I often complain that a massive side-effect of living in New York City is how much you feel you have to have achieved at such an early age - early starting from the age of 18, to be exact, because that’s when most of us joined college. The moment I arrived at NYU for my freshman year, I was already meeting people who’d signed record deals or scored feature-length films, or kids who were signed with official modeling agencies and had over 50k followers on Instagram. It was simultaneously inspiring yet terrifying, for it constantly beset me with the question of what I was doing with my life and with my time - and why I hadn’t thought about doing any of that in my 18 years of living.
Trying to keep up therefore felt like trying to run up a descending escalator. Even though I was enjoying and keeping up with all of my classes, what I was quickly learning was how much I did not know; and - with what I did know - was swiftly about to be rendered useless.
In the beginning stages, though, everyone around (including myself) is trying to advertise themselves as the most impressive person they can be. Much as I try, I give up quickly as I am not good at acting confident if there comes something I know nothing about. I tend to recoil in these situations, keeping my mouth shut before finally admitting to be clueless about it - a victory, in many cases, for the person I’m speaking with (here is one less person I have to compete with, they probably think). The beginning of freshman year felt this way - you meet someone in your program, and BOOM! you quickly compare unwritten CVs as though it is a game of top trumps. Of course, as time went on, I began to discover that theirs was a façade, too. Many of my friends in similar art-related majors felt like they hadn’t done enough and weren’t doing enough. It is a heavy, heavy weight to carry around.
In my freshman year, then, I found myself in said top trumps of a conversation - but at this point my companion had basically topped me, and I had nothing else to say.
“If you want to make it in film composition, you probably need to have scored some short films already. Live recordings are best - I got some friends and recorded those. And have a website. You have to have a website if you want to make it.”
I walked with them, attempting to note down all the information they were giving me in my head - but my body was internally exploding, wondering how on earth I would be able to get any of that done; how they’d manage to get all of that done. Is this where my growing up in Kenya failed me? When my friends were spending seven summers in a row at intense band camp, I was doing heaven-knows-what because things like that didn’t exist there.
But then here we are. 3 years later. I’m about to go into my senior year, and my website is finally up! Here’s the thing: there couldn’t have been a better time to put it up than now. You know how I said that I felt like my first two years of college was learning how much I did not know? My third year of college (and now my fourth) are my learning what I can do with what I do know. And it’s so much more than before. I have studied with countless influential figures, from a former student of Olivier Messiaen’s to Grammy-and-Pulitzer-Prize-winning composers to authors whose novels have been decorated with prize after prize after prize. I have met incredible people, simultaneously being inspired by some who are further along in their art than I am as well as by some who have yet to get there.
Looking back over my time since that conversation in freshman year, there is so much I know now that makes it possible for me to write this post; to put in my bio; to put in my galleries. This was my time, and nevermind that it didn’t come as early as someone else’s. Everyone’s path is different. Everything comes about in its own time - I continue to remind myself daily, ever, always.
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