Dear Stranger,

I’ll be quite honest, I didn’t know what to write about at first. When given a prompt like this, to write about something you find important, many will probably write deep explorations on mortality and love. Others about lessons they’ve learned or experiences that led to great epiphanies. I saw what others had done and I immediately dreaded the thought of having to write something profound. Something meaningful. I restarted this letter again and again, trying to find something I felt was important enough to write about. But then I realized, while looking at all the words I deleted, the eraser on my desk. A Philosophical Dive into the Morality of Erasers. What a silly sounding topic. Such an odd way to word things. What a strange thing to write about. So I will try and write about that.

As an artist, the eraser is my best friend. I remove my mistakes and draw over them in mere seconds. I don’t even have to think about pressing the undo or delete button when working digitally. My mistakes last seconds and are promptly lost to my fading memory, never to be seen by another. But I often wonder if that is the way it is meant to be. Maybe some mistakes are meant to be seen, maybe the growth between the mistakes and the final are meant to be shared. A journey for all to learn from. We are like rabbits in a way, running and rushing, trying to outmaneuver the wolves of the world through perceived perfection. With the advancement of technology, such as digital documents taking the place of ink and paper, changing things in an instant has become easier and easier. We have spell check and ai. Whiteout and surgery. Makeup and new clothes. In our growing displeasure for imperfection, humanity has slowly started to correct the perceived mistakes we see in ourselves. 

There is an expected level of beauty, a standard society sets to sell products and make people hate themselves. Your skin must be flawless, you must use makeup but you have to look natural, you can’t eat too much but you need to eat well, dress like this but if you do you’re a snob. The comments and contradictions go on and on and I wonder what the point behind it is. Why do we let these ideas of perfection guide our lives?

As I sketch, I stare at my eraser, picking it up more times than I can count. I pause, I hesitate, and I ponder everything the adults in my life told me. I think about the meals I’ve skipped, the hundreds of dollars of makeup I bought because of someone else, the dresses I own but never wear. I’ve been told time and time again “you will understand when you’re older,” but when is older? Despite all they have told me, I doubt I ever will understand. The world isn’t the same as it was when my grandparents were young, and I know it will not be the same when I am their age. The changes are too fast, too drastic. I’ve tried to correct my own imperfections before. But they weren’t actually imperfections. Just the opinions of others being forced onto me, disguised as care or concern. I didn’t need to pretend just to make myself more palatable for someone else. I understand that sometimes we change things to make ourselves happy, but when changing for others, is it really worth it? Should we really be modifying ourselves just to fit a mold that wasn’t made for any real human?

These days, I try to sketch in ink more. Not all the time, but often enough to help me embrace the mistakes I make and the errors in my art. I threw out my dresses and I wear makeup how I want to. I have no social media, and I have no idea about the latest beauty trends. I don’t know if I really am any happier than the others who follow them, but I like myself. I am making the changes I need, the ones I want and not the ones people tell me to make. By embracing the imperfections, I finally feel okay with myself.

I just hope everyone else learns to do the same.

With love,

A Lone Oddity

Tallulah Bueno is a guest writer from the 2025-26 Creative Expressions class.