Through a Kaleidoscope
Growing up, I identified as Indian and Hindu. While my family was never very religious, we celebrated the festivals and honored the gods. Our family values were very reflective of the Indian culture my parents grew up in, which put stress on the importance of academics over anything else. I spent every bit of my free time when I was little going over science worksheets and being quizzed on mental math.
Over time my beliefs began to change. I moved away from polytheistic Hinduism and started to identify as agnostic. I started believing in predestination: the idea that God has already written your fate for you. I believed that as long as I kept studying and did well in school, everything else would fall into place because that is what God intended. I still identified as Indian, but no longer Hindu.
In high school, my values started to change. I started to branch out and become more social, and met a lot of new people. I stopped caring so much about math and started focusing more on my English assignments. But because of the emphasis my family placed on academics, I wasn’t allowed to go out when I could be doing something much more useful for my education. Once they realized I was never able to hang out, my friends moved on. I found solace in predestination, believing this was all meant to be, that my fate was just playing out.
But it wasn’t long before that didn’t comfort me anymore. As I sat in my room, math textbook flipped open to complex equations, I couldn’t focus on anything but how my complacency with the life I was handed was just making me unhappy. I refused to believe that my fate was to be unhappy for the rest of my life, or at least for the rest of high school. So I started to fight against it, clashing with my parents’ traditional values. I realized that the values they raised me with wereas what they thought would be best for me. They released me from the tight grip of our tradition, and for the first time I felt in control of my life.
But it wasn’t long before I became drunk on that freedom. By rejecting our family values, it felt as if I had rejected the Indian side of me. And without predestination, the path to my future became foggy. I didn’t know how to balance different aspects of my life because I didn’t know what I wanted. Unsure of who I was, I frantically searched for something to believe in. I turned to methods of self realization like Buddhism, and when that didn’t work I dove into the world of philosophy and started connecting with the idea of existentialism. I started to believe that God was dead, and that life on Earth was truly without purpose. I stopped being able to motivate myself to do anything, and started living in a constant existential crisis.
Then I joined Freestyle Academy. As part of the English Honors program, we read Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and through Gregor’s metamorphosis and the discussions we had in class, my eyes were opened to a whole new definition of existentialism: your purpose in life is the purpose you create for yourself. You get to choose how you impact the world.
After reading this novella, I started grasping onto literature as a lifeline to lead me through the haziness and uncertainties I had about myself. I started defining myself and my beliefs through a compilation of quotes from various philosophers and scientists. I especially started living by Descartes’ quote, “In order to determine whether we can know anything with certainty, we first have to doubt everything we know.” Living by Descartes’ words forced me to look at everything from different perspectives, like through a kaleidoscope.
Through philosophical and creative writing, I found a purpose in this world. I want to reach others and help them feel the power of literature and help positively impact their lives, just as it had for me.