Candy Among Stones
February 7, 2025
While
And so the wanderer goes, bending down and licking every stone there is in hopes of detecting a slight sweetness in one. After what could have been dozens, hundreds, thousands—the exact number was lost hours ago—the wanderer wondered if he had already licked the candy but couldn’t distinguish it from all the previous stones. Or the candy was still among the pile, waiting to be found—he could never be sure.
Perhaps it’s worth just picking a stone and going with it. Does it really matter if he found the candy? The candy would only be temporary, and he’d wander the path again, the stones dull in comparison.
In a similar sense, it might be worth picking one way and going with it, even given the impossible task of finding the absolute best path forward. Maybe there is an idyllic, sweet, candy-like path that is perfect, but there’s also value in carving a path and finding the beauty in it.
This way of thinking could be dangerous, like what Setsuko does with her marbles. I’m not saying that one should blaze through a path without thinking, because some paths are objectively wrong. But at some point, life is about what you make of it, rather than holding a rigid set of expectations about how a perfect life should go.
Abandoned Pastimes
Wandering the path, I have a lot of hobbies that I used to do but don’t engage in anymore, though I’m only now realizing how much of an impact they’ve had on my life.
Most obvious is Scratch, where I hold at least three burner accounts, each one created because of a desire to create the “perfect” image. Even though I was new to learning how to code, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to show that I didn’t know what I was doing. I think part of this is because I grew up thinking that I couldn’t look ignorant in front of others—looking ignorant is actually one of my biggest fears, because I was raised to put academics at the forefront. But if I can’t even maintain this forefront, then I have nothing to say. It made learning new things and trying new things extremely difficult, because well, you’re inevitably going to look a little silly when doing something for the first time.
Scratch is also where I first conceptualized the idea of a “dream school,” not knowing what the future was going to hold or not realizing that this dream was possible to accomplish. Unknowingly, I had this dream of mine since elementary school, and that I was going to spend the next decade working towards it.
For some time, I also really liked to write comics based on little stories my friend group made in school. This hobby was also where my perfectionism showed through. At first, I was making series of comics for fun—”This Man CLEARLY has problems,” chronicling a man who has trouble accomplishing basic tasks; “Grandpa’s Life Lessons,” following a traditionalist,
Or Line Riders too, which was how I started my YouTube channel. I merely saw DoodleChaos going viral, and as I was interested in music synchronization myself, I decided to give it a try. I had one of my videos blow up myself, gathering about 300,000 views. But eventually, this hobby stopped too, because it wasn’t new to me anymore, and I got caught up on matching the quality of my work to DoodleChaos’s.
It’s funny how all these pastimes ended for the same reason. For the things I enjoy doing now, they’ve stuck for this much time because I’ve recognized that it’s okay that not everything I make is a masterpiece. No matter how much time I have spent on an activity, there’s always more to learn.
Seniority
Graduation is about three months away, yet I’m already thinking about what to say in my graduation speech.
I’ve actually started thinking about this since last year. There is so much I want to say to everyone, especially to the nervous juniors and desperate parents. I feel a strange sense of seniority, a sense of responsibility now that my voice somehow matters a lot more just because I am associated with a well-known and respected institution.
But as honored and grateful I am for where I’ll be headed, I do not want my identity to be defined by whatever college I’m attending. I want my voice to matter regardless of where I’m attending. Of course, I understand that’s not how things are, which is kind of unfortunate. At the same time, maybe it’s good that my voice matters a lot more, because I won’t just be taken for granted.
Given the culture at our school shifting more towards hostile competitiveness, if there’s one thing that I want to leave behind, I desperately want people to understand that being kind to others and genuine passion in a topic of study is what’s important, not arbitrary numbers and crossing off a checklist of arbituary honors and activities. I recognize that these arbitrary numbers are a door to get in, and I’m not saying that they’re not important. But I think that people place too high of an emphasis on this, and only care about beating others to the point of putting them down or self-deprecating from associating one’s value with a number. Your value is not tied to a number.
You all matter. You’re going to make mistakes, but you still matter. I think a lot of people don’t fully internalize this until someone says something to them—I was certainly in this boat. It took a senior friend during my sophomore year to push me into having hope for the future. All it took was acknowledging my skills as worthy rather than something to be brushed off. A ripple effect stems from the words of one person.
When I took the AIME a few days ago, it was melancholy. It’s the last AIME I will ever take in my life, and perhaps even the last math competition ever. As the only girl taking the exam, it was even more despondent. I seriously hope that there will be more female representation in math at our school. There’s a couple people who I think are great, but one stood out to me. I was teaching how to derive a magic square at a Math Club meeting, and she would pick up my hints extremely fast. She didn’t get the steps right every time, but it was her continual effort that stuck with me. And it was also a conversation… a conversation a while ago about what year we wanted to live to. The typical silly, fun answers are maybe “to the next millennium” or “2100,” but she said “as long as I need to help people.” I thought that was a phenomenal answer.
But I could also notice her hesitation in believing in herself. I tried pointing out that she was great, but I could tell that she didn’t believe me entirely. I’ll have to keep trying.
Best Possible Outcome
Everything is going to be okay.
Even if everything feels like it's going wrong, you'll be pointed to the path you’re supposed to be on.
Like okay, I was a Roblox kid in elementary school. I thought I was hopeless. But I want people to realize that the decision is in their hands. There will be pointers on what the path is, but that is also a privilege given to you, and your responsibility to take advantage of it.
Apparently we once owned a copy of Math Blaster, and the people who developed that game also happened to be the founders of the high school I attend now. Pretty neat! Again, funny how I almost decided to not attend this school, but it was the right path for me.
Anyhow, the point is that there’s going to be rough patches. There’s going to be plot twists and nights of silent, stifled crying coupled with the feeling that the world is going to end. But all of that is going to lead to the best possible outcome.
For if it’s not the best possible outcome, what else is it going to be?
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
That is all, consider subscribing or