I am a star collector. I don’t mean the incandescent celestial bodies in outer space, but the human interpretation of them: the five-pointed shape, often associated with Hollywood, Neo-pagan religions, or heavy metal rock. Although, none of these reasons are why I love stars. I collect stars because, from a young age, I was convinced that having them meant that I was going to do great things. They were like little signs from the universe that I was going down the right path.

It started with stickers: sparkling star-shaped jewels that defined me. My sticker collection was a trophy case in paper form: a binder of stars for everytime I succeeded at something, academically, athletically, or artistically. It fulfilled me, but only for a while. I kept thinking that the more stars I had, the closer I was to doing something great, but that something never seemed to come. With maturity came the realization that navigating life’s obstacles would be difficult without a deeper purpose. I was left aimless and starless.

Thrifting was one of the ways I coped. Sometimes, I get the gut feeling that I have to go because there’s something there that’s meant to be mine. November 27, 2022 was one of those days. Right away, I saw it propped up against the back wall: a Daisy Rock electric guitar. Its body was a mix of ivory and silver, sparkling in the light. I was already enamored, but what drew me to it the most was the maple fretboard adorned in star-shaped fret markers.

There they were again, ten silver stars looking back at me for the first time in years. I didn’t know where they were guiding me to, but I started where it seemed obvious: teaching myself to play guitar. I failed a lot, and that was the best part. Failing never felt so good. 

Learning guitar wasn’t a race I needed to win. It wasn’t a sticker I needed to earn. It was a messy, imperfect process that I fell in love with. Misplaced fingers on the fretboard were puzzles to decode. Unintentionally muted strings were obstacle courses for my fingers to complete, carefully weaving up and over, getting cleaner and faster with each run. It filled the empty abyss where the old star stickers once lived, and for the first time, it wasn’t the reward that filled me with purpose, it was the process.

It made me wonder what other things I could do if I approached them the way I approached guitar. I allotted time after school to experiment with visual art, putting brush to canvas or hands to clay and discovering what I wanted to express. Some friends and I got together to form a band, performing anything between The Cranberries, Boygenius, Erykah Badu, and songs we wrote together. I started to write a lot: commentary essays, short stories, poems. I embraced myself as a creator instead of a competitor, and through it all, I collected little bits of understanding of myself and the world. Whether it’s expressing my story through art, or analyzing aspects of our collective culture, the quest to know the unknown has filled me with more happiness than any physically tangible stars I own. 

I am a star collector. I search for them, the shattered parts of myself I have yet to meet, the parts of our world I have yet to discover. I collect them, treasure them, and create something new out of them. It’s what I was missing. It’s what humankind is missing, too. Our culture pushes the idea that productivity and obsessive work is the driving force for success, success that is promised to fulfill you. I hope to be a part of the movement to inspire a world of star collectors, driven by the desire to know and create.