Cliché

I've been home from school for about two weeks, but my room isn't exactly in perfect order just yet. The most challenging part about coming home for the summer is trying to find a place for everything again, and not just leaving a pile of clothes and books of books in the corner. While you can just throw a blanket on top of all of your junk and pretend it isn't there all summer, it's a million and a half times easier to just put it all away.

So while I have been struggling to find a home for all of my clothes (which seem to have multiplied exponentially since September) and my books (which never really fit in the bookshelf neatly anyway), I found one of my favorites The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I could never really pinpoint the reasoning behind this book earning a spot high up on the list of books I can't live without. Maybe it's just that I read it during the trip down to my freshman orientation, and so it comes with good memories. Or maybe it's just because it truly is an excellent book (which it is). Either way, it's one of my favorites.

When someone asks me what my favorite book is this title is always the first to come to mind. Sometime during the last semester one of my friends who happens to be a writer, and a pretty good one at that, inquired about my favorite novel. This instance accompanied by one in which I was staring nostalgically (as usual) at the lacrosse field, and a comment I made about the girls in my hallway, lead to this friend deciding to write a short story inspired by my statement.

At this moment, I can't remember exactly what it was that I said (though it related to my insecurity and regret), but whatever it was it proved to be a good starting point to a story. So there I was a walking piece of inspiration for another writer while I was struggling with writer's block. This was incredibly frustrating for me both because I was irritated that he could so easily "steal" my thoughts, and because I thought there was no way that he could really understand what I had meant. On top of that, he was using this story as his piece for his creative writing class. So while I had no recognition for the thoughts and ideas he was literally transcribing what I had said and getting an A for it.

A few days later, he handed me his laptop with the freshly written piece open for me to read. This was just after he had shared it with his class and gotten excellent feedback from his professor. At this point I was mostly over my feelings of resentment, and so I read his piece. I read it once, then twice, and then one more time. Aside from the setting, it was nearly exactly what I would have written, had I written it myself. I hated it.

I hated it because the main character was me. He had picked up all of those little details I had mentioned in the year that we had been friends and he incorporated them into the story. Whether this was intentional or just a subconscious occurrence, I hated it. He told me that the girl in the story wasn't me, and maybe that's what he thought, but it was. Everything that she said, every thought that she had was practically identical to what I was thinking on that day and so many more.

When I asked him why he chose that particular novel to have the character reading in the story, he said Isn't obvious a character like that would identify with that book. Of all of the millions of books in the world it had to be that one that he chose. So at that moment I realized that I am a total cliché. That's why I was so angry, because I am completely predictable. With a bit of careful, or not so careful, observation someone could figure me out, and I hated that.

Is that stupid to be angry about? I don't know. Maybe it is when you spend so much time hoping and pretending to be someone you aren't. So when you realize someone else can see right through that, it's frustrating and incredibly scary.

So what does that really mean? It means that you shouldn't spend so much time trying to be different and just try to focus on being yourself. But beyond that? You should always try to improve yourself to be someone you're proud of, rather than hoping no one can see who you actually are. There's nothing wrong with being average or predictable, as long as you are happy with who you are.