Wednesday, September 30, 2015 // The Statement

7B

Personal Statement: Being average

by Michael Flynn, Daily Arts Writer

choice, Colin Gunckel, assistant professor of american
culture and screen arts and cultures, sees taste as a mode
of class distinction — much like what sociologist Pierre
Bordieu elaborated on in “Distinction: A Social Critique in
the Judgement of Taste.” Like Bordieu, Gunkel believes
these preferences are generated arbitrarily, and are empty
signifiers of status. He noted in an e-mail, “The category (of
hipster) is associated with having a superficial relationship
to consumption. Going to the ‘hot’ new restaurant or bar that
everyone is talking about, going to the art show you read
about on the cover of the weekly, listening to whatever they
read about on whatever website, dressing like your friends,

I

am average.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of average

as an adjective is thus: “Of the usual or ordinary

standard, level or quantity.” That doesn’t seem like a terrible
thing to be. But for so many people in this generation (and
in any generation), that is a dirty word. “Average” is the one
thing most people dread to be. People want to be exceptional.
People want to make the most money, make the biggest
difference and be the best friend, partner, student and citizen
they can possibly be.

This aversion to average-ness is not innate, except in some

particularly narcissistic cases, but rather the product of
external forces. Parents tell their children that their abilities
are exceptional, and all but guarantee that they will do great
things with their lives. The University of Michigan continues
this rhetoric, telling tens of thousands of young people that
they are the “leaders and best,” that they will go on to change
the world and be successful. After all, if they got into U of M,
they can’t possibly be average, right?

For a long time, I thought that was I. I thought I was a

person of exceptional ability, that I was guaranteed a bright,
successful future. I like to think I’m a reasonably grounded
individual, but I went through a large chunk of my life with
an inflated sense of my own contribution to society, without
much objective proof of that belief.

I went to Campolindo High School, a public school in

California with a reputation for sending its students to elite
colleges. I spent my four years there as a high-functioning
slacker, in academics and in life. I took AP classes, but didn’t
put an exceptional amount of effort into them. I played

sports, but didn’t stick with any of them for very long and
never made varsity. I played guitar, but never joined the
school band, and didn’t stay in any of the bands I joined
for much longer than a year. I graduated from Campolindo
with a solid but unexceptional GPA and an extracurricular
resume that didn’t show any focus.

Somehow, this (and probably also legacy status, thanks

Dad) got me into the University of Michigan. I wasn’t a
harder worker than many of my peers in high school, but
somehow I got into an elite university. The illusion of my
own exceptional ability and drive carried on.

When I finally arrived at Michigan, I began to realize that

I wasn’t prepared for the workload that an elite university
requires. I continued to procrastinate. I continued to cram
for tests and write papers the night before they were due.
The same strategies that had worked for me in high school
were beginning to crack. And I let them continue to crack. I
was not galvanized into action. I was complacent.

Looking back on it, I could have easily done something

about it, but I had no intrinsic desire to do so. I never had
any real intrinsic desire to succeed academically. The
reason I worked reasonably hard in school was out of fear of
disappointing my parents. My father, in particular, placed a
great deal of weight on academic success.

It wasn’t until sophomore year that I had a moment of

clarity. I was procrastinating on homework by Googling
recent Class of ’14 graduates that I knew to see what they were
up to. One of them had a website with a link to her resume,
and as I looked through it, I realized that this was a truly
exceptional student, with a near-perfect GPA, leadership

positions in student organizations and work experience.
The realization of how far removed I was to that level of
commitment and success hit me like a brick. The illusion of
my own exceptional ability was shattered.

From that simple realization came a feeling I hadn’t felt

before: a strong desire to work hard, not for anyone else but
myself. I felt that I could do so much better than I had done,
and I resolved to do so. I resolved to leave average behind
and begin the journey to becoming excellent.

Since then, I’ve made some progress toward that goal,

though not as much as I would have liked. I’ve raised my
GPA, if only marginally. I’ve volunteered and pursued
extracurricular
activities,
even
achieving
leadership

positions in some of them. I haven’t stopped faltering and
making mistakes, but I’ve become better at recognizing
those mistakes and keeping myself from making them again.

Perhaps the most significant effect of my epiphany is my

newfound feeling that, while it’s not how I’d like to remain,
being average at the time of life that I’m in isn’t a terrible
thing. Barring the unforeseen, I have many more years to
learn, to grow, to find areas I excel in. And what better place
to be young and average than the University of Michigan?
Just by virtue of attending this University, I am exposed to
new perspectives and accrue meaningful experiences. I will
take interesting classes and pursue activities that I love. I
will gather skills that will help me survive in the real world,
regardless of how well I do academically.

I hope to continue improve as a human, and I hope to truly

excel in something someday. But for now, I am average. And
for the time of life that I’m in, average is quite all right.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHERYLL VICTUELLES

living in the right neighborhood — people are suddenly into
paying $20 for the privilege of eating artisanal toast, because
that’s what’s trending. In other words, people associate
hipsters with having no kind of original, meaningful or
personal relationship to culture.”

Indeed, to Gunckel, as well as a set of left-leaning

intellectuals, the mythic aura of authenticity surrounding
the hipster masks the real damage: “I think the close
association of the hipster with the creative economy
obscures the detrimental economic shifts that gentrification
is having in certain cities. Equating this demographic with
‘hipness’ is a way of foregrounding that supposed dimension

of the category, without owning up to their privilege and
the role many of us — hipster or otherwise — may have in
gentrification.”

Abandoning the territory of mainstream consumerism,

hipsters are free to wander wherever they please, led only
by a cultivated taste, a deep wallet, and, yes, the rigid norms
of a class structure. Perhaps our Ann Arbor hipster is really
just our existentialist tastemaker, choosing to choose in the
daunting face of late-capitalist society. Sartre condemned
man to freedom, but for the hipster set loose in the culinary
garden of Ann Arbor, this is a delightful possibility.