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Thursday, June 15, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

W

hen I was six years 
old, my eager parents 
signed 
me 
up 
for 

private violin lessons to my 
absolute 
dismay. 
Under 
their 

pressure, I would trudge through 
my early musical career for the 
next four years or so – tears and 
tantrums included – until one day 
in the fifth grade, it wasn’t my 
parents pushing me anymore.

That 
day 
was 
instrument-

sampling day for elementary band 
and orchestra, and my whole class 
had heard me play a piece from 
private lessons. They fell silent 
and 
turned 
their 
10-year-old 

heads to me in awe, upon which 
I uncovered a pleasant surprise: 
I was actually good! I was the 
best in the room and the center of 
attention. That day, I tasted power 
and I bathed in pride. And I clung 
to it — though I could’ve spared 
myself by letting go.

For the years to come, this pride 

became my devil disguised as 
innocent passion. I thrived in my 
modest middle school orchestra 
program, steadily inflating my 
ego as I embraced my reputation 
as a musical superior. Without 
knowing it, I fell in love with the 
idea of being good at something, 
the meaningless glory of sitting 
at the front of the orchestra, the 
dangerous reputation of being 
unbeatable and untouchable — the 
best.

Thus, by the time I entered my 

high school orchestra program, 
one of the most awarded and 
competitive in the nation, I put 

my self-worth up for grabs, along 
with the title I’d been taking for 
granted. To my surprise, there 
were students who had been 
taking lessons for even longer 
than I had. They had more 
expensive teachers and even 
more expensive instruments, and 
they had their eye on the same 
fame that I didn’t know I would 
have to fight for.

But all of this only made me 

hungrier to remain at the top. 
After all those years of being the 
best, I wasn’t ready to be anyone 
else, and I didn’t know that I 
could. When I came up second, 
I lost my self-worth, but not my 
pride. I practiced harder and 
harder, all the while claiming 
that I did so out of passion. 
But I walked to orchestra with 
dread each day, secretly making 
enemies with my competitor and 
not-so-secretly, with myself.

Deep down, I knew that I did 

not enjoy what I did, because 
when I did come up first – when 
I finally regained my reputation 
and worthiness – I stopped 
practicing. Needing no more 
than a title to feed my ego, I 
was happiest when completing 
the bare minimum: sitting in 
my precious first-row seat and 
creating a mere impression of 
fine musicianship.

In this way, I hovered around 

the top of the ridiculous orchestral 
hierarchy 
for 
four 
years, 

wondering how someone could 
simultaneously be so egotistic and 
so, so insecure. When I graduated 

high school, I was relieved to 
leave behind the competition 
anxiety that had steadily crept to 
each area of my life.

But I could not graduate my 

pride.

Following months of severe 

lack of practice, I was placed at 
the rear of the Campus Symphony 
Orchestra at Michigan. Ashamed 
of the “downgrade” and even 
more so of still caring, I quit and 
casted my violin aside.

Since then, I’d touched my 

instrument less than a handful 
of times, often forgetting, even 
refusing, to play in fear of the 
unfulfilling 
memories 
we’ve 

shared. It seems strange to 
me that this hollow wooden 
specimen and the even hollower 
reputation it brought me had 
defined me for so long, when it 
took only a year for me to find 
stability otherwise.

And perhaps that’s why it took 

me so long to realize how much 
I’ve missed being a violinist. 
So today, sitting alone in the 
lethargic heat of my summer 
apartment, I did something I 
almost swore I’d never do again 
— I played it. The act felt faraway 
and foreign, and there was no use 
in denying it: I was no longer the 
best, if I ever was. But I’d become 
so tired of demanding this of 
myself and so glad I’d been freed 
from it, that at last, I was no 
longer bothered. Instead, I was 
my new fingers – rough calluses 
gone, rejuvenated, raw.

Yet, it shocked me just how 

NISA KHAN

EDITOR IN CHIEF

SARAH KHAN

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

DAYTON HARE

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Work hard, play harder

familiar 
each 
movement 
felt. 

While my skills had undoubtedly 
rusted, there remained a certain 
authority with which my fingers 
commanded the strings, and a 
striking ease with which they 
danced about them – albeit only 
a fraction of their former speed. 
Reciting old pieces by memory 
from the safety of my new 
bedroom, I felt unexpectedly at 
peace, and it dawned on me.

For years, my long hours of 

practice had been so clouded by 
the critique and competition that 
I’d been blinded to the essence of 
it all. While my toil and title alike 
are long gone, there is greater 
glory in what is preserved – how 
much I’ve learned about music 
and how its every motion and 
emotion has forever shaped me 

into a musician.

This time, I was not practicing 

for an audition or a concert, not 
priming myself for scrutiny or 
judgment. This time, I was playing 
for none other than myself, 
because there would be no one 
there to listen.

And with that, I felt awakened, 

like everything I’ve ever done for 
the wrong reason came crashing 
down on my door. Wondering how 
I’d been ready to leave behind so 
innate and permanent a part of 
me for an image so transient and 
trivial, I realized that for the first 
time, I was playing violin for fun.

But it wouldn’t be the last. 

— Angela Chen can be reached 

at angchen@umich.edu. 

Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns

Samantha Goldstein

Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Anurima Kumar

Ibrahim Ijaz
Max Lubell

Lucas Maiman

Alexis Megdanoff
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Ali Safawi

Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Stephanie Trierweiler
Anna Polumbo-Levy

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

ANGELA CHEN | COLUMN
T

here is a story I often tell 
people which I believe 
captures 
the 
absolutely 

cliché 
nature 
of 
my 
“all-

American childhood” — and also 
demonstrates why I grew up a little 
more mature than other kids.

It’s a story about my dead dog.
Way back in time when my 

imagination flourished and my 
sense of society was confined to 
the people in my Catholic school, 
my parents decided that a puppy 
would make an excellent addition 
to the white picket fence, big 
backyard and two-screaming-
kids family they had created.

And after a trip to the local 

humane society, they brought 
home what they called a puppy, 
but it was obvious that this 
“puppy” was something others 
did not want. With a grotesque 
underbite 
and 
over-muscled 

body — this pug, Pomeranian and 
Chihuahua mix sat unwanted in 
the pound for weeks before my 
parents adopted him on the spot. 
My overjoyed younger sister and 
I named him Cosmo, after a goofy 
character in the Nickelodeon 
show “The Fairly OddParents.”

And Cosmo was odd — he 

proceeded 
to 
terrorize 
our 

neighborhood by jumping fences, 
eating bees, fighting German 
Shepherds, eating more bees, 
literally attacking mailmen and 
eating so many bees.

Yet he also fulfilled all the other 

cliché obligations that only these 
brilliantly stupid and loyal animals 
can do. He ran alongside us down 
grassy trails in the summer and 
chased us in our sleds down 
Michigan hills in the winter. He 

slept at the foot of our beds every 
night. And he barked and jumped 
in joy when we came back home, 
whether we were gone for three 
minutes or three days.

And as a ten-year-old boy 

growing up in the suburban 
Midwest, my life was complete 
with 
my 
small, 
moronic 

companion 
who 
would 
run 

alongside my bike as I rode 
around my neighborhood. All I 
needed was a paper route and 
the theme music from “The 
Andy 
Griffith 
Show.” 
There 

exists a dynamic between a kid 
and a dog that I can only hope 
everyone has the opportunity to 
experience. The fierce, undying 
loyalty of a canine mixed with 
the innocent and loving qualities 
of childhood creates something 
that is impossible to replicate. 
I spent every day with that dog 
and loved nearly every second.

So, when he died suddenly 

after only two years, my fragile, 
pathetic 11-year-old psyche was 
permanently damaged.

It was cold and windy day in 

early February — my parents 
picked my sister and I up from 
school and drove us home to the 
shallow grave my father dug in 
our backyard. Cradling our pet for 
the last time, my dad placed him 
inside as the wind whipped the 
unearthed dirt and snow around 
us.

—Michael Mordarski can be 

reached at mmordars@umich.edu. 

Accepting loss

MICHAEL MORDARSKI| COLUMN

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