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I spent several days desperately begging Jack to reconsider sending in that application. Each time, Jack calmly responded, “I’m not going to change my ideology, so why would I change the letter?”
Here’s the thing: I totally understand where Jack is coming from. I know plenty of really talented students at Calhoun who were turned down by GSA. And yeah, I know it’s a kind of beauty pageant, and that’s not fair. But if I had a chance to learn about filmmaking and screenwriting from qualified professionals, to meet artists my age from across the state, to earn scholarship money for college, why wouldn’t I take it? Sometimes you have to play by the world’s unfair rules. Unless, of course, you are Jack Harlow. Then you play by your own rules, no matter how many opportunities you have to deny yourself for the sake of “ideology.”
I don’t like Jack when she gets like that. Honestly, it scares me, because when Jack takes a stand that unflinching, it means someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. And while I like to think Jack was just being way too persnickety about GSA, there’s this suspicion in the darker part of my mind that maybe I’m the one who’s wrong. Maybe I am weak in spirit, a total sellout, the kind of human that ancient Greek philosophers warned against associating with.
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