“Beyond The Mysterious Beyond” are repeated lyrics in the song of the same name from The Land Before Time 7, a delightful children’s movie that has kept coming to mind over the past several weeks, as I’ve graduated from University and moved to New York City.
Woah, back it up, Yes I did say I graduated, yes I’m fine, and no it doesn’t mean I exist on some new ethereal plane of existence, it just means -apparently- that I’ve completed what only 7% of the world has completed(that’s not a lot.) Supposedly this puts me amongst some of the world’s great achievers, yet I see only that it shows the immense privilege I’ve had growing up.
Do to my class in society there was always the unspoken assumption that I would one day graduate from University so I never expected it to be seen as an achievement. That is until I got there and met people who were the first in their family to graduate, or were working 2 jobs to help pay for school, and then I finally heard the statistic that only 7% of the world population has a college degree, and with all of this together I am left wondering – is it a privilege to have this degree, an achievement, or both?
Now possessing this degree, I sit on my bed in Astoria, New York wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with it. Having this degree won’t make it easier to undermine capitalism or the patriarchy, aside from allowing access to certain spaces within these structures, the most uneducated person has as much potential to take down our oppressors as I do with my BA. Should a pursue a professional path as an actor, or let that go for a short time to focus on work that could really get in the way of capitalists making money – like union labor work?
Honestly I don’t know.