Discovering my passions through pipe dreams

Olivia Das Gupta

News Editor

It started with music, something I danced to before I could speak.

Then my love landed on books, and I consumed the volumes in the school library with fervor.

Then the world of writing entered my vision, and theater and history and art and television and any other scrap I could get my hands on with some kind of story to tell.

I don’t know exactly when I realized I wanted storytelling to be my future, but I knew that I’d have to fight for it.

Artists are taught to expect failure at every turn.

Every project is a pipe dream, and the weight of those dreams threatened to bury me sometimes.

It became so unbearable during the pandemic that I finally relinquished. I had to try.

So, I wrote.

I tried my hand at dozens of different stories, and for the first time in years, I left behind the ghosts of all the same pipe dreams that came before.

I imagined new futures, created new beginnings, and I let myself dream.

But eventually, reality came, and the stories I attempted did not survive beyond a few pages.

That is, until a miracle happened.

Glued to my laptop in a fury that burned against the January sunlight, I found ten pages, twenty, pages, all nicely organized, edited, and revised. I could hardly believe it.

While the piece was certainly not my best writing nor anything I feel compelled to share with others, those months taught me more about writing and about myself than any other experience has.

Never before had I written something so complete or complex. It challenged the way I thought about myself, and it was refreshing to see myself taking pride in a non-academic achievement.

The way my schoolwork reflected in my grades had convinced me I was not as capable as I was, that I was unmotivated, and the passion I had when I was younger for creating and learning was gone.

Finally, I realized how untrue that was.

My extreme interest in my personal projects has led me to find a college that I feel will best nurture them, and I have incredible hope for my future.

In a serendipitous twist, my college has what they call “winter term,” where each student is to create a personal project to work on independently during the month of January.

I consider it a coincidental homage to the dream that brought me here.

So, what advice do I have to give? Let yourself imagine what you could be capable of, even if it seems beyond your means. It might be closer than you think. fifty, all spilling from my head in a matter of days.

After a few months, there were over a hundred