The ultimate irony of human consciousness is right in front of us: we are the only species aware of our terminality. And for young men, that awareness can settle as a whisper of deep apathy, signaling that we are never quite enough; the world is unforgiving. Why strive for academics, for work, for the pursuit of happiness, when the entire system eventually collapses into nothingness?
My generation received its first warning of fragility not through philosophy, but through a mandated shutdown. We went from the predictable rhythm of a school day to the disorienting silence of the COVID-19 lockdown. Governor Wolf called it an initial ten days; we all knew better. The entire structure of our lives—from teachers scrambling to invent virtual learning overnight to the sudden, eerie silence of outside life—proved that the world is unforgiving and ready to end at any moment.
I watched the fallout fracture my own home. My sister’s graduation withered into a husk of ceremony, our family stuck watching from the isolation of the minivan. My brother, even two years later, bore the lingering aftershocks. I was lucky enough to miss the worst of it, but the virus stuck as a permanent warning: anything and everything we have can vanish in an instant.
This global chaos only intensified a personal, foundational dread I learned years ago. As a part of the family business, my obligation was helping out during busy days. I began young, about nine or ten, playing receptionist and janitor. I was not asked to do chores at home; this was their form of discipline, the “value of hard work.” But during the most vulnerable time of my life, I began to loathe the sound of the front door opening.
My time, my peace, and my presence were not my own; they were part of a binding contract to put food on the table. When the phone rang downstairs, it was a command, not a request. I remember evenings when I would lie upstairs, burying my head into my pillow, rigid with resentment. I silenced my phone, trying to carve out a small, private space from the obligation that seemed to be constantly invading. It wasn’t work that drained me; it was the realization that my identity was tied to my utility.
That early experience taught me that every interaction is transactional. And when you are judged solely on your contribution, you are perpetually vulnerable to the second lesson: mediocrity.
Every test score, every missed opportunity, every accolade not won is a quantitative data point reminding me that I am below par. If accomplishments are the currency of purpose, then by the metrics of this unforgiving system, we have illegitimate value. In that sense, we are rendered no different from the inert, inanimate objects that surround us, merely existing.
This struggle with purposelessness is the heavy, suffocating side of freedom. Philosophers like Emerson tell us we are free to live by our own morals, untethered to predetermined roles. But how can we embrace this freedom when we are crushed beneath obligations and the anxiety of failure? The truth is, we often yearn for disappearance, not out of malice, but to dissolve a contract we never asked to sign.
In the face of an individualistic world and the crushing burden of expectation, apathy seems to be the only rational response.
But clearly, humans have persisted for hundreds of thousands of years.
I’m definitely not an “artsy” guy.” My experience with purpose was tied to transactions and test scores. But I joined the musical, as a townsman, mind you, to see if I could find a different kind of utility. I wasn’t chasing an accolade or trying to get on the good side of anyone, just the satisfaction of contributing to an effort where the simple fact of showing up held value.
The emotional climax wasn’t mine: it happened watching Jai Bonaparte ’24. He was my brother’s friend, someone I knew only through the transitive property of being a sibling. Here was someone breaking down not because he lost something, but because he loved something. His integral role in the play and devotion to the visual details—the costumes, the sets, the unspoken things—mattered to him. Seeing his genuine emotion made me forget my own grievances. The memory of that musical will be tethered forever to the concrete image of the raw emotion of the actors that had no utility other than simply being real.
You are being left behind only if you continue to operate under the premise that your value must be earned. You define your own worth, and it is up to you to protect the passion that fuels it.
This, I believe, is the fix to the apathy and crushing weight of modern life. We don’t need a test score or money to fill the void in our heart. We need an anchor.
The Haverford community, in that shared purpose of the stage, created a reality that momentarily paused the end of the world: the abyss cannot consume us en masse.
You are being left behind only if you continue to operate under the premise that your value must be earned. You define your own worth, and it is up to you to protect the passion that fuels it.
The world may still be looming with calamity. The system is unforgiving. But in the shared satisfaction of a castmate, or the triumph against impossible odds on the field, we find the reason to keep waking up.
And in a world obsessed with the bottom line, that choice is the only accomplishment that is truly ours.
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