I get a strange feeling every time I look at myself in the mirror.
It’s as if I am seeing my face for the first time — it is familiar, yet foreign. And when I look myself right in the eye, it feels as if I am a ghost trapped in a suit made of meat and bones.
My body, my very existence, feels somehow distant to me, because I forget how much time has changed me. Time changes the way we look, but one must not forget who they are deep down, and always remember the paths they took.
In three years, I went through many roles and experiences that changed who I was. I see the evidence of that in the photos of me taken for Pipe Dream. I started writing here three years ago as a freshman — I have taken one almost every semester since then, and in each photo, I look different in a way that shows a new side of me.
In one of them, I may look confident. In another one, I look thoughtful — one may show me bright with passion under the September sun, or tired and cold under March clouds. More than anything, however, I feel the most emotions when I look at my first photo taken all the way back in October 2023. That eager, naive, ambitious but also admittedly clueless guy in a black trenchcoat … he was me once.
I get the exact same feeling of estrangement and unfamiliarity when I look at that photo as when I look at myself in the mirror. He was once me — he had my name, more or less looked like me and shared the same memories from the past as me.
Yet at the same time, he “is not” me, not anymore. That guy from three years ago lived through friendships, relationships, classes, projects, trips abroad, the start of his own radio show and by now nearly 100 articles for this newspaper to get to today, when he “became” me.
He is not me because I have changed a lot in these years, and yet something of him remains in me, and something of me will carry on to another man far away from me in time.
Each of us carries something in ourselves, call it soul, essence, spirit, principle or something else. If and when our thoughts may change, what we love or hate changes, how we look or speak or stand or live changes altogether, I’d like to believe that a piece of us always endures.
Thinking about it this way, we are all a collage of faces and people from all throughout our lives. We meet other people, we see new places and feel new feelings, but there is, and there has to always be, a core piece of a human that gives them an identity.
This is a thought that will be very important to new students entering college life, as it is a time when opportunities for change are abundant.
Today, I look at that guy in the black trench coat from three years ago with mixed emotions, because he actually, truly is me. I feel a sense of clemency and gratitude for his boldness and passion, and in that image I remember my own identity and purpose. Most importantly, I feel a sense of pride and satisfaction. However good or bad they may have been, every moment, place, person and memory between him and me made for a decent and eventful life.
To this year’s new students, as well as for all future generations and even my future self, I advise you to strive for this sense of pride in your own life journey. Always maintain a sense of dedication to a higher purpose, be it career, love, art, science or some other kind of accomplishment. And throughout that journey, remember the people you once were, just as if you’d look through a gallery of images of yourself from the past. Regardless of success or failure, embrace the continuity between you in the present and in the many different moments of the past.
People must not merely “live in the moment” — for a truly meaningful life, they must become “of the moment,” seize the time and opportunity present to achieve greater and greater things. What people find in their college years is the chance to accomplish this very philosophy, a deep motivation that carries them forward in life.
In this sense, remembering all the steps taken on the long road through life is what truly gives meaning to the hard work you will put in during your time here.
Deniz Gulay is a senior double-majoring in history and Russian.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.