Reflections

With my post-secondary education coming to a close, I find myself thinking about what I have learned and what I have gained from it. I know on some levels you leave with more knowledge, and for the most part a greater understanding (in my case) of the literary world, culture and theories. However, I can't shake the feeling that I have also become more jaded with age. That somehow my education has expanded my already lesser thoughts on the world we live in. I've enjoyed the readings, and the experiences I have had, but at the same time I have a lot of issues with our culture. I don't hate it, or despise it, I actually have such mixed feelings. I find myself analyzing and judging people and others more often than I would have before. I find that I criticize others uneducated opinions of sexuality, consumer culture, and colonialism. For the most part I can watch anything and find symbolic meanings, themes, greater discourses and issues that are buried within the context. Whenever I share these feelings or this knowledge people care, my friends want to know more, my parents are impressed. To me, I can't stand it. To listen or watch someone speak of gender and sexuality is now painful to me. There are so many aspects of society that are brutal and intolerant towards those who oppose the norms of gender or sexuality. I can honestly say that to have this information and these theories as my weapons is quite fascinating and incredibly threatening to those who cannot comprehend. I feel empowered to know, yet unsullied hatred to those who do not understand. I find that being a University student has only added fuel to my fire, it has strengthened my knowledge but the world around me still remains the same. People continuously stick their heads in the sand and feel as if the world shouldn't change because it would be too different. No matter how much I know about feminist movements, and theorists opinions about cultural issues, it doesn't change the patriarchal society that we live in. I have an inner strife with this discourse on gender equality, some might say its pessimistic, others might say its an educated answer. To have already been extremely jaded when I started University, and figuring out that my jadedness is simply reinforced after four years makes my head hurt. My point is simply that I believe whole-heartedly in education. I believe that the problem with this world is that people focus too much on profit, science, economics, and not enough on cultural issues, on thinking outside the box. I believe in the humanities, on the mind solving issues, on theorizing ways around the hegemonic society we inhabit. But I also believe that we live in a world that doesn't believe in change. Normal will always be whatever capitalists deem it. Our countries are run by money loving scam artists who believe in nothing but how to be a bigger economic threat to the rest of the world. To change, people need to stop being afraid of "the other". They need to stop fearing a different lifestyle as the norm, they actually just need to stop believing in "normal". Normal is what you've been taught to be, what you're told and educated from birth by dominant society. Your desires, your dreams, what you're supposed to be has been created for you. Like I said, it sounds pessimistic, but I really like to think of it from the point of view of an educated optimist.