Getting Older

December 11, 2025

On Oct. 27, 2025, I had just finished dinner with a group at New Vassar at 5:58 p.m. and was rushing to a club meeting. I felt like I was running around like a headless chicken, thinking about how I would catch up on a class that I was several lectures behind on, how to meet an imminent lab due date from another class, how my next day was going to go, and how I was going to turn this seven-minute walk into two. As I was crossing Mass Ave., I saw Kip Clark, the “Free Listening Guy,” sitting in front of Lobby 7 with his signature “Free Listening” sign.

Wonderful, I thought. I meant to run into him at some point. A friend and I had written an article for The Tech about him about a week prior, and I wanted to give him a physical copy of the newspaper with this article. At the same time, however, I didn’t want to be late to the club meeting. I’m ashamed to say this, but I considered blazing by him so I had a chance to make it to the meeting on time; I figured I could find him another day anyway, but I stopped myself. Why the rush?

So I greeted him, handed him the newspaper, and he asked me how I was doing. I said that I felt behind on everything. He prodded me to consider if these feelings were self-created. At the time, I didn’t think about it too much; still in a rush but less so, I darted to the meeting.

A few days later, I sat at a little cafe table inside Lobby 7 with Kip. I had just asked him what he would tell someone who wants to connect more with people but didn’t know where to start.

“Slowly,” he said.

I’d been thinking about how we could connect with anyone, provided infinite time. The problem is, we don’t have infinite time. I think back to when I was rushing to cross Mass Ave., constantly thinking about the next task I had to get done.

But that’s exactly Kip’s point.

When I’m running around thinking about the next block on my calendar or speedwalking through the Infinite, I’m not paying attention to much else. Maybe I have my AirPods in, listening to a podcast to feel more productive, or I’m too caught up in my head, feeling like I’m behind on everything. I might wave to someone I know walking by, but I miss an opportunity to catch up with them. I don’t slow down to do that, because in my mind, I can’t afford to. I feel like I’m always in a chokehold, but in reality, I’ve created this cycle myself.

I know I’m not alone in having a packed schedule. It appears to be the quintessential MIT experience: to squeeze out every minute possible into doing something. But perhaps it’s worth reflecting on this lifestyle. I know that for me, at least, it’s not the most fulfilling life that I can create for myself.

Kip observes that from the students who stop by and speak to him, saying they’re in “a survival mode of sorts.” He adds, “We fill our schedules because we don’t know how to fulfill our lives; it is too scary and too complex.” This definitely resonated with me. I see people around me doing so much, who seemingly have a good grasp on what they want to do in the future. Indirectly, I feel like I must also commit to a myriad of activities to fulfill my self-worth, and maybe it works in some ways; after all, I’m definitely exploring a wide range of activities that feel worthy of my time. But when I’ve spread myself so thin, I don’t think I have as deep of a grasp of where the future would lead for these activities or how fulfilling they are to me.

Part of me wonders if I’m just trying to run away from myself when I’m filling up my schedule; what’s most fulfilling to me is spending time with other people. While enjoying activities with others can serve that purpose, it’s not exactly the same as deeply connecting with them. I feel like all I know about most people are the classes they’re taking, the extracurriculars they’re a part of, and some pset problem they’re struggling with, but I’m curious about how they think about the world and what their hopes, dreams, and fears are.

However, if the classes I’m taking, the extracurriculars I’m a part of, and some pset problems I’m struggling with are all I think about, perhaps it’s worth sitting down with myself first.

Kip brings up another point, which is simply that not everyone might “value connection, because it is raw for some people or has been tainted for others.” Connection is beautiful, yet vulnerable.

If you’re an MIT student, you’ve probably experienced a lot of pressure to get here, to say the least. Perhaps this doesn’t apply to everyone, but some of this pressure can come from external factors that later become internal. “Given the U.S.’s relationship to higher education, this builds an impossible standard for MIT students to live up to, almost like Sisyphus’ efforts,” Kip said.

Parental pressure plays a big role as well. Most people have the desire to make their parents proud; after all, we were given the gift of life from our parents, and we may feel like we owe them something. In the pursuit of repayment, however, children can feel like their parents do not approve of them, or do not have faith in what they are doing unless they pursue a certain path their parents expect of them, even if this is implicit. A student might feel like they have to do something not because they want to, but because they think others want them to. Perhaps this is where the appeal to connection can backfire, because we can form a warped perspective of what people want out of us. For me, this pressure then becomes internal: I have a vision of what I think would be a “successful” life, even if it doesn’t feel fulfilling to pursue that path.

Kip notes that many people feel an “unspoken necessity to do [what they do]” and often tell him they must continue with their backbreaking work for their research project, or perhaps they must go down the pipeline of becoming a software engineer. Many parents feel affection and protectiveness for their children and wish for them to have a good life. But this desire for their children to have a good life can sometimes manifest as unattainable standards. Especially before applying to college, some high school students feel like they must get into a prestigious university to feel worthy. But after getting in, then what?

I do think more people should discuss this topic. Attributing your value to a number can feel very isolating, which I think is more common than people realize. By sharing our experiences, we get to go outside of our bubbles and create an opportunity to connect with each other.

Addendum

I was delighted to hear that Kip was touched by our previous article about him. After six years of sitting with his “Free Listening” sign and receiving that acknowledgement, he felt seen and honored. I too felt quite touched by our conversation.

As both of us are artists in some form, our work can get lost if it is not recorded. I tend to overshare my struggles in the hopes of making others feel less alone, but I don’t know if any of my output has helped anyone. But regardless, writing for The Tech gets words on a physical piece of newsprint. I understand what it feels like to see my work somewhere, or as Kip described it, to know that “a pebble I’ve dropped in the water had a ripple.” Even if no one knows exactly how I think, at least a snippet of it is out there, which hopefully becomes useful to someone. In our own respective art forms, that is how we choose to communicate the human experience.

I don’t know exactly what ripple my own writing will make. But I do know that pressing pause opened up the space for a genuine conversation that I’ll remember for a long time. And maybe that’s the point. In a place where everyone is striving so hard, connection isn’t just a luxury. It’s a way to connect to ourselves and to one another.

I wrote this article originally for The Tech, a student newspaper group at MIT! You may read this post here.

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