It is now almost without doubt that I will have dropped out of college this time next month. It is a notion more demoralizing than liberating for me, due largely to the fact that I have known that this was where I was going to end up the moment the thought came in to my head to take time away from formal education. At that point it represented repose from what has otherwise been a life grinded out with my head down, keeping pace on a track laid out in front of me, with an endpoint seemingly visible but too far away to know what benefits there would be to reap. Granted that is how it had always been; since reaching a level of consciousness to acknowledge that school is less so an intellectual ego trip than a means to an end, it inevitably became my insatiable curiosity to know what end would ultimately come of things for me. In high school, it meant the opportunity to ascend to the next step: college. But as the haze cleared (or perhaps thickened) the metaphorical staircase became less like one to a pot of gold and more like one left unbuilt to nowhere. I'm unsure whether somebody else or myself was supposed to be given the materials to finish building the stairs but I suppose if I developed any blueprint it would be the principle that I shouldn't have to buy my own hammer nails and planks to find out. As I'm writing this, I'm trying to pinpoint exactly when my third eye opened in regards to pondering what the work was all for. It feels like I was on some superficial ego trip at Lowell, considering the grindstone had kept said ego in check once my intelligence was finally parried by other kids who seemed to care even more than I did, and whose results showed thus on paper, and which humbled me and exhausted me in the pursuit to keep up. My work ethic was driven less by a desire to better myself on an individual level, but to stay swimming as a fish thrown into the ocean unaware of how small the pond was, to prove that I was worth as much as everyone else. But to what end? At that point the only thing that seemed to matter, being a transitory arena, was where we would be funneled off to. The more prestigious factory you are accepted to, the better the payoff, the more the suffering was all worth after all. High school was purgatory, but Columbia was salvation. Or Northwestern. But Northwestern didn't want me. SO... Vassar became salvation. So, I was still inundated by this point. And thus I was salvation-ed... Once the first tuition bill comes in did I snap out of the trance? Well, then it became about the experience, was it going to be worth the experience? College education is one thing, but the college experience is another, the yang to the yin. The experience roped me in, and allowed me to overlook the education aspect, which, while admittedly fruitful, was dragged down from the residual burnout and fatigue of high school. Perhaps at a less strenuous high school would the same college experience feel more rewarding in retrospect, but that isn't the path I was afforded. Perhaps the fact that I was used to the competitive drive under the supremacy-hungry spell did I begin to take issue with the more laid-back education. Regardless, once the experience side began to plateau and the education aspect rose back in demand of importance did I finally feel myself being shaken awake. And it took the experience in early April to allow me to comprehend the weight that experience can bring, for better and for worse. Experience too can burn you out, at the expense of education, opposed to vice versa as I had been accustomed. I digress; this is all to say that it took me until last year to acknowledge that you can deviate from the path laid out in the process of formalized, structured schooling. Whether I should thank or berate myself for choosing to do so I suppose time will tell, as it does for any decision. I suppose I can both thank and berate myself for even becoming aware that that is the way things are, because on the one hand I do feel a great sense of pride in being able to realize that the static path has not lead things where I want them to go, but I also harbor intense fear in realizing I do not know any alternative by veering off simply in lieu of a doubt that things won't end up where I want them otherwise. Looking back at this past year I feel that it has come at great sacrifice to both my education and experience to have walked away, to the benefit of only my wallet and principle. But considering my current sentiment that returning to school would feel incorrect, I'm dumbfounded as to why the latter two are then apparently of greater importance. I had some rewarding classes, and above all (seemingly) my experiences at college remain the fullest I've ever felt, the most visceral yet also the most dreamlike. However there is a feeling that I've stepped to the other side of the glass, and that I can't revert back to the place I was when I was making those experiences there, that to return and continue with how things were before I left is impossible unless I put myself back in a trance, to walk back onto the path I'd just dismissed. It's frankly a horrible feeling to acknowledge that that's how I've formulated the structure of the way things must go for me, because now that I've even simply thought of it like that, it's impossible to just forget about having thought it. God I sound so tortured. It is the hardest decision I've ever had to make, which can perhaps be supported by the fact it still hasn't been formalized since the seed was planted a little over a year ago. I think the grueling trudge of my thought processes and the subsequent mental filibuster in stating the inevitable (which I suppose had been the slippery slope scenario from day one) contribute to what has become an exhaustive, sputtering, quiet death to my schooling career. I do know it will very hard to have to tell those who wonder, and that I sense no relief will result from informing those I've come to love during my time in college. It feels like I'm spitting in their face, if not for the fact that I've apparently deemed their education to not be worthwhile, but that apparently even their shared company was not sufficient enough to will me to compromise. I know they won't take it personally, because my value system is mine and their money is theirs, and vice versa. They will have bountiful experiences and I will remain here, most likely working and having less bountiful experiences until I fucking change some fundamental aspects of how I go about my day to day approach. You reap what you sow. Ironically I walk away from a path I figure will leave me to my own devices in an uncertain daze in two years upon graduating, to instead cutting my losses and the ceremony, staring down the barrel, left to my own devices in an uncertain daze -- right now. My hope is that formalizing this decision clears this haze I've let my feet drag in (by remaining it as a fallback choice) and the sobriety of executing such a haughty decision will whip me into shape. Of course, that's waging my future on a bet. However, that future is immediate, and not separated by two more years of schooling. And in this scenario, I'm Pete Rose, betting on myself to pull through. No strings attached, no third parties, shit, no second parties really. Just me, to prove to nobody else but me, that this choice is not completely crass. My foresight has not appeared very great thus far, but time will tell if it ends up redemptive. Hopefully I won't even have to worry about such a pointless inquiry... you reap what you sow. [7/25/25 1:35am]