Several posters adorn my side of the dorm: a stunning shot of a spaceship, a crude painting of Squidward, a heptapod logogram, and a grainy photo of a man playing drums covered with blood. When new friends see my wall, they tell me their opinions on the pieces of popular culture the posters come from. I've heard that 2001: A Space Odyssey is boring and drawn out and that Spongebob is still very funny even though college freshmen may not be the intended audience. It makes me happy when the people I meet like the same movies and shows that I do. Eventually, someone commented on the poster of the bloody drummer, which stands out among the sci-fi posters that line the rest of the wall. They said that Whiplash, the movie which the photo comes from, was a great inspiration to them. Even though I love the movie, I wouldn't call its story inspirational.
Whiplash follows an undergraduate musician, Andrew, as he is made into a legendary drummer by a perfectionist, abusive teacher referenced only by his last name, Fletcher. I have heard the interpretation that Whiplash is a motivational film in the past from my high-school colleagues on the debate team, the most competitive people I knew. To them, Whiplash taught that success must come at a massive personal cost: blood, tears, time, and, most importantly, lots of stress. For my more relaxed friends, the story is a cautionary tale about the influence mentors have on their most driven, impressionable students. In a famous scene, Andrew expresses his controversial opinion on life in response to his family's critical attitude towards his choice to pursue; he says "I'd rather die broke and drunk at thirty-four and have people at a dinner table somewhere talk about it than die rich and sober at ninety and have no one remember me." Andrew's ideal life sounds thrilling, bold, and masculine. The end of the movie involves Andrew living out his fantasy in a triumphant and defiant ten-minute drum solo. In that context, it's easy to forget that, throughout the movie, Fletcher's students have cried, bled, quit music, and killed themselves. Even knowing that, it's impossible not to cheer as Andrew completes an impossibly-fast snare liftoff and earns the first smile and nod of approval from Fletcher in the final seconds of the film.
Even though I have a photo of him on my wall, I don't idolize Andrew or agree with his thoughts on life. I would find it scary and impractical to have my self-worth dependent completely on any of my skills, even something I think I am good at. Seneca's advice is more persuasive to me; I believe that my time being alive is a precious resource which I should spend taking actions I find meaningful, like making friends and reading about cool tech. Especially at my current age I have relatively few experiences and skills compared to people who have been alive decades more than me. I doubt I will be able to develop any legendary skills before I turn thirty-four to justify dying broke and drunk in an alley. However, if I progress through life slowly and purposefully, I still have a chance of doing something memorable. Research by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a data scientist who studied philosophy at Stanford, showed that a sixty-year-old startup founder has a roughly three times greater likelihood of success than a thirty-year-old founder, likely due to the experience and expertise gained by a lifetime of experience and careful observation. Of course, I don't see founding a startup as the sole indicator of a successful life, but this statistic shows that age can bring wisdom, instead of lethargy or complacency.
Even though I don't feel a reason to be hyper-competitive or become as impressive as I can as quickly as possible, that belief seems to be held by many of the people around me. Because I am influenced by my friends, I act similarly to them despite our different perspectives on what makes our lives meaningful. For as long as I can remember, I've spent most of my waking hours in some sort of class or doing something "productive." I have no trouble talking about how frustrating a homework assignment was, or how worried I am about finding work after graduating. I recognize that my friends might have legitimate reasons to stress more than me. Ideally, everyone could live with the right to slow down and appreciate the world in whatever way they choose, but I feel that I am only able to do that when I am confident about my future. To appreciate something I'm doing besides working, I have to be certain that my activity won't harm my work. Luckily, I am often confident about the state of my work. Since I went to a private high school, my class sizes were small which enabled teachers to talk individually with students about their study habits and time management. My high school also gave me a sense of security about college. My younger self could say, with almost complete certainty, that if I tried my best in my classes, I would gain acceptance to some prestigious university, because almost every above-average student at my school went to a selective college. Tuition and location makes that security inaccessible to most people.
The first time I noticed the benefits of being calm was around my debate teammates. Being around people who were clearly unhappy because of their stress made me want to be less stressed. Perhaps competitive debate selects for kids who are most able to yell at other kids, or arguing for hours every day can make someone irritable who may have otherwise been friendly. Either way, the people on the debate team seemed to be mean to each other and mean to themselves because of their concern with being better than each other. I tried hard to not adopt that culture. I tried not to complain when I lost or put down my opponents when I won. I would go for long walks in the sun to calm down after stressful rounds. Maybe some extra moments of preparation would have helped me win an extra round or two, but it taught me a bit about the world outside of debate. Nobody else on my team got to try the peach cobbler in Louisville or explored the forest just beyond our motel in Chapel Hill.
Focusing less on winning caused me to gain a lot of knowledge from debate. I structured my limited practice time not around what I thought would make me win the most rounds, but on what arguments I had a genuine interest in. This made me enjoy preparing for debate, and I prepared a lot. After getting in early to Stanford, I withdrew all other applications, quit every extra-curricular activity I didn't like, and spent most of my free time reading and writing for debate.
Unfortunately, being logically convinced that I should not be stressed did not always lead to an actual lack of stress. I don't think I ever achieved a true state of calm. I would worry about every round just like all of my teammates. I would obsessively listen to recordings of myself, trying to figure out what I said that didn't sit right with the judge. During tournaments, it seemed like I couldn't sleep or move right. During high school, I never thought too deeply about the gap between how I acted and how I felt. It took me a while to realize that these negative physical feelings coincided with my debate tournament timeline, and even then, I decided that was just natural, and never questioned whether I could control or change what was going on.
I recently watched a lecture from Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist at Stanford, about the effects of psychological stress on normal body functioning. It felt like he was describing how I felt every few weeks during high school. I was not as calm as I had convinced myself I was. Looking back, the activities I did to relieve stress looked very different from how writer Jenny Odell described how one ought to "do nothing". I spend a lot of time alone, but rarely would that time be contemplative, reflective, or passive. Data from Spotify showed that I spent about one quarter of all the minutes in 2024 listening to music. That hasn't changed since I started college. Last weekend, I walked the labyrinth at Windhover Contemplative Center in about five minutes while listening to one of my favorite songs, the Lil B remix of eurodance classic "Better Off Alone". After dancing through the labyrinth, I read the instructions intended to be read before walking; they said a trip through was supposed to take about forty-five minutes and that I was supposed to not have any electronics. I think this experience is representative of my general approach to "Rest".
For many reasons, I do not believe that I should be constantly stressed and in many ways, I do not act like I am constantly stressed. Yet, in the days surrounding an exam or competition, I experience physical symptoms in line with extreme stress. There is no single prescription for exactly what I should do about this. Maybe the amount of stress I feel is useful; maybe the modern equivalent of being chased by a predator is having a math midterm in the evening. More likely, I have spent years building up high expectations for myself over hundreds of interactions with my family and friends, who tend to also have high expectations for themselves. Since the belief that competition and stress are part of any Good Life is so fundamental to the culture I grew up in and at Stanford, it may take a long time for me to change the way I feel. I do believe that, over time, I am becoming better at handling stress. I did not carry all of my stress responses from high school to college. As Seneca would argue, life is long if not wasted. As long as I stay reflective, I'm sure I will improve at managing myself over time.