By Ashley Basta, Editor-in-Chief of The Banner, WRHS
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." It is as surprising as disgruntling that Oscar Wilde's quote dated 1905 still sheds light on modern reality. We, as maturing adults, have always been told to "be ourselves."
Yet in as self-transforming a time as high school, how is one to be sure that the "I" she identifies with is doing justice to the "I" she started out with? In other words, when we acknowledge that we are impacted by every factor of our surroundings, people included, can we ever truly know who we are when we stand alone?
After four years, I have become even more solidly convinced that high school is a time for personal change. Many of us were thrown out of our comfort zones at the start, and most of those who were have since found new ways to feel at ease. Whether you are a prominent member of a popular clique, or are constantly defending that you "don't care what people think," there is no denying that everyone exudes an image; and that image is one that will forever impact the rest of the world, regardless of how often it changes. Humans are defined through the free choices that they make. Those choices are usually reactions to experience, people and events that may have had significance in the past and make people act in the ways which they do. So, we act based on the false images we perceive in our surroundings, and these actions contribute to the constantly evolving image we create for ourselves. False image builds upon superficiality, and in a place like high school, we seem to have an overabundance of both. My question is how do you dive beneath that and truly become acquainted with yourself?
My senior year greeted me with the epiphany of how misconstrued the ideals established in high school really are. These four years have been incredibly fun, but more importantly served as inspiration for me to one day be a part of something bigger and better. And I will be. But for now, my place in the system is unclear to me as I am sure it is to most, because face it: most of us have no idea who we really are.
This fact makes it hysterical to watch such people who not only have misconceptions about themselves, but think they know the motivations and characteristics of other people, especially based on a thing as wavering and indefinable as outward appearance.
Realistically, many of us will never know who exactly we are, nor who we were meant to be, but our job is to endeavor to find out. Through following one's passions and believing in what one loves, she begins to live with the purpose of establishing herself outside of the logistics of false realities. Once that understanding is established, creativity and self-expression are some of the only truly free choices we can make right now. It is our right to convey ourselves the way we choose, after all.
High school is a measly four years in the grand scheme of things, and if it has served as your 15 minutes of fame, I cannot help but feel sorry for you. There is so much ahead, and I if not others, will not be able to face it on my own if 'my own' is something other than the real me. Now my job is finding out whom the real me is, and support on such a journey can be found through people that strive for the same self-understanding.