Over 1 week ago, I wrote a post that reflected the anxiety I felt towards the college admissions process. I also received a harsh comment or two on that post. I want to take the time to respond to the criticisms expressed in the comments:
The first and criticism was that I live a sheltered, privileged life. I whole-heartedly agree.
However, this life is no reason to criticize someone. I did not choose my life. I had no control over where I was born and into what I was born. Yes, I was born into a wealthy family that offered me many opportunities, but I still had to work very hard to get to where I am.
Yes, I am fortunate enough to go to an excellent private school, but I work extraordinarily hard to maintain my grades. I average 4 hours of homework per night, and that level of work allows me to keep straight A's. I prepared for the SAT, and that allowed me to get a perfect score on math. I have had many achievements that stem from 2 things: My wonderful opportunities and my hard work.
I know so many sons and daughters of multi-millionaires who don't work and get poor grades and nearly failed the SATs. They won't do anything in life. They won't make anything of what this world has given them. I refuse to fall into that. The world has given me everything I could possible ask for, and I will take that and make something out of it. I will become a productive contributor to society.
I also received criticism for not seeing “the real world.” I admit that it is difficult to keep in touch with the standard American life when I live in such a privileged position, but I have capitalized on my opportunities in order to see as much of the “real” world as possible. When I was 15, I left home to live in Switzerland for 4 months. Granted, it was on a program with fellow Americans and it was Switzerland, but I was still 15. When I was 16, I left to live in India for 2 months.
My point is this: I live in a unique position of great fortune, and I am aware of this, so I try very hard to witness and experience other ways of life.
I want to make one final point before closing: We are all fortunate, but we all have our trials. In some areas, we are extremely lucky, and in others, we aren't. I enjoy a life with money and excellent education and a life where I can come out to my entire school with little to no ramifications, but I still have my personal problems. The same goes for everybody.
So instead of attacking each other for living “in sheltered and privileged worlds,” we should examine our own lives and start to make the most of what we have been given.
23 comments:
I don't know why you give those envious bastards the time of day, much less an apologia for your existence. They'll resent you no matter what you say.
Personally I applaud your efforts, and I truly do hope you make something of yourself.
In all things, all of us must make the best of the cards we are dealt..., I did it..., and so can you.
I wish you all the best for the future. Pay no heed to any who would stand in your way without good reason.
Courage and Honour!
Octavius.
Remember this:
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
I would not waste the energy to apologize for yourself - you have received many gifts and now that you transition to college and adulthood the challenge is to use them in the most productive and positive ways possible - up until now you have proven to be very capable of doing just that ... so keep doing what your doing, unapologetically - and btw there's no finer place than Yale to teach you how to employ your talents in the service of fellow man - so be sure to seize every opportunity put in front of you when you arrive!
I disagree with J, because I think it is worth making the distinction (as you did). I think its typical for people less fortunate to generalize the attitudes of those more fortunate to think that all don't work hard and don't experience trials in their lives. While this may be true in some cases, like all generalities, it misrepresents many. I am happy that you recognize this and defend it. I too came from a higher socioeconomic echelon, and was given many opportunities.
These people that are quick to criticize don't seem to offer any solutions. They seem to want people of privilege to constantly apologize for their fortune...? or maybe they want everything to be equal...? This is probably a natural, immature, human reaction.
History shows that our species is not evolved enough to allow such a homogeneous civilization, where there were no social classes, and all experienced fair and equitable growth. Maybe some future species could accomplish that, but it seems clear that socioeconomic disparity, competition, etc. are required forces in the economics of our civilization to encourage growth. Certainly there is room to 'optimize' this social disparity, but we shouldn't be so naive to speak of this as a simple problem--i.e. throwing around labels of 'the real world'.
Jason you don't need me to tell you that I think you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work.
Much Love,
Steve
'Not seeing “the real world.” '
The expression real world is a very relative expression because everybody has his own experiences and therefore everybody has his own point of view but considering it to be the real world. The experiences someone gets at Ohio are different from the experiences at New York or at Berlin or at Delhi or at any other place of the world. All are different and real as well. My experiences are different to yours. Therefore we need to communicate our different experiences to gain an understanding of each other.
I wish you all the best
RR
Well said, Jason.
As I read the above comments the parallels between homophobia and bigotry/prejudice of all sorts really jumped out at me. The difference between "Kill the Queers" and "Fuck the Rich Bastards" is at root very small. Many homophobes see all not str8 people as one big lump of orgasm-chasing perverts who live to pleasure themselves at the expense of others. Likewise, green-eyed wealth and "privilege" resenters belie a simplistic thought system that sees no gray or gradation. These narrow minded people may themselves be victims of ignorance and lack of opportunity to interact with and emulate intelligent, compassionate, and tolerant individuals who tend to first see the good in others and not their shortcomings.
Dan is from an upper middle class family where lack of money was never much of an issue. He went to a quite exclusive uni and met the scions of many ubber privileged dynasties. He was constantly amazed at how inbred some of them were, and others not. Some had blinders and did not at all understand why he did not have a Benz and funds to jet off to some tropical paradise for spring break with his "peers". The word "budget" was not in their vocabulary and they had been given almost anything they wanted. Others did not flaunt their wealth and fit in well with the diverse uni population where ability and hard work [not account balances] mostly determined who was there and who was not.
...and to all a good night!
Steevo
Jason, be careful with your responses. If you set yourself up too high on a pedestal, even a well-deserved and justified one, they will take any opportunity to look for you to fall.
True you've said nothing wrong, and your words were well-said, but that just gives some people all the more reason to look for faults however minor.
It is, after all, a part of human nature to envy that which we don't have and want.
I stayed out before, but I'm going to speak now.
It comes down to privilege. I understand that I have enormous privilege as I am white and male, those two conditions alone bestowing enormous power.
One of the great temptations of realizing privilege is to apologize for it for the rest of our lives. However this is neither productive nor is it worthwhile. We cannot apologize for what we cannot control.
However, we can check our privilege. To check our privilege we can make simple statements acknowledging it (remember one of the greatest privileges of privilege is not having to even know that oneself is privileged) or proactive try and get rid of it.
Not to defend your verbal attacker (not that I would go that far anyway) but your post on colleges screamed of privilege without an acknowledgment of it. This post is a checking and acknowledgment of privilege and for those of us in a lower socio-economic class, but I would like to point out a whole list of privileges that may or may not apply to you.
www.thewtc.org/Invisibility_of_Class_Privilege.pdf
It is an interesting list and such lists exist for almost every type of privilege.
Again, this isn't meant to beg an apology, but rather just to make you, and anyone else aware of this privilege so that they may try to check it.
And now I feel like I'm just rambling so I'm going to go. Hopefully this was constructive and worthwhile, if not, oh well, just ignore it.
Matt
You are not the only one, but I don´t hang my family weath on a big bell to ring! Happy new year, Jason!
I have to say, I'm very impressed by your maturity. As opposed to simply deleting those harsh criticisms, you took them to yourself, and reflected upon it.
And I'm a bit baffled by others who commented by calling other people "envious bastards." I believe those posters who criticized (albeit harshly) did have something worth saying.
I'm not trying to defend the person who criticized you, but I don't think they were criticizing your lifestyle. They wanted you to realize that you are really fortunate to have those opportunities and that you might want to reflect on how fortunate you are with the fact that you can even apply to Yale.
I think that we need to remind ourselves that, like in that "Friends" episode, selfless act rarely exists. Everything we do have our motives.
I mean, come to think of it, the fact that you visited India for 2 months could be considered "selfish" since you willingly went there so that you can gain the experience of living in the "real world."
Basically, what I'm trying to say, is that if you receive harsh comments, don't take it as an attack. Reflect on it. (which you did!) And don't get defensive about it to justify your previous actions; keep moving forward!
This is a response to John: What I wrote was harsh, but it is the product of watching the nastiness that envy has wrought in this world. The smaller the community, the greater the liklihood that you will be subjected to gratuitous insults from random store clerks, tradesmen and people you don't know on the street. I had a friend who was cursed with having inherited a house with nine bedrooms and nine baths. He had to put each significant repair on the place out to bid because every contractor in town figured he could stick it to him. As he put it, "Big house, big bill." On another occasion I stood outside a courtroom with an elderly lady relative who filed a counterclaim against a tenant who tried to beat her out of several months rent and then sued her for his deposit. Although he looked like a decent enough sort of fellow, he launched into a tirade against her, saying, "I don't know why you want to do this to me. Everyone knows you have all the money in the world and this doesn't make any difference to you." To her everlasting credit, the lady shot back in a polite, but slightly annoyed tone of voice, "You know, I resent that sort of talk, because you're saying that since I have money you should have the right to rip me off, and you don't."
Experiences like this are the reasons why a lot of wealthy people prefer to live only among other wealthy people, or in metropolitan areas in which they can preserve their anonymity.
Not that people with money don't invite some of this behavior, because its easy for them to telegraph their expectation that they are to be catered to. I once watched Lawrence Rockefeller at the private aircraft terminal of Washington National Airport, waiting for his baggage to be loaded on his jet. He had about four bags, and an equal amount of people to wait on him. He would have been out of there a few minutes earlier if he took the trouble to carry a couple of his own bags out to the plane, but that obviously wasn't his role in life. It was an interesting scene, but would hardly serve as anyone's justification for being ugly to the man.
Oh, and Steve, I'm intrigued that you think homogeneity of advantages is the mark of an advanced civilization. I could never understand the logic of Jesus' line, "In my father's house are many mansions.." Do you envision heaven on earth as being a place where every person lives in his own McMansion and drives a Lexus? That's a sure recipe for misery. Most of the glory in life comes from its contests, and without the stuggle we would be bored to tears when we're not clawing eachother's throats.
(Now, see what you've started, Jason?)
J
What matters is not where we come from, but what we do with it. Whatever our level of privilege is our actions should leave the world a better place: for those around us and for people everywhere. Hopefully without clawing each other's throats. That's how I hope to be judged.
I'm going keep myself brief.
I think the anon post said it best
My real world experience is that I can see that my family is well off.
We have a nice house, 4 cars and I have a computer and the family computer too.
However I can take a 30 min car ride across town and see what it's like to have your life messed up b/c of being too lazy or just thinking you know everything.
So my world experience is just as real as yours just in a different form
Having had ahighly paid job that afforded me considerable wealth,I find that I prefer having only what I need.Living as I do now,and working amongst the poorest of the poor...who are,in my experience amongst the most generous you can meet,hwever little they have, I know which I prefer!
But I agree with you.Guilt or apology are uncalled for, no more than for being gay!But remember that the acquistion of wealth is usually only possible through exploitation of others,and evasion or avoidance of tax.For that,guilt might be needed,but not by you
@J
I think it could. Your statement about McMansions and misery is misguided, because you are evaluating such a society using todays criteria. Of course we agree that under _todays_ metrics/values/desires/etc the ups and downs of an individuals life are the main forces that make life 'interesting'. Notice that when we define the things that make it interesting, we mainly describe out human emotions. We feel accomplishment, happiness, joy, fulfillment, etc. etc. Thus, many of our metrics are 'emotion' based.
Emotions are interesting, because they are not magical-- they are complex but completely deterministic, physiological processes in the brain. They have evolutionary basis: fight or flight, etc. And while they have obviously been tremendously useful, we constantly have to reconcile our emotions with our more rational thought processes. Often times emotions provide the 'wrong' cues (wrong defined by more comprehensive, logical reasoning). This 'inaccuracy' is possibly a sign of their inadequacy.
However, since life happens in 'real time' we have to constantly balance trusting our emotions with evaluating things more rationally. If we had all the time in the world, we could sit back and evaluate everything with lots of rational thinking, and make better decisions-- but we don't have that time. The point is that we utilize our emotions x% of the time for decision making, and rational thinking y% of the time. The amount we spend on each is a consequence with how much 'processing' ability we have in our brains.
I am suggesting that perhaps a future, more evolved human with more 'processing' power could utilize emotions (a.k.a heuristics) LESS and utilize rational thinking MORE. Such a future human species then wouldn't necessarily have the same metrics (mcMansions, lexuses, etc.) to evaluate how 'interesting' life is. Perhaps such a future civilization would be more 'interested' in the success of ALL over the success of themselves.
Anyways- I didn't mean to get into an argument with you-- I was just pointing out that it is worth the discussion.
Steve
Steve, you make an interesting point. That alternate world you mention sounds very different, and I am ashamed to admit that I am frightened by that world.
of course, I suppose that fear stems from the natural human fear of the unknown. It's the same fear that leads to fear of the different. I think that this fear leads to so many problems in this world, and it's the same fear that I address in this post and the following one.
I read once that a chemical analysis of human amniotic fluid produced the conclusion that it corresponds to the composition of the Cambrian seas. It seems we took some of our watery home with us when we began giving birth on dry land, just as the higher regions of the human brain were layered over a reptilian core. It will take a hell of a lot of evolution to breed jealousy, sexual, social and professional competitiveness and basic "fight or flight" instincts out of us, because such competitive impulses are the engine of evolution. I'm afraid I'm incapable of predicting the metrics of the human race so far into the future as to rely on Steve's prediction of an outcome devoid of baser motivations, but its nice to contemplate.
I did not read all the posts above.
But in my opinion, this post shows the high level of mental maturity you have that is hard to come by, guys your age.
Previliged life or not, as long one has the level of mental maturity and strong will, it is only a matter of time that a person gets their break in life, be it school/college/work.
Having said that, I strongly believe that in life you have one way and one way only which is UP. Trust me, if you do ever have a downfall in life somewhere you will handle it very well, learn and rise from it.
as far as i've understood it, the "real world" is what is going on outside of your particular slice of life experience.
that being said, honestly people are being a bit unfair. we're all born somewhere, into a culture or nationality or status that - as you said - we've no control over. there's no point in being mad at you for that. you can't do anything but make the most of it. since you have been given a lot, a lot will be expected i'm sure. work it for all its worth.
i'm not mad at you, man. i'm really not <3
While I certainly don't believe rudeness is okay, I still believe that the posters who were the cause for this entry have a valid point. I personally don't think you come off as the affluent brat type(and there are plenty of bloggers who do!). I think the point was that a Yale rejection is not the end of the world; likewise, getting in is not the beginning. It is A beginning, but not THE beginning. While clearly you were worried about your admissions decision (which I understand completely! I was in the same spot last year.), I think your attitude came off to some readers as the problem of someone who worries about superficial things. College acceptance is by no means superficial; I believe it might have seemed like you worked yourself up over getting into the Ivy League when there are people who get worked up over things such as being able to buy necessities. I think the idea was that you should be considerate of other lifestyles. Again, I don't personally think you show an unawareness, but it's never bad to be cognizant of tone when writing. It's not your lifestyle that was under fire, just your perceived world view.
I was waiting to read your promised response. While it was a good defense, I hope you haven't dismissed what has been said. Considering the other opinions is what gives you a different, broader world view.
All in all, your blog has become one of my favorites to read. It's always nice to read writing from someone intelligent and interesting. I hope you will continue to update once you're an undergraduate. I apologize if this was too long!
WELL SAID! :)
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