By: Ian Byers
When I was reading the first chapters of Alexander Hamilton’s biography by Chernow, what stood out to me the most was Hamilton’s drive and passion. This characteristic of his is also a central tenant in how he is portrayed in the musical Hamilton. One suggestion prompt for this assignment mentions a comparison between this and one’s personal life at Georgia Tech, but I unfortunately can’t truthfully say that this is the case for me. Even in classes that I have truly enjoyed, I simply have not put in the effort that would have been required to achieve the things which Hamilton did in his early life. That isn’t to say that I don’t feel confident in working towards my goals, but rather that I haven’t found any goal for which I could imagine myself working tirelessly, day and night. Because of this, when learning about Hamilton, he is certainly someone who I can admire or even be inspired by. However, to draw anything more than a superficial parallel of people working towards their goal would be arrogant. The vast majority of people on college campuses, myself included, have never had to work as hard as Hamilton did just to survive. Perhaps it is this lack of hardship in my youth that led my to not seek out and pursue risky opportunities as readily as a young Hamilton. After all, there are many examples of modern celebrities who cite their struggles in times of poverty as a major motivation for their seemingly endless productive output.
Of course, I’m not asking for classes at Tech to get any harder! I just think it’s interesting to see how a person’s upbringing can radically change their outlook, for better or worse. One thing that I just looked up out of curiosity is Aaron Burr’s early life. It’s seems that although he was orphaned at a young age, he did have some family to look after him, and his childhood wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous as Hamilton’s. Going off of my earlier idea, maybe this is why he is portrayed as being more of a passive person in Hamilton, though I don’t know if that portrayal is accurate. Regardless, I’ve rambled a lot here and it has become pretty clear that I’m not great at more open ended assignments, so I’m going to go back to struggling with classes like everyone else and stop complaining!