During my junior year of high school, the final for my English class was a presentation on basically anything we wanted. I don't remember much, but I do remember that I focused on the idea of people being greater than the sum of their parts.
I remember looking up the prices of elements by weight and determining what percentage of our bodies were composed of various elements. I had myself priced out to the penny and was standing in front of my classmates, trying to convince them that I was, and they were, worth more than the sum of their parts... literally.
At the age of 17, that seemed like an empowering breakthrough. Like many of my peers, I was in a time in my life where I was building my identity. Discovering that I was more than every individual thing about me made life more exciting.
As if someone else on the planet could have the same list of likes and dislikes and be a totally different person because they weren't me. We make more with what we are because of who we are and what we do with it.
But college isn't high school. High school wants you to build yourself up, but college wants to break you down. This isn't always the negative experience that it seems to be.
College helps you discover who you are by ridding you of all the things you aren't, everything about you that existed because / in spite of high school. With a sense of independence, we are able to be who we are.
So, at this age, the question isn't if we are greater than the sum of our parts, but rather greater than the sum of our differences. This can mean so many different things.
First, when we lose something, do we come out the other side better than we should? Can losing something make us better? We are all able to add two and two together and get different numbers. But are we able to lose two and still be the same? Do we improve?
It's easy to say that we are greater than all the good things in our life because we can just keep making good things better. But can we keep it up when times are hard? Can we keep improving ourselves and making the best of what we have, even when we are losing parts of it?
I believe every person is greater than the sum of their parts, but I think it takes a special type of person that is able to be greater than the sum of their differences. It's instinctual to make something out of something else. But to make something positive out of losing something takes a particular mindset and, for some, time.
Second, are we, as a group, bigger than what makes us different? This one's a bit harder. Even if we allow our losses to make us better, there is no promise that we can overcome what makes one person different from other.
In fact, it seems like our differences are what define all of us. It's never about what one group has in common with the other; it's always what makes them different.
We would be able to grow from being defined by these differences if people were willing to discuss them or be open to a change of heart. In that way, we could learn to be greater than the sum of our differences. But once something makes us different from someone else, we think of them as different.
Fundamentally, we are all the same. We want things, we love people, and we doubt ourselves. The small things that make us different should bring us closer together in order to learn and grow, not drive us further apart.
