Statues on Campus That Made Me Perceive the Imperfections of the Human Form

Lack of in-person experience has taken my derealization to the maximum limit. I’ve shattered the glass ceiling of mentally existing outside of my physical self. But good god, I’ll be damned if there isn’t something oddly beautiful about the subtle flaws of the human form when we take a minute to reconnect with the meat cage we must inhabit. Here are all the statues on campus that made me perceive the imperfections of the human form and, by extension, the human experience.

The War Hymn Statue

No statue on Texas A&M’s campus possesses the ability to make me consider the variation in the form of the human species like this absolute monstrosity. Who hurt this artist to the point that he would give each and every one of those poor students elephantiasis-inspired ankles? What did the models do to earn, in immortal form, those toothless, though undoubtedly shit-eating, grins? At the same time, though, if the university commissioned this statue to represent the 12th Man, I can find it within myself to look past my own self-imposed and self-perceived imperfections.

The Horses Outside of the Vet School

Maybe this is just my inner horse girl, but something about this statue incites a yearning within me to shed my societal bonds and run free. If only my human legs could gallop — if only my shallow lungs could breathe deeply. I’ve decided, however, that my limits must be my encouragement. While I cannot run boundless, with the wind in my hair and the ground underneath my feet, I can walk carefully into the future, controlling my destiny with higher logic and rational decision making.

Petroleum Stripper Statue

Wouldn’t one perceive a man so muscle-bound to be the pinnacle of the American Dream and the epitome of the human form? Such perfection is fleeting, however, as the physical body will inevitably fail in the face of the endless march of time. Faced with this promise of demise, I have realized that the answer is not to yield to the promised end, but to build mental fortitude that will never fail. The human experience is not what our bodies can do, but rather where our minds can make up for what our bodies succumb to imperfection.

A Picture of Myself as a Child on the A&M Campus

Pictures are just statues dedicated to the passage of time. When stuck at my parents’ house over the spring weekend, I came across a picture of my 5-year-old self grinning widely at a bygone Aggie football game. The innocence of youth, the resilience of the cartilaginous form of those yet to experience pubescence. Holy shit, that IS the human experience, the lessons we are fortunate enough to learn when unbound by the imperfections arising through age.

 

— Flash it Back, Ags