GINNA NGUYEN
Staff Writer
Bleep, burrrr, whiiiirl. That’s Bob the Robot, talking about his latest dragon-slaying adventure. But, as modern-day culture tells us, dragons are not real.
J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, when asked of the inspiration behind their novels, each answered that he wanted to read fantasy. But since few wrote such a genre at the time, Tolkien and Lewis had to write what they wanted to read.
I want to write about robots. My boyfriend moved to Japan and bought himself a toy robot. The robot’s name is Bob, and Bob likes to slay dragons.
Last spring, I encouraged you to funk up your life with eccentric experiences outside the Pepperdine bubble. This fall, as our collegiate years take us through a search for independent lives, I encourage you to explore the independence of self-expression.
In college, we get a whiff of freedom as we begin to discover our self-images in a worldly context. We join clubs, participate in extracurricular activities, go to parties and choose majors. We spend our lives trying to communicate to others that voice of desire from deep inside. We take up art, music, sports, education, fashion and the written word to tell the world about us.
These are all great ways to develop this whole “self” thing, and I encourage all of them, especially now, when we’re supposed to cultivate our personalities.
There’s a higher goal, however, in self-expression. Self-expression is not about creating an image — it’s about letting your life imagine its own possibilities, and letting what was once buried deep inside of you become what the world sees.
I encourage you to look beyond the established ways you express yourself in college. Your greatest expressions are not the art you create, the trophies you win, the deals you sign or the homeless people you save. No, the ultimate expression is the passion and integrity with which you pursue those ends. That’s what makes the process — painting, singing, writing or helping others — so interesting.
How we walk, talk, think and move are where we express ourselves best. This week, I encourage you to look around and find someone who holds that ideal of genuine being. Ask yourself, “What makes that person walk with his or her head so high and eyes so bright?”
Don’t be surprised if the answer is that person’s self-respect and attention to their innermost cries.
So to that crazy voice inside of me, I answer: Why not? I’m going to write about toy robots. I like Bob the Robot, and I like imagination. And that, friends, is what makes the world go round. Not robots, but individuality and imagination.
This world will be a better place through impassioned defiance of the conventional and homogeneous. Harmony does not come from singing the same notes. Instead, be the F-sharp to everyone’s D. Be the dragon in everyone’s dream. Express yourself by living your life in that inimitable way with which you were born. If you want to write a story about robots, then do it. Who wants to read the same story every week, anyway? Not me. I want to read about your life and how you are revolutionizing the world around you.
“Life has been your art,” wrote Oscar Wilde. “You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”
Find your own inner self, embrace it, and live it with passion and integrity. But please remember, robots slay dragons, and heterogeneity rocks the world.
10-27-2005
