Capitalising on Rites of Passage

I have a t-shirt that reads 'Enjoy Capitalism'. Indeed it seems that capitalism is so embedded within our everyday lives that we can scarcely seek to escape it. I'm graduating soon and yesterday I was to collect my academic gown. Honestly, I should have known better but I expected a small room with a counter and to be done in ten minutes or so. For you NUS undergrads, grads and alumni who are shaking your heads at me right now, I reiterate - I really should have known better.

What it was was an odd reprise of matriculation. "The wheel has come full circle; I am here" indeed. It's a circle isn't it. A cycle, if you may. It's like exchange. More often than not, you end where you begin - at the airport. Everything is the same except the person you are. You stand at the beginnning once more, reminded of the person you were once upon a time. The characteristics of youth, the twinkle in your eye. A hopeful optimism, perhaps and a fresh eagerness to make a difference in the world. And now, you're once more situated where you began and you take stock of what you lost and what you gained. Who you have become. What you have allowed yourself to be. Another rite of passage. No longer liminal, now to be reggregated once more into society. To be unleashed upon the merciless world.

Of course, to be inundated by people luring you into materialism and wanting your money. And I, of course, buying into everything. haha. I paid too much money yesterday for things that I don't even have yet. Deposits for photographs, gowns for ceremonies that have yet to come, deposit on the most important book in my life yet...