I was passively scrolling through Tumblr with five reading assignments open in adjacent tabs when my roommates asked me when I was going to bake chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for them. I shrugged and said I would give money to anyone who was willing to actually put in enough effort to do the cooking.
“What?” my roommate yelled as if I had just deeply insulted her. “I would much rather do the baking than have to pay for the ingredients! Do you not like baking?”
I paused. I did like baking. In fact, in high school, I baked different decadent desserts every Sunday night without fail. I would spend hours probing the Internet for the most intricate recipes before finally deciding on what my creation of the day would be. As I set out to begin the process, I would always find myself drifting further and further away from the original recipe and toward my own inclinations. Fudge brownies would become cookie dough-infused fudge brownies and I would dye the batter of angel food cupcakes to make them into “rainbowcakes.”
So, yes, I do like baking. The better question is, however, why I don’t bake anymore. Last year, I had the excuse of lacking a proper kitchen—with miscellaneous dishes stored in the oven and week old pasta burnt into the stove, baking was hardly an option. But this year, I have no excuses. Although my Henle doesn’t exactly have a Martha Stewart kitchen, we have ample utensils and appliances for baking.
“I don’t have enough time,” is probably the worst lie I tell myself on a weekly basis because I didn’t have any more time in high school than I do now. I woke up at 5:50 a.m. every morning to fight for a spot in the parking lot at school, attended after-school clubs every day, played varsity tennis, and often worked on class work past midnight. Yet somehow, I had time to bake.
If baking were the only casualty during my transition to college, it would have been okay, but it’s not the sole sacrifice. Before I came to college, I used to write in my black journal every single day. I wrote poetry on my computer at night. I read novels on my own time. I took computer illustration classes in school, but I also worked on Adobe Illustrator at home. I painted on canvases by my window, drew sketches while on my bed, and went on long walks to take pictures of the sun streaming through autumn leaves.
I was creative. I was the antithesis of the brain-dead zombie from William Deresiewicz’s article in The New Republic on why you shouldn’t send your kids to the Ivies. For this reason, when I initially read the article over the summer, I laughed because, clearly, I was the exception. I loved to write, draw, and read novels cover to cover.
The moment my roommate asked me if I like to bake was the same moment I realized that I had become one of the uninspired students aimlessly wandering around a prestigious college campus who Deresiewicz had cautioned against. After all, how can I like baking and love writing, drawing, and reading if I simply don’t do any of them anymore?
I haven’t written anything besides papers, articles, and to-do lists since returning to college this semester. The only things I draw are doodles in the margins of my notebooks. I just don’t have the capacity to engage creatively.
No matter how passionate I am about the classes I am taking, I find it hard to sustain the passion while worrying about which facts from lecture will be arbitrarily questioned on the exam. Instead of being able to appreciate the learning, I find myself exhausted from trying to comply with varying grading standards. Before an exam, all my time is consumed with anxiety and afterwards, I find that sleep and Netflix are the only solace for my exhausted, post-stress mind.
With all of this being said, however, I refuse to completely concede that I am as brain-dead as Deresiewicz would assert. Although I have relinquished my creativity in the most tangible forms, I have found a new outlet for it: conversation.
When it’s late at night and the day’s work is still sitting piled high, I’ll sit in my living room with friends and debate issues like grade inflation, cultural appropriation, or even topics from weekly reading assignments. Our conversations are motivated by curiosity and a deep passion to engage and learn more from each other. I have never felt more inspired or insightful than when I am speaking at length with other students here.
So maybe I don’t write or draw or read or have anything to show for my creativity. But that doesn’t mean it is gone, only displaced.
