Products of Binghamton

A while ago, I participated in a case competition held at the school. The dean came up to the front to give a speech to the winning teams. The first few words came out of his mouth made me think a lot afterwards. He told us that we were all products of Binghamton. "Products"? What did he mean? We are humans with different personalities, not homogenous products. It made me feel like that we were things made on the assembly line, just like the Ford cars.

We have to follow the rules to make ourselves look like the type of people the companies are looking for. We were just like some liquid steel being poured into the mould so that it can fit into that specific part of the machine. We have to play by the rules so that we won't be tossed away from this big machine, even though it may mean that some edges on us have to be cut. The rules are everywhere and most of the time we just follow them without noticing. Our resumes and letters have to be organized in a certain way, a set of classes have to be taken to get the degree and be eligible for the certification exam and so on.

Then I start to feel so sad about the idea of the big machine. We are all a part of the machine and no one can escape from it. You either play by the rules or you are left without any securities. We use our time and efforts to exchange other people's time and efforts. That's just how the machine works. Money means nothing either than a intermediary. We earn it and then spend it, just like the birds flying across the sky and left with nothing behind.

There was movie talking about this. It maximized the idea that time is the money. In the imagined world in that movie, everyone only has 20 years life. If you wanted to live longer, then you need to work for it to earn more lives. It sounds like a horrible idea. However, that imagined world is exactly the cruel reflection of the world we are living in right now.

It's just that a lot of us just didn't realize it. We live as if the life will never end, then we left the world as if we never lived before.

(之前用英文写的一些乱七八糟的感想，大家就凑合着看看吧。。。)