college students

the other day, i went to my college to finish registering for classes. and something that left an impression on me was the people. or rather, the students. if i were to imagine a "college student" in my head, those are the kind of people i wouldve imagined. it was kind of surreal. 

young, fit, twenty-somethings with extensive skincare routines that probably visit their local cafe for matcha every morning. tote bags, pimple patches. i met a girl with dyed eyebrows and a girl that looked like she stepped right out of the advertisements at a lululemon store. when i was waiting in line at the student resources center, a person with a military backpack and a singular pin that read "GENDER IS DRESS UP". college students... im a college student. from the outside looking in, do i look like all of these other people? 

as i wrote this blog post, i thought about comparing "myself" to the "average college student". then, i realized, does that even exist? if theres something that school taught me, its that people are both stranger than you think and more normal than you think. its easy to think of people as 2-D characters, or "stereotypes", and then lump big groups of people together and pretend that they all live the same life, have the same personality, so on so forth. i have no idea who those people are. who am i to treat them like some "other", when for all i know they could be walking enigmas? sure, a lot of them could share the same views or have similar personalities, but that doesnt mean they are carbon copies of each other.  everyone that i saw at my college has at least 20 years of life experience on them, and who knows what happend from the moment they came out of the womb to going to a community college? one of the strangest persons ive ever met also happend to be the most "background characters" ive ever met. he didnt have a single "special" or "cool" interest, but ive never known i guy so fundamentally out-of-the-ordinary! some of the most normal and "un-cool" people ive met are the kids with dyed hair and social anxiety at art club! every person you pass on the street or briefly interact with online is a whole lifes worth of ideas and experiences and i think thats what makes life so beautiful, and so strange. judging people based on superficial aspects is an act against god and thats probably the most extreme opinion you'll get from me. good night.