Maybe far along enough you learn about all the hoops you jumped through and how they’re designed to cripple you.
And we could both easily say yeah it was all about a game of obedience, hushing that inner light, that sort of thing–well designed, so the Game marches on.
But recently I learned about another property lost amongst most straight-A students: agency. Agency.
See, in a way, the C-students and B-students had a lot more smarts than any straight-A’er.
Because the B’s and C’s had other things going on. They didn’t pressurize the face-mask into their bones.
When they got home, they had a skateboard ollie to practice. A guitar. They had something more there. They sought knowledge and experience on their own terms. They had agency.
That ability to say, “let me choose my own syllabus” and that precious thing about choosing what excites you rather than sedates you.
If you follow the lifeline of any straight-A’er they got their religions and their chokers. Some lofty title to submerge into the mold further.
It’s either that or a lot of drugs. Because once you lose agency you lost everything. You’ll just sit there and wait to be told. You lost the most valuable thing in the world because you thought you had to in order to “survive”.
To look at the unknown as passé. Knowledge acquisition as a burden. Seduced into the thought that graduation was the end instead of the beginning.
The only accomplishments worth anything were the ones you chose with agency. Not of conformity, or misplaced hope. Following orders.
Only agency.