The Towers

白日依山尽，黄河入海流；

欲穷千里目，更上一层楼。

The sun sets behind the mountains,

And the Yellow River flows into the sea.

To thoroughly enjoy a thousand-mile sight,

Climb up another level.

-唐代诗人王之涣（Wang Zhihuan of the Tang Dynasty）

I stare down from my tower of knowledge. I used to be so high above everybody else, but now I felt simply average. Or even below average. Everyone’s towers seemed so high, built from the base of steel and titanium. My tower is weak in comparison: built of stone and wood. Suddenly, the wind picks up, and my tower sways from side to side. I grip on for dear life and look up at all the other people. Their towers are indestructible, like mines used to be. How did it come to this? I sway at even larger angles, my 15-year-long creation threatening to topple over. I hold on but soon realize it’s useless. I’m going to fall anyway. What’s the difference between now and later? I let go. I wake up just as I’m about to crash into the ground. My body bolts upright in bed as I pant, recalling my dream. I am dimly aware of my alarm going off, and I reach over to press stop.

What the heck had just happened? Oh right. I was falling to my death. You see, my dream wasn’t so different from my life. Every day, I get out of bed, eat breakfast, and go to school. School is where our towers are built. It is where we decide whether to make it out of wood, stone, steel, or titanium. From my tower, I can see the sun setting behind the mountains, just as Wang Zhihuan described. The Yellow River is on the other side of the globe, but I can see the Golden Gate Bridge. I wonder if my classmates see the same things I do.

All around me, there are thousands of towers. Most do not reach past the average. The students in the highest towers compete with each other because they know that top colleges will only accept a small number of them. I am among the ones competing.

It is not easy, but with each year, my tower gains one level, and I can see further. The race of the towers is like a game. We all compete to see who studies the most, writes the most on short answer questions, and shows the most work. But most importantly, we compete to see who the teachers like the most. It is an endless and depressing game. Towers get knocked down every day, and people fall to the ground. Some decide to start over, while others simply give up.

Of course, the tower building does not end after college. It continues throughout one's life and even drags on past retirement. Our entire existence is one desperate game, one bloody competition. If you can’t keep up, you get knocked down. If you are not among the tallest towers, you are forgotten. We all want to “enjoy a thousand-mile sight,” but not all of us can build and climb another level.

It’s brutal out here.