By Ellen Salovaara
The world seems to be crumbling around us, and yet we think constantly of the future. We fill out SignUp Genius forms to hear RPCS alumna talk about their careers, we complete internships (recently, either masked or over Zoom), juniors prepare for and take SATs and ACTs, seniors apply to colleges, and we all ponder the thought: “will [activity/event/award] look good on my college application?” Meanwhile, our world is submerged in tragedy, fear, and disarray.
The absurdity of our current situation struck me particularly hard during my trip to visit a staggering number of colleges in July. My parents and I loaded up the family Toyota and drove all over New England for two weeks.
One unbelievably hot day, we trekked across the campus of a Massachusetts school as the sun shot sweltering rays at the backs of our necks and shoulders. We clutched onto the (recyclable!) aluminum water bottles we had been provided with, savoring their fleeting cold temperatures on our palms and wrists as our tour guide regaled us with tales of the school’s study abroad program. I muttered “global warming” to my father as we panted while walking up the concrete stairs to the dorms. Everyone in our tour group was suffering, especially the pitiable woman pushing her small dog in a stroller. It seemed ridiculous to be talking about my future as the world seemed to melt around me.
Absurdly long car rides through winding valleys and along rushing rivers gave me plenty of time to blast Phoebe Bridgers from the car speakers (much to my podcast-obsessed mother’s chagrin), stare blankly out the window, and think. Swelteringly hot New England college tours obligingly carried out by masked guides speaking to masked participants would have struck people even five years ago as very odd. On top of being masked, my parents and I were often required to fill out forms scattered with checkboxes: Do you have chills? A sore throat? A headache? Do these symptoms stem from a highly contagious virus or the exhaustion that accompanies the increasingly convoluted college process? (Of course, this last question was absent from the forms, but it was one about which I often thought). Climate change, a global pandemic, systemic inequalities, and high rates of poor mental health seem to be crashing down upon us from every side. And yet we still carry on the college process: bubbling in standardized test answers, writing college essays, and completing college interviews with smiles plastered on our faces. What three words best describe you? Exhausted, frustrated, and overwhelmed.
On Christmas Eve, I bundled myself in a sweatshirt, an oversized coat, and numerous woolen accessories to stand for three hours in a line at Belvedere Square to get tested for the virus that has overtaken our world. I occasionally pulled the glove off my right hand to click through college websites and write college essay ideas in my notes app. I typically surrendered to the freezing temperature in approximately five minutes, slipping my phone back into my pocket and my blue fingers back into my glove. Even though the experience only lasted for one (frigid) morning, it left me with two years’ worth of confusion. What was this all for? How could I think of college, of my future, at a time like this? How could I pour this much time, energy, and passion into a seemingly pointless endeavor? The answer came to me slowly because the answer is shrouded in nuance and caveats: hope.
Our generation is often branded as a bunch of jaded cynics, unparalleled in our pessimism by any generation that came before us. I, for one, think we should embrace this title every now and then–as long as we couple it with hope.
Hope is not blind. If hope were blind, it would not be hope: it would be blissfully ignorant optimism. Hope is acceptance, hope is understanding, and hope is thinking of the future even when the future seems unthinkable.
Hope is framed with societal norms and expectations. Society treats hope as singular: you are not hopeful if you complain, express worry about the future, or point out the flaws in the world around you. In that case, you are a skeptic and a cynic.
However, hope does not require the absence of skepticism. It does not even require the absence of cynicism. In many ways, hope is an act of defiance—so why not defy the societal norms of the words itself?
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