Those acquainted with me are aware that my trade is creative writing. Naturally, I shall disclose some of my own writing as an opening of this column series, but know that it is a satirical novel of pure fiction (so do not be worried). Entitled “Salvation in Another,” the story follows a teenage girl attending high school. The protagonist (quoted directly from my current manuscript) “was perhaps the most miserable creature one could possibly hope to see in such a vicinity as hers. Her wit and intellect, rather than being sharpened by the influx of knowledge, had been maimed as a product of education. Competition of the modern sort for young women of her class — the path of high achievement and prestige through miserable fights for survival — had long killed her happiness and destroyed any hope of hers. Every day was a crushing experience; she awoke without any anticipation of her days but that of knowing she would definitively encounter despair … she was an incredibly lonely lady in the … cesspool of modern competition.” “Salvation in Another” strongly regards a concept called “modern competition.”
To arrive at the articulation of this concept and to be in the trade of novel writing, I am also a purveyor of films. We as humans are bound to compete; this instinct reaches into “hallowed antiquity,” as they say in Gladiator (the original film with Russell Crowe — the good one), but this instinct was initially about the practical. For example: fighting for one’s life, as in Gladiator. The moral of Gladiator, besides strength, honor, dedication, perseverance? Competition is inevitable and brutal.
“We are all in nothing but a glorified gladiatorial game, yet our Colosseum is not a ring of stone and sand but academia and achievement. ”
Clearly, however, in modern America, we do not participate in gladiatorial games of the same sort as Maximus. Oh no. In modern America we have—what else? — modern competition. Modern competition is exactly as “Salvation in Another” explains: It is a cesspool of crushing unhappiness, hopelessness, loneliness, and misery. Skirmishes for resources and success have simultaneously become less physically violent but exponentially more emotionally and psychologically brutal. In the context of our academic lives: grades, applications, resumes — the list is nearly endless. As students, we are told to mingle and make connections and friends, yet we are also all enemies fighting for these very resources. We are all in nothing but a glorified gladiatorial game, yet our Colosseum is not a ring of stone and sand but academia and achievement. Our enemy is not the Legions of Scipio Africanus, Tigris of Gaul, or Commodus, but the system itself and us ourselves. And, amazingly, it feels just as brutal as the Colosseum. Modern competition is very much cerebral, but even though grades, applications, and resumes cannot kill us in the same direct way as Maximus’ tribulations, it is a psychological and emotional battle of life and death. One that I, dare say, think many of us feel we are losing.
Perhaps, unlike Maximus, we can be lucky enough to escape this bloodless fight-to-the-death alive. I believe that I have learned sufficiently, however, that persistence and simply continuing on does wonders. And so, we must maintain hope and never relinquish.
