at my school, there is a philosophy instilled within each department and i’m not sure if it’s purposed or whether my teachers are all pretty wise but i appreciate the effort taken to cultivate students with compassion and empathy but also reflexive acknowledgement of one’s contradictions. in ap lang we read “everything that rises must converge” by flannery o’connor. it spoke towards the intellectual mindset of knowing what is morally and socially correct, but feeling differently in your heart of hearts. we had a socratic seminar unpacking the text and i was abruptly cognizant how much prejudice i had brought to the table. i made the quick assumption that julien was a sociopath, ignoring the parallels between him and myself—missing the truth that so well applied to me.

when i was younger i was always conscious of how i was defined and within what parameters i could be measured in. i needed to know exactly who i was and worried that if i couldn’t fit myself into a shape perfectly, i wouldn’t know where i belonged. i was dependent on dependancy. if my set of friends were never consistent, i had to be. i refused changed.

and then i stopped. i became a hypocrite, a set of contradictions. my once impermeable consistency gave way to wish-washy excuses and never certain replies. i am the queen of maybes. but i am also honest.

i stopped closing down my doubts and wavering beliefs, allowing myself to acknowledge the once dormant envy and jealousy and insecurity that had motivated less than honorable actions. but now i have the choice to refrain.

i think all teachers want us to go forth and embrace the realities of human behavior. that one can never be finite. always we are susceptible to carnal, vindictive, ugly emotions and that to deny oneself from feeling them at all is rejecting the extraordinary circumstances of life. in other words, “i want your ugly, i want your disease.”