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A Seed Got Planted in my Brain, and Over Time,
it Started Growing.
This semester? Absolute chaos. Endless readings, papers, deadlines. Feels like I signed up for a suffer-all-you-can buffet. And Yeah of course I like complaining. Who doesn’t? It’s practically a coping mechanism at this point. Maybe I’m a little irresponsible, too. Okay, maybe a little more. But honestly? Screw Socio 141. That class? It’s been straight mind torture. One of those subjects that make you
question your life choices; Why am I even here? Should I have just pick something simpler? Something that wouldn’t demand so much of my sanity?
Then along came Karl Marx. His theory of alienation, couldn’t care less. Alienation? Sounds like another concept professors and instructors use to make students sound so smart in essays. So, I skimmed through the readings, just doing what I needed to survive. But here’s the thing about ideas—they have a way of
creeping out on you when you least expect them. But as the weeks passed, I started noticing it everywhere—in conversations, in my surroundings, and even in myself.
Alienation wasn’t just a theory; it was real. It was the cashier at the store. It was my classmate, drowning in deadlines for a course they didn’t care about. It was
me sitting at my desk at 1:00 AM cranking out assignments that felt like they led nowhere.
Marx wasn’t just describing some abstract concept; he was describing us. Alienation was about being disconnected—disconnected from the work we do, from others, and from ourselves. When I first read that, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Not because it was funny, but because it felt so painfully accurate. Isn’t that what school does? It pushes us into this endless loop of submit, survive, repeat. We get through it, sure, but do we ever feel truly alive?
And yet, that damned seed kept growing. What if Marx wasn’t just throwing a pity party but handing out a reality check? The more I think about it, the more it stuck. Marx wasn’t just pointing out problems; he was holding up a mirror. I started
to see how alienation wasn’t just about work—it was also about me. I’d been so focused on hating everything about this class, about school, that I’d lost sight of the whys behind it all.
Suddenly, Socio 141 wasn’t the enemy anymore. It became a way to
understand myself. It made me think why I was feeling stuck and how much of
that had to do with the systems we’re all part of.
I began to see how disconnected I’d become—from my work, from the people around me, even from my own passions. How often do we stop and think about what we’re really working for? Most of the time, we’re too busy just trying to get by. But that’s the thing about alienation—it sneaks up on you. You don’t even
realize you’ve been going through the motions until you step back and really look at your life.
Sure, the class is tough, and there are days I wish I could skip it entirely. But now,
I see it differently. Marx’s idea of alienation isn’t just some depressing academic theory—it’s something real, something we all deal with. The answers aren’t easy, and I definitely don’t have everything figured out. And maybe understanding it is the first step toward figuring out how to reconnect—with work, with others, and with ourselves.
It’s still hard, and it still demands more of me than I want to give sometimes. But it also given me something in return—something I did not expect. It taught me that the theories we study in class aren’t just abstract ideas. They’re real. They’re messy. And they matter.
So here I am, still exhausted, still overwhelmed, still occasionally cursing this semester under my breath. But I’m also learning to see things differently. Marx
didn’t just hand me a reason to complain (although, let’s be real, I’ll still do that). He handed me a tool—a way to understand why things feel broken and, maybe, how to start fixing them.
So yeah, Socio 141 messed me up—but in the best way possible. I hated it, fought it. But in the end, it cracked something open in me that needed breaking. The plot twist I didn’t see coming.
