OPINIONS | Vol. 25, Issue 01 | 2

Solitude or Sunlight? Your Choice

Everyone alive has a different way of pondering their lives. Some of us have our greatest epiphanies in the shower; some of us receive them in our dreams; others do their best thinking on their feet, outside.

Creation is always happening from moment to moment, day to day, year to year. We may never be able to pinpoint exactly when our creations, thoughts, ideas, will come into fruition, but we can get a general sense of how to encourage these musings.

There are no new ideas waiting in the sky for us to pick, only old and forgotten ones, that we must ourselves reconfigure. Those are the loose words of Audre Lorde from “Poetry Is Not a Luxury.” There is no salvation waiting for us today. We must create it ourselves. A savior exists only in fantasy, and our minds. To live our lives to the fullest, we must use our mind instead of waiting for someone else to tell us how to use it.

I ask you: do you think creativity happens within the four walls of your room, or outside of it? You might say I should define what I mean by creativity. By “creativity,” do I mean being creative in the arts? Or do I mean being creative in business endeavors? Is it the same to be creative in painting and creative in physics?

I will use my freedom as a writer to forgo providing a clear and finite definition of what I mean by “creativity.” My reasons are: 1) I find the act of imposing hard and fast labels on “things” to be actively detrimental to the soul, 2) I am of the belief that attributing any definition unto the word “creativity,” which implies a free expression of the person, does the opposite, and rather hinders our creativity, and 3) I may just be too lazy, and would rather give the burden to the reader to find a meaning for themselves.

That is up for you to decide, or you can be creative and conjure up another fourth, more sinister reason as to my withholding information.

Now, what in Johnny Poet’s name is my point? It may be that all the great, nuanced ideas have already been copy-righted and published, but that does not mean we have the luxury to sit inside the safety of our four walls and wither away. Rather, we must continue to create, we must continue to think for ourselves, and at a small liberal arts college, that involves not letting our ideas fall stagnant.

These four years we spend on campus take place during some of the most formative years of our lives. Many of our brains are still developing during this stage. Malleable as they are, would it not be cruel for us to let them take the shape of a 228 square foot dorm room?

We must accept the feeling of being uncomfortable. For many students, at some point in their college careers, they find little to no motivation to leave their dorm.

It is more difficult than ever to form genuine connections and friendships. That is the hard reality many young people face. Picking up our phones is easier than picking up conversation with a stranger, sometimes. I too have felt that my private and social life consisted of a series of traps. It was pure temptation that had me, at times, finding solace in my dorm room alone.

The responsibilities that came alongside my courses, organizations, clubs, jobs, friends, and family bore down on me like the sun during a never-ending heat wave. Like the humid atmosphere sticks the clothes to my skin, my mind was bogged down by obsessive and depressive thoughts. And where else do you hide from the sun but indoors?

But as dolphins and whales must come up for air before they return to the depths, we too, must get adequate sun.

Rather than telling you, dear reader, to touch grass, I will say that you must for the sake of humanity, for the sake of your mental growth, for the sake of your roommate: you must leave your dorm room more.

Push your limits. Learn what kinds of clouds float over the Upper Quad. Find the best spots for a picnic in the local parks. Search for the best matcha in Uptown (and let me know).

Your mind is one of the few things in the 21st century that is yours alone. Nurture it by letting yourself experience the joys of life.

Don’t let yourself atrophy at 18, 19, 20, 21, and onwards. Look for the secret to the universe in a floating leaf by Founder’s Hill.