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By this time in college you?ve probably come to terms with the fact that to most of your professors and even fellow colleagues you are no more than just a number. That?s right, each of us is just a nine-digit ID number that we could probably fill in on a scantron test sheet with our eyes closed. It?s depressing when you actually think about the fact that you are but a speck of orange or maroon in the grand scheme of Lane Stadium or a lone straggler among the thousands who commute to campus each day. Kind of makes you miss high school, huh?
I don?t mean to be depressing here, but it?s true that we are slowly forgetting the fact that each of us are more than just one among the 28,000. The more I sit back and watch the town of Blacksburg evolve into a corporation-rich society with Starbucks and Lacoste stores popping up on street corners and the deafening sounds of Hottest Hits radio stations booming from nearly every stoplight from Prices Fork to the to the edges of Main Street, it makes me wish we weren?t so afraid to be different. This is where it doesn?t make sense to me; if we are all sick of being numbers, then why do we all conform in ways that make us just like everyone else?
No, I?m not going to judge you if you are holding a cup of coffee from Starbucks or if you?re a girl wearing spandex and a jean skirt in the dead of winter just because you saw other girls doing it and thought it was cool. Is this conformity? Probably. But, without conformity there wouldn?t be any opportunity for independence. And then there?s always the other extreme of being an anti-conformist. This person might say, ?No I will not join Facebook? or ?The only band I listen to is (insert band name that no one knows).? If we try to be too different from everyone else, then no one can ever connect with us, especially if we aren?t on Facebook.
You may be saying, ?Independence? Oh yea, I?ve got that. I do what I want!? As clich? as it might sound, I say the best part of being independent is knowing you make a difference.
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