my success won't give me bragging rights, but it will matter only to my life in the long run. It's refreshing to know that this is all for me. If I want to do better than the rest, it's because I know that I can, and selling myself short will get me nowhere fast.

I've been bored for so much of my life. Suddenly, I now feel practically incompetent - the challenges presented are things that I've never seen before. No one is here to walk me through it, or to watch me plow through it when they expected me to crawl. I have to do it for myself, and as hard as it is, it's such a good feeling. If I can give myself the chance to to my best, I can feel truly achieved to be just as good as the people who are now trying to wear me down.

Maybe this doesn't make sense to anyone outside my head, anyone who thinks that I shelter myself by caring so much about education. It probably just seems that I have a craving to be the best, but what I'm trying to say is that it's not a simple competitive drive. This matters to me. Something finally matters enough again, to make me want to change myself to be better. Sure, there are so many things I still have to long for, but finally, I care.

Another Life

Third Eye Blind

People’s eyes say I’m no damn good
Shook down and left lonely
Only with the maybe we could
I stay inside cause I’m misunderstood
I can’t get no release

I’m shell shocked from some heavy blows
A stranger to the people I know
Who used to say “he never had a down day”
Now I’m holding on to can’t let go's
And silence brings no peace

Because another life
Went through my window pane
And I don’t know why
I’ve got a will to burn

In attic rooms I just shut my door
For seven weeks or maybe seven more
It’s like I face a seven headed whore
The fight’s knocked out of me

No measure for grief and I can’t find it with the sound
Break down, to the great god of the hand me down
Holding the past around, wound up at the lost and found
Where the colors all run to grey

I’m coming out of a down day
Colorized, the city’s plays a double feature today
Life is long and something is wrong
But I want to know what’s going on

In another life
Cause it’s good again
And it will never die
I’ve got a will to burn
To see you again
It’s like another life
It’s like I’ll not get better
Will to burn

Time goes by and I realize, that I’m alright
You thought nothing would be the same
But life comes round again
Quick wits and all curious
All caught up in what you say
And makes me grab the time
Before it slips away

I can’t stay and I cannot wait
And I’m grateful to whistle past a grave yard gate
The flicker fade is getting stronger
When the days start getting longer
I got the rhythm down now in the places we warred
The Golden Gate is like my diving board
And life is pointless
But what's so wrong with that?

Cause there's another life
And it's sweeter pain
And we will never die
We got will to burn

To see you again
Is like another life
I feel the whole thing happen
Will to burn

To see you again
Is like another life
I got another life
I got another life