Several weeks ago, I created a “finsta.” This is a term I am only vaguely familiar with, having been taught it by some of my teenage and young adult students last semester. Per my understanding, a “finsta” is an alternate Instagram account which one only shares with one’s close friends. Its purpose is to post authentically about all manner of things — depression, anxiety, hardship, vulnerable thoughts, secret or controversial interests— instead of just that which is palatable to the public at large, and that which portrays the account owner as happy, successful, and well-adjusted.

At the time that I learned this term, I asked my students where it came from. I can’t verify this, but they seemed to think the “f” stood for “fake.”

“That seems like a bit of a misnomer,” I had said. “It sounds like a person’s finsta is actually where they are real.” My students admitted I had a point, but ultimately shrugged me off.

Regardless of the etymology of the term, that this phenomenon exists is, to me, interesting. The existence of finstas acknowledges that so many of us, on our “real” accounts, are fake, fake, fake.

***

I am nearly 30 years old, and as such I have been on social media since its inception, or close to it. As a child and a teen, it felt perfectly natural to deck my MySpace page out in funky layouts, to list all my favorite things, and to rank my friends according to whom I was closest to. When the collective migrated to Facebook, it felt perfectly natural to create “status updates” whenever I felt like complaining about or announcing something to my social circle, and to post all the silly pictures I took with my friends.

My relationship with social media is now much more strained. As I deepened into a more complex being, so too did my relationship to the public soapbox, the digital town square.

I am now painfully aware that any and every gesture I make in public is a performance. I can’t display my whole self and all my complexities in short and digestible status updates, or 1080x1080 pixel photos. Each time I post, I do so for a purpose, and I willfully curate my image in a particular way. I can tell myself that my purpose is to share and connect, but often I am conscious of a subtle secondary one: to advertise my fleeting happiness, or superficial symbols of my success, or to paint myself or my life as interesting. Such is the curse of being self-aware.

To be clear, I’m very grateful to be self-aware, and it has granted me a lot of growth and perspective. But it also means that I am acutely aware of the motivation behind every action I take. If it is not a pure action, I will know. And when I post on Facebook or my “main” Instagram, it is rarely a completely pure action.

I do not mean to suggest that this is the only mode of being on social media, but I do think many, or even most of us are locked into it — especially those of us who are sub-40, and even more of us who are sub-30. Those of us who engage this way — or wrestle with ourselves to try not to — all have one thing in common: we don’t believe we are good enough.

***

When I was younger and unpartnered, I was very sensitive about my appearance. I am a woman, and women are tacitly taught by our culture that we must be what society calls “sexy” or “beautiful” to have anybody recognize our worth, and especially to attract a loving and supportive partner. I had deeply internalized these messages, and having always been fat — the ultimate beauty taboo — was particularly emotionally incapacitated by them. In those days, an insult to my appearance would lay a lead blanket of despair over me for at least the rest of the day.

Thankfully, I have healed now. Now I know that my worth is immutable, and that my beauty derives not from the size of my waist or the glossiness of my hair, but from the degree to which I let my true self shine outward. Today, jabs at my appearance cannot hurt me, because in this way I am whole.

When we aren’t whole, we have an inner voice that judges ourselves. As long as that voice exists, we will judge others as well. In turn, as long as we are judging others, there is some part of ourselves we have yet to touch with love and compassion.

So many of us are unwhole. This is not in itself a judgment; it’s a statement of fact. Humanity has a lot of healing to do. And when you look through your social media feeds with the right set of eyes, you will see a lot of open wounds.

***

Each one of us is multifaceted — we contain many truths, some of which appear to contradict one another, and all of those truths coexist within us simultaneously. When I look a loved one in the eye and communicate some facet of my truth to them, they take in that truth with the context of my energy, our relationship, and everything else they know about me. If they are perceptive, they can put the truth I am expressing into perspective, and understand that the truth I have expressed does not define me in my totality.

We can do this with people’s social media posts as well, but it’s a little more difficult to. Seeing words on a screen — sometimes next to a person’s face, sometimes not — is a different somatic, emotional, and cognitive experience altogether.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see the vast majority of my Facebook friends or Instagram followers in real life. Some people have huge, active, flourishing social circles, but I am not among those people. I keep my circle of friends small, and I choose to only give my time to those who matter to me especially. Therefore, people lack context about my posts, and I lack context about theirs. We see this flattened version of one another, and reflexively and sometimes unconsciously create narratives about each other from that limited information.

I don’t want to meet the flat version of myself that lives in the heads of my acquaintances. She is not me.

***

When I post on my finsta, I do not feel myself succumbing to all the little impulses I normally feel to posture this way or that way. Of my followers, the only one I know in real life is my partner, from whom I have no secrets. When I post, I do it from a pure place of wanting to share, and to express my authentic self. I needn’t worry about any of the ways I could be taken out of context, or the ways in which my acquaintances could extrapolate about me.

What I’ve discovered is that being myself truly and fully in a public space is an unexpectedly powerful experience. Posting authentically is declaring to the world: THIS IS WHO I AM; THESE ARE MY INTENTIONS. Posting on my finsta geared me up to start writing these essays, and it feels so good to be writing again.

Imagine a different digital climate on social media. Imagine that authenticity was the norm. Imagine that people did away with humble bragging, vaguebooking, rose-colored filters, and intensive curation. What if it was the norm to be authentic? How much more connected would we all feel? What distractions and acts would we collectively discard? What kind of world could we create together?

I would like to find out.

Tonight I attended a Zoom call with the online spiritual community I joined earlier this month. We have bi-monthly moon gatherings via Zoom, the purpose of which, I have gathered, is to create a supportive space for everyone to meet their goals vis-a-vis personal development. Everyone on the call was incredibly genuine, expressing from their heart space.

While others shared their goals for the next month, I sat in guarded silence. I knew within the first thirty seconds of the meeting that I was not going to speak, and I wasn’t even going to turn on my camera. I felt like an outsider. I felt that nobody would see me properly if I opened myself up and made myself vulnerable. Most disturbingly, at the same time that I was watching these people speak so vulnerably, part of me felt scorn towards them: didn’t they get the memo that trusting people is unsafe?

Being vulnerable, some part of me thought, is the same thing as giving away your power. And I’ll never let anyone have my power again.

***

In January, I attended my first ever “burn.” For the uninitiated, I’m referring to Burning Man-adjacent events that happen in various locales around the USA; they are weekend-long quasi-festivals filled with love and generosity, installation art, the wonder of human creativity, dance parties, catharsis, plenty of psychedelic drugs, and a culture so unique to ordinary life that one has to experience it to truly understand it. My partner had been to several before we got together and had enchanted me with stories about his experiences: he had met new friends, seen some insane art, tried a new substance or two, and experienced pure connections with complete strangers. Trusting his adventurous spirit, and his assessment that I am a “natural burner,” I took a leap of faith and decided to go with him to Freezerburn, an event that takes place outside Austin, TX.

I consider myself to be a compassionate individual. I always try to see things from all sides whenever possible, even when I myself don’t look too great from the other side. I also feel rather connected to my spirituality, and what comes with that is the knowledge that we are all one. Those who have felt it will know what I mean, and those who haven’t will have to forgive me for not going deeper into this concept, which is besides the point. The point is, on some levels — many levels — I have nothing but love for humanity.

But when I look other souls in the face and they reflect my love back at me, I tend to shrink away.

***

When I first arrived at the campground Freezerburn would take place on, the shift in energy was palpable. In ordinary life, people maintain a polite psychic distance from one another in anonymous public places. With the exception of the occasional quick connection over something small that might make us smile, our interactions with strangers are rather perfunctory and results-oriented. Transactional, even. Many of us only interact with strangers if we have to, or else in fleeting and superficial ways. This is the mode of interaction I have always been comfortable with, in no small part because it felt safe: I wasn’t letting anyone see too much of me, unless they had really “earned” it.

But at Freezerburn, you get the sense that every person you interact with regards you as a complex, multifaceted being deserving of nothing but endless love. To me, a highly sensitive person, the difference in the energy I received from people at Freezerburn was so immediate and so palpable that I was bowled over by it.

We needed to pass through a greeting station in order to be admitted to the campgrounds, and said station was populated by a group of shining-faced souls filled with exuberance and ready to welcome me, a first timer, into the burner family. Of the two greeters I remember speaking to, one was a woman of about 50 wearing glasses and a pirate’s jacket, and the other was a short, round-faced woman with gorgeous rainbow hair, apparently around my own age. Upon hearing that Freezerburn was my first, Rainbow Hair put her hands on me and beamed at me with pure delight. “You’re going to have such a great time!” she exclaimed.

They wanted to put me through some kind of initiation that sounded to me like it was all in good fun, but they wouldn’t be specific about what would happen. In the face of the unknown, I declined, feeling myself sink into defensiveness. But burners value consent, so there were no hard feelings, and still they continued to shower me with loving energy.

To my total confusion, my face felt hot with the prickling of imminent tears throughout my interaction with the greeters. I wanted to cry, but in the confusion of the moment couldn’t understand why; I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t embarrassed, I wasn’t frustrated, I wasn’t angry. To save social face, I held back my tears and gritted my teeth.

Once I had returned to my spot in the back seat of my partner’s friend’s car, I let the tears flow, and I understood: I was crying because the love of strangers scared me.

It was too much. It was all at once. I was being loved, and yet I had done nothing to earn it. My belief systems strained and broke, and for the rest of the weekend, I cowered in their hollow shell, groping for some familiarity, for anything at all.

***

It should go without saying that I experienced a lot of trauma as a child. My intention here is not to detail that trauma; I am on the road to releasing it, and rehashing it here will not help me do that. Suffice to say, I grew up feeling completely misunderstood and emotionally unsafe.

The interesting thing about trauma is that there is no formula for it. Two people could experience the exact same event, and one could walk away with severe PTSD while the other could all but forget about it. Our unique dispositions determine how events in our lives affect us.

To some, I would appear to have had a perfectly fine and ordinary childhood. But I am one of those who walk around without any armor; any arrows we may encounter, sent flying by malice or neglect or even ignorance, pierce us to our core. As such, my psyche had become deeply scarred by the trials of school and family life by the time I reached legal adulthood.

When we have no sense of our center, we believe what other people tell us about ourselves. We also make things mean that which they do not, due to our fear and warped perceptions. Through life’s trials, I came to believe that I am both unlikeable and unloveable. These are beliefs I have already done four years of work to release, and I have made great progress. But still, people feel unsafe.

I have healed so much, and yet I am still broken.

***

Every day I notice how I block connections to other people, many of whom innocently and wholeheartedly look to me for it. I see myself do this, and I have distance from the feelings that lead to it, and I understand all the ways in which it constitutes self-sabotage. But still, I do it.

For the past several years, and especially over the past six months, I have been stoking a fire of knowledge and truth inside me. Every passing day I know and understand more about my own weaknesses, strengths, blind spots, fixations, patterns, predispositions. When I retreat into myself every night in meditation, I see all of my actions and what motivated them with near-perfect clarity, and I realign, and I make different choices the next day. I know what I am, and I know what I’m doing, and I know where that doing comes from. But in daily life, when faced with challenging circumstances, I don’t always act in accordance with that knowing. The gap frustrates me.

In my writing, I am my whole self. The me you find in my words is the me that I am in my heart, and the me I am striving to embody more of every day. But the me that you can meet in the physical world is still struggling to break her old patterns. She’s frustrated with herself for not being able to do it at the drop of a hat, but she’s also learning to give herself more time and more compassion. Transformation does not happen overnight.

***

I know that I will soon be able to engage with my spiritual community in a way that is enriching and satisfying. I wouldn’t find myself in a position to socialize at this authentic level — which I have always craved — if it wasn’t something I would soon be ready for. Feeling that discomfort in that Zoom meeting was the first step; now I can process through it, and show up to the next one having already installed some more love in my heart.

Life is calling me to blossom in this way. It will take some time, but blossom I will.

There is a lot of intense energy in the air on the planet right now. Some people are reacting to the pandemic with fear and panic, and get little respite from those states; others are angry and indignant in response to the shock of having freedoms they took for granted rescinded; some are bored, having had their routines and distractions made irrelevant or inaccessible. Some are falling deeper into depression due to lack of access to typical coping mechanisms. Others are acutely scared for themselves or for loved ones due to perceived vulnerabilities to the virus.

All responses are, of course, valid. We respond to what goes on around us based on our particular circumstances. If we live in a city, where populations are dense, we may be incapacitated in certain ways due to the sheer amount of fear in the air. If we are facing financial hardship — whether more than usual or not — we may not have the emotional or mental space to make the best out of what may be more free time than we’ve had since entering into adulthood. If we have lost someone, or are acutely afraid of losing someone, that grief can be all-consuming.

I want to write about how happy I am right now, and how much I’ve been thriving, but it’s challenging to do so. It feels insensitive, because someone deeply in the throes of the very real — and to some, singular — darkness might feel hurt that I can dare to find positivity in this situation. In light of this awareness, I suppose I’m writing this for those like me who have been mercifully untouched by the widespread loss and misfortune of the Coronavirus.

Let it be known that I am fully aware of how lucky I am. Right now, it is a privilege to be living unencumbered by grief, fear, and worry. I dream of a society in which nobody has to worry about hospital bills, eviction, or ability to afford necessities like food.

But I also know that change does not happen unprompted by crisis. Sometimes we are lucky enough to sense the potential for a crisis, and enact change before that crisis becomes a reality. Sometimes, though, we have to hit rock bottom to really feel the danger of the trajectory we have been on. I’m hoping that this event is Earth’s rock bottom.

***

When I sit in the quiet and feel into the collective mind, it seems to me that society is getting ready to restructure itself. I am ignorant about many things, and as such I don’t know what that will look like. But I am also experiencing the restructuring on a micro level, within myself.

I have sat down to write this with the intention of exploring some of that in this public forum. If anyone comes across this “story” — which is ultimately a public-facing diary entry — I hope you will be able to mine something useful from it. Perhaps this is an exercise in narcissism, and none such value exists. But I am a believer in the power of storytelling, and I think we often see ourselves reflected in each other.

Observing our reflections can teach us a lot: where our beauty lies, or how we need to fix our faces. I’m certainly not perfect, and I’m certainly not doing everything right, but I have made some beautiful progress in my growth over the past several weeks. If you have a lot of free time now and are unsure how to leverage it to your advantage, perhaps reading about how I have done so will help you imagine what actions would be right for you.

My fellow souls: I yearn for your growth and healing. In my younger years, I used to focus my idealism on social and institutional change. I identified strongly as Feminist, and my heart broke for all people hurt by our sexist, racist, etc etc hierarchical society. My heart still breaks in this way. I will never relinquish my vision of a society in which all people are viewed — and accepted — in their totality, rather than through a filter of discrimination and stereotypes. BUT: we also don’t have to wait until the rest of the world catches up to do our healing.

What we observe in our social structures and hierarchies is a symptom of a deeper problem. Addressing the symptoms will only suppress the hurt, and it will continue to exist on a more subtle level. But each one of us carries shards of the collective hurt. If we can go within and heal the pieces we carry, the totality of the hurt will diminish. If we all do it, it will be gone.

Heal yourself, heal the world.

My suggestion is not meant to replace social activism. There is a place for that as well. We need to be talking about how essential workers are not heroes, but hostages. Many would elect to stay home from, for example, their food service jobs to avoid potential exposure if not for the fact that they need money to survive. We also need to be talking about the destruction to the Earth that our way of life has wrought, and how we can reverse it. These are important conversations, but they’re not ones I’m qualified to lead with any kind of nuance or accuracy. My expertise lies in the inner world, and in the realm of emotions.

If life has taken a pause for you, this is an opportunity to go within. What in your life are you unsatisfied with? What hurts you? What makes you feel as if your light is being suppressed? If you were to stop settling for that which is “not too bad,” what would you be giving up? If you could emerge from this crisis with a perfect life, what would that life look like? How can you take steps in the direction of that life?

I believe you can shift.

***

My healing journey started long before the pandemic. I was born into this world already drowning in my own depths, constantly buffeted to and fro by overwhelming waves of emotions I couldn’t understand or harness. I lived through to young adulthood just barely hanging on, skilled in turning to coping mechanisms (some healthier than others), often highly-defended, often mercurial, often codependent, always stewing in a sort of despair.

A series of events, both internal and external, propelled me to seek help in the form of my current therapist. All therapists are not created equal, and people’s individual responses to different therapeutic methodologies are not easy to predict. I was lucky to find one who turned out to be a perfect collaborator in doing my healing work.

So much has changed for me since 2016 that I sometimes wonder if it’s necessary for me to “come out” to my extended social circle as a new person — one that is that much closer to consistent, authentic expression of my inner being, and one with a heightened awareness of how their behavior affects others. I now see my life until then as a sort of “trial by fire,” and I have been able to transmute so much of my past pain into understanding and compassion for myself and for others.

I still have a long way to go, though. None of us will ever reach perfection, so all we can do is constantly strive to move closer to it. This unprecedented amount of quiet and solitude has prompted me to dive into myself especially deeply, and to take control of certain facets of my life that had heretofore been beyond my immediate grasp.

***

I feel sure that everyone has a purpose, and that we need everyone’s help to build a better, more conscious world. Unfortunately, most of us live under conditions that require us to plug away at jobs that may feel meaningless or unrewarding so that we may survive under capitalism. I believe in the value of labor, but I also believe that when the majority of someone’s waking hours are consumed by tasks that are not nourishing, it can be quite difficult to find one’s footing and to see one’s purpose clearly.

We all have value to contribute to our society. If we all do that which we are uniquely talented at and qualified to do, we will live in a world with more abundance, more innovation, more nuance, more play, more compassion, and more of a sense of oneness. The ability to step into our beauty — and what is beauty but diversity? — depends on our healing. But we also need room to breathe, and to be.

The distance from my job that COVID has afforded me has allowed be to be quite honest with myself about my feelings, and about how I have been spending my time. My intention here is not to complain about my job. I am lucky to be doing something that utilizes my skillset, and which I, for a time, found nourishing. But this new distance has allowed me to observe that I am deeply unfulfilled, and that it is in my best interests to make a big change.

I think that many of us are living with unfulfillment, and accepting it as a given. I don’t think unfulfillment is my only option, and I don’t think it’s yours either. I have been using this time to immerse myself in activities that I love: reading, studying, writing, and thinking. I am determined to build a life for myself that affords me ample time to do these things on a daily basis. I believe that engaging in these activities will lead me to produce value for my community, and if I work hard enough, for society at large.

***

I used to feel bored if I didn’t have stimulation, and I would often look to others to stimulate me. I was afraid to sit by myself in the quiet, and to feel what I was feeling. Often, what I felt was bad. Often, what I felt was empty. I think that many of us feel this way, and many of us turn to distractions to avoid that feeling: sex, food, luxury goods, travel, social media, shallow friendships, superficial goals, mind-altering substances, television. These things can all be beautiful and good and useful, but only if and when they are used deliberately.

Now, I love being alone. I love it because I know how to nourish myself. If you are having trouble tolerating the quarantine, start there: what can you do to nourish yourself? You contain multitudes, fellow soul. Your interiority is as unfathomably vast as that which is exterior: the planet, the solar system, the universe. I implore you to explore your own inner universe. I guarantee it’s just as interesting as all the places you wish you could go right now, but can’t.

Part of how I enjoy my solitude is by working towards my goals, and by immersing myself in activities which I feel I was meant to do. What were you born to do, fellow soul? How can you move even one step closer to doing that? No matter what your answer is, know that I believe it is a valuable one, and that it’s something our world needs more of.

I can’t wait to see the beauty that is born from your growth.

Since the advent of cartoons as a genre of entertainment, humans and animals have coexisted in illustrated worlds and no one ever bats an eye; but Netflix’s original cartoon series BoJack Horseman makes this familiar trope strange. Nominally a sitcom, the show’s dark themes and meta-generic commentary subvert well-worn cartoonish conventions, resulting in the show’s refreshing self-awareness of its own absurdity. Although it may be off-putting to a new viewer, ultimately BoJack Horseman amounts to a clever and entertaining exploration of shallowness and isolation in contemporary society’s fame-obsessed culture — with animals. For any fan of cartoons and cutting-edge comedy, this show is a must-see.

BoJack Horseman takes place in modern-day California, in a fictionalized version of Hollywood, and centers around the titular character. We learn early on that BoJack (voiced by Will Arnett) starred in a popular 90’s sitcom called Horsin’ Around, and that he hasn’t accomplished much of anything since then; he spends his days binge-drinking and -eating in his lavish mansion with his deadbeat human roommate, Todd (Aaron Paul). Aside from alcohol and drugs, BoJack’s world consists of his Persian cat agent turned on-again-off-again girlfriend, Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris); his optimistic Labrador Retriever “friend” — and I use the term loosely — Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul Tompkins); and his human ghostwriter Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie). The arc of the first season follows BoJack’s attempts to make a comeback by writing his autobiography with the help of Diane. Despite its dark themes, the show strikes a tone somewhere between nihilistic and hopeful, never quite coming out on one side or the other but vacillating between degrees of the two.

The anthropomorphic animals surely add to the show’s humor and wit — it is rife with clever puns and sight gags which relate to the various characters’ species — but it’s the thematic resonances of said anthropomorphism that elevate the show beyond low-brow entertainment. One could get analytical about the purpose behind the many characters’ species: is it to heighten the theme of alienation? To provide a framework for social commentary about corporeal divisions between people, such as race and gender? Or, to allow for some more space between characters and audience, permitting darkness without crossing over into melodrama? I would argue that all of the above are true at different moments, which will playfully challenge more cerebral audience members. For those just looking for some high-quality entertainment, though, the aforementioned puns and sight-gags will surely satisfy.

For viewers less inclined to pick apart the subtleties of the creators’ choices, Horseman has plenty to say about show business: its highs, its lows, and what happens to those it leaves behind. While the entertainment industry does not lack in narratives about fame, this show delves deeper than most, and steers clear of tired cliches: its approach is more psychological, and much of its humor derives from its spot-on caricatures of certain Hollywood-types. Again, those seeking entertainment for the sake of entertainment will not be disappointed, but others who ask more of quality television will enjoy reading into the nuances of the portrayals and the embedded cultural commentary they contain.

BoJack’s crassness and misogyny may initially put off first-time viewers — from the beginning, his disrespect for women is clear, and his entitlement as a former star often means he lacks tact — but the show offers balance in the form of its strong, three-dimensional female characters. While BoJack (the character) objectifies women, the show itself does not, and indeed it is critical of his chauvinistic tendencies. There are plenty of shows with problematic male protagonists who are permitted to remain flat and unchallenged (I’m looking at you, Seth McFarlane), but BoJack Horseman is not one of them. That said, viewers with more delicate sensibilities, and those averse to socio-political commentary in their cartoons, may want to skip this one.

Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of Horseman is its willingness to dive into its characters’ backstories, and, as I have already suggested, their psyches. In that sense, the show is — and forgive my pun — a bit of a trojan horse. This viewer started watching the show expecting your run-of-the-mill edgy comedy but was pleasantly surprised when, several episodes in, she was rewarded with flashbacks to BoJack’s troubled childhood. But while it dives deep, Horseman is never preachy or emotionally manipulative; viewers are left to draw their own conclusions and make their own judgements — or not.

While Netflix has long since proved itself worthy as a purveyor of quality original content, BoJack Horseman adds some diversity to its repertoire and demonstrates that it is a force to be reckoned with. Horseman’s unique blend of wit, depth, and empathy for its characters, along with its quality writing and unique art style, amount to a show worth binge-watching. A+; would horse again.

Today, I did a series of mundane tasks: cleaned my apartment, planned my meals for the week, went grocery shopping, cooked, etc. And I’ve never been happier to be boring.

This is the strongest emotional reaction I’ve had to my recent graduation from my Master’s program. Strange, because I’m typically a very emotional person. I thought, perhaps, that it hadn’t sunken in yet, but it’s been about a week and, emotionally, I’m still flatlining.

I question it, of course: am I not processing my feelings? Am I in denial? But I don’t know. I asked myself the same questions back in November when my old, sickly cat who lived with my parents died. I was sad, but there were no histrionics. Six months later, still none. Maybe it’ll be the same with my graduation.

I don’t feel sad, but I also don’t feel all that proud. Mostly, I’m just relieved. Maybe that’s what it feels like when change happens exactly when it’s needed: it’s like an afterthought. Like a given. My cat had kidney disease; it was her time. I’m 26 and have never had a “real” job; it’s about time.

At my commencement ceremony, a few of my fellow graduates who sat in front of me had decorated their mortarboards. This, apparently, has become a “thing” in recent years. There were some really lovely ones which were expressions of pride, gratitude, excitement for the future — and even one which despaired at the terrible job market — but my favorite one, the only one I connected with, said “Time to Adult.” That was the one I kept staring at through the long, punishingly boring ceremony. Time to Adult.

I’m incredibly privileged to have been able to attend grad school. I’m privileged to have attended college at all. I am grateful for that — I don’t mean to be horribly callous and cynical. I’m glad I did this, for the valuable skills I developed, the wonderful friends I made, the teaching experience I accrued, and for the practice I gained in Doing Things I Hated, a valuable life skill.

But if I’m honest, I went to grad school because I wasn’t ready to adult. Maybe that’s why I’m not proud: because, for me, someone to whom school has always come far too easily, it was actually less effort to further my education than it would have been to Adult: that is, to get a job and start surviving in the fabled Real World. Even though a Master’s degree is a significant accomplishment, deep down I know why I did it, and that knowledge cheapens the accomplishment for me. On some level, it was a total cop out.

Without getting super personal, I will say that this time was necessary for me. I am a whole different person now than when I started my graduate education in 2013, several times over. I have healed a lot of old wounds (with the help of an amazing therapist). I have learned new and better habits, for my mental, emotional, and physical health. I have also learned what it’s like to be truly overburdened with work, and hence, developed the organizational skills and discipline I had severely lacked before.

But aside from the sheer volume of stuff I had to do, taking two grad classes per semester and teaching one writing class… I don’t feel like I actually did anything. Why do I feel this way?

At my commencement my mother cried, and my father squeezed me tightly around the shoulders. They were both so proud. Somehow, I felt like it was all a sham: like I was tricking them. I felt guilty. Why was I being celebrated when I hadn’t done anything?

There’s a concept called “imposter syndrome” which affects many high-achieving scholars and professionals. In essence, folks who are affected are unable to internalize their accomplishments and constantly fear being exposed as “frauds.” It seems to be rather common among women and people of color.

I don’t have imposter syndrome — I’ve never felt like a fraud, and I’ve always been aware of my academic competence — but I think what I feel is a different expression of the same inability to internalize success. It’s like nothing I do is enough to please myself, so no amount of external recognition or praise can touch me in the long term.

Or maybe I’m pathologizing something that isn’t pathological. Maybe I’m painfully aware of the arbitrary nature of the piece of paper I just earned. This semester was a lot like any other: I took two classes, wrote some papers, and I graded a bunch. I’m proud of what I wrote, and of the students I taught (mostly), but why should this semester as a whole make me prouder than any other? Maybe I feel weird because I’m expecting to feel The Way You Are Supposed To Feel When You Graduate. You know the one.

If you just graduated and you feel proud, I am not by any means criticizing you or telling you that your feelings are wrong. The fact of the matter is, you should be proud, you have every right to be proud. You did something amazing, that maybe you thought you couldn’t do. Or maybe you couldn’t see the end of it for most of the time you were doing it, or you’re the first person in your family to have done it, or there were folks who thought you couldn’t or never would. Perhaps you have a dream, and your degree brings you one giant step closer to it. Please, be proud — I’m proud of you!

I say this with all sincerity to my friends and fellow graduates. But I can’t hear it myself. I can’t feel it.

I’m frustrated that I, such an emotional person, can’t feel this simple self-evident emotion. I’m confused. I’m a little angry.

But I’m also relieved. I’m relieved to not have to read books I find boring anymore (they weren’t all boring, but let’s be real), and not to be what essentially amounts to an indentured servant to my Alma Mater. I’m relieved because I don’t have to feel stressed out when I take a day to cook and clean, and do other self-loving things, because in the back of my mind I know I don’t have two novels to read and twenty-three papers to grade by Monday morning.

I guess I don’t feel proud because I don’t feel like I have achieved a goal. Because my degree, in and of itself, wasn’t a goal. It was an obvious next step, and the path of least resistance at the time.

I think that I will feel proud once I am making a comfortable living doing something that I enjoy. In other words, I will be proud when I have managed to Adult successfully. For me, for whatever reason, that is what feels impossible. But I feel inspired, and I feel ready. I’m relieved, because my graduate program, as important and necessary as it was for my life path, was getting in my way in terms of being a functioning human being.

So from now on, you will find me shopping in the produce section of the grocery store, or walking briskly down the more scenic streets in town, or simply dusting all the surfaces in my tiny apartment.

That is, you will find me Adulting with aplomb. And with pride.

Before I say anything else, I must first express the obvious, lest anyone misread my intentions: this was a horrific event. The act was sadistic and unlawful, and the fact that it was livestreamed adds a whole other level of horror to the incident. I acknowledge that, as per our penal system, it is only just that the culprits are punished. I also acknowledge that in the best of worlds this would not have happened at all.

But we do not live in the best of worlds.

While the incident itself is hugely disturbing, I am disturbed in a whole other way by the conversation around it. From what I have seen on my social media feeds, there has been a lot of discussion, mostly among my fellow white people, about how this incident was “clearly” a hate crime. Some of that discussion was brought on by this CNN video, in which Don Lemon hosts a panel discussion about the incident. To highlight the relevant details: Symone Sanders, a member of the panel and a woman of color, warns against calling the attack a hate crime, while the rest of the panel seems to feel otherwise. The white members of the panel continuously divert the discussion away from race and racism, and towards things such as “the breakdown of the American family” and violence in the media. One of them is insistent that it is indeed a hate crime, and later makes flagrant assumptions about the perpetrators’ family situations.

I think that, in discussing this incident, we have been focusing on the wrong details, and having the wrong conversations. I’ll let Symone Sanders explain it, as she does so quite well in the video linked above (starts at 4:38):

I just want to remind folks that we cannot sit here and ignore that, for at least the last year, on public display, the worst parts of America have been brought from the fringe into the mainstream. So, that affects people on both sides. We’ve talked about white nationalists, and white supremacists, and the KKK, but when this inflammatory rhetoric is out there, when someone is repeatedly telling you that your community is the worst of the worst, it brings out the worst of the worst in people. And so I’m not defending what they did — what these young people did was sickening. I would argue that they also need some help in addition to some consequences. But this just didn’t come out of thin air.

I completely agree with Sanders, and she makes her point very tactfully, as she must, to avoid people jumping down her throat and/or dismissing her as an “angry black woman.” But since I am privileged enough to not have to worry about the latter, and simply don’t care about the former, I’m going to be a little clearer.

White people, imagine this: you were born into a culture that tells lies about you. Constantly. You know who you are on the inside, and you know who your loved ones are, but the greater culture consistently reflects back an image that is untrue and unflattering. People in your community are paid less than they deserve, your community is not represented in school history lessons (except as part of a horrific legacy of oppression and exploitation), and people who look like you usually only have supporting roles on TV and in the movies. These roles often reflect those same limiting falsehoods. In the news, you see people who look like you being shot and killed by police on a regular basis.

Then, your country elects to its highest office a man who is totally complicit with all this injustice. He’s not only complicit, but he actively feeds into it. When people who look like you are brought up to him, he immediately starts talking about violence and poverty.

Chances are, you might be pretty mad. You’d be mad at the president-elect, and you might even be mad at people who look like him, most of whom, whether or not they are aware of it, are also complicit in your community’s oppression.

If you’re mad enough, and other circumstances, whatever they may be, impair your better judgment, and you are with a group of friends in a similar state, you might go out and do something senselessly violent. It’s not good, and it’s not right, but neither is the way your community has been treated for centuries.

This is an exercise in empathy. That’s what I’m asking you to do, white people. Have some empathy. People don’t just do terrible things. No person has ever done a terrible thing just for the heck of it, while they were perfectly happy. People only inflict pain on others when they themselves are in tremendous pain. Pain begets more pain. This act was perpetrated by four misguided, disturbed teenagers, but perhaps we should view it as what it is: a cry of pain from a larger population. Like they said in that CNN video, this event did not happen in a vacuum.

I don’t think this tragedy should be considered a hate crime. My understanding of hate crimes is that they exist in order to protect marginalized groups, and punish violence against those groups more harshly than violence against other, privileged groups.

White people are not a marginalized group. Neither are Donald Trump supporters. I’m aware that the victim had some kind of disability (news sources are unclear), but as far as I can tell the attack was not focused on that. It seems he was chosen because he was uniquely vulnerable, not out of hatred for people with disabilities.

Regardless, I hope what I’ve written makes this clear: I want to get away from semantics and talk about the bigger issues at play here. I don’t mean to say we should forgive these youths for their actions and let them walk away scot-free. I don’t think that being in pain excuses the propagation of more pain. But perhaps we should think about addressing the problem at its source, instead of diverting attention elsewhere to alleviate our white guilt and/or protect our sense of white entitlement. Look it in the face. It’s not going away.