Performatism

This past year has been thoroughly lived. I am so incredibly grateful for everything that has shaped me. I look back at each worry–finding employment, choosing between Dartmouth and Brown, finding housing in San Francisco and debating if I should drop out–and find that, though they were not trivial, nothing is too deep. I’ve been so focused on making the most optimal move at each point that I forgot to consider perhaps there is no global minimum in this loss landscape of life.

One trouble, though: memories are intangible. I wish I could display them and revisit them and feel them as viscerally as I had experienced the first time. My brain is hardcoded to have something to show for the work that I’ve done, whether it be a repository on GitHub for evidence of my toils, checking off a list for a book that I’ve read, an A on my transcript to show that I’ve fully learned the content, or several lines on my resume that prove how I spent the past many weeks. Most experiences have nothing to show. I consume them wholly. I may try to take a part of them with me and snap a picture at the end of a beautiful moment, for without that picture, that moment would exist nowhere except for my memory. Most of the time, I never look back at that picture again more than a few more times.

It makes me wonder: Am I performatively living life? Like the matcha I buy to be seen holding rather than to taste, am I living each experience to prove to myself that I am living? Why must there be something to show for an experience to feel complete? A repository? A post on Instagram? An accolade?

In prospection, I live with romanticized and idealistic dreams. In the moment, I live to the fullest. In retrospection, I live needing evidence.

I don’t think anything is wrong with collecting evidence. The photos are cute. I enjoy reminiscing. This journal is another example. I look back to see how the “me’s” of many years have changed. The issue is the need of evidence for an experience to be meaningful.

Now I won’t solve this here. I don’t think I can and I won’t. It feels wrong to leave a journal entry with an incomplete conclusion. But I think that is the first step. This entry doesn’t need a solution for it to be meaningful. It ought to exist just for the sake of existing.

So, 2026. There is much to be desired from you. I know I will chase the big dreams, but for the quiet moments I often miss, I hope I live them to the fullest without needing to capture them.

Now it’s that time of the year again. My biggest worry is getting employed. But this too, shall pass. I trust you.