One of my fondest childhood memories was going to Blockbuster with my mom on Fridays, before it was totally swept out by Netflix, of course. We’d usually rent something for a Friday movie night and one tv show that I could watch throughout the week.
We went back and forth between my weekly choice of a Scooby Doo or Barbie movies and my mom’s childhood favorites like “The Never Ending Story,” “Harry and the Hendersons” and most importantly, “Gumby.”

If you don’t know who Gumby is, first of all, educate yourself, but I’ll give you a brief synopsis and then explain to you why Gumby is actually in all of us. Ha.
Gumby is a green, clay little man (seven inches tall) who works as a city planner in Gumbtasia, naturally. He has a pet horse – or sidekick horse, I’m not really sure on the logistics here – named Pokey.

What makes Gumby unique and relatable, other than being a seven-inch-tall clay architect, is his and Pokey’s shape shifting abilities.

As college students, we have an unspoken skill that we don’t put on our resumes after we graduate. Some of us have the benefit of forgetting this skill, and some are able to take advantage of it and embrace it. If you haven’t noticed, we are extremely talented shapeshifters.

The transition from being a senior in high school, having a group of friends and an identity that most of us have been building and maintaining since kindergarten, and then being thrown into a pond of big fish when you’re just a minnow requires some serious self-realization and shapeshifting.

You do visual and invisible shapeshifting every single day. I didn’t like who I was in high school so I shapeshifted in college. And then a few months into my sophomore year I didn’t like that person either. I changed to become someone that I didn’t relate to anymore, and at that point I was appeasing people that I no longer wanted to appease. So I decided to change again.

Now I’m a senior and I’ve certainly continued to shift.

You do the same thing in class. You surely don’t speak to your professors in the same way you speak to the girl you met in the bar bathroom last weekend. In certain groups of friends, there are jokes you will and won’t make and music you do and don’t put on in the car – and that’s okay.

There’s this notion of being “fake” if you aren’t the same with all the people around you. Yet when Gumby shapeshifts to defeat the Blockheads from whatever it is they do, he isn’t “fake,” he’s just adapting in order to survive.

I’ve also always taken issue with people considering someone as “fake” when they’re friendly to someone they don’t necessarily love. I think it’s fair to attempt to be kind even when it’s inconvenient. I wouldn’t go up to someone I don’t like and slap them in the face, but I would certainly say hello and be on my way. Is that a form of shapeshifting? I don’t know.

My friend Nicole is not a shapeshifter. She’s a kind and giving person, but she is also incredibly self-assured and knows who she does and doesn’t need in her life. She’s authentically herself and I’ve always admired that. I don’t think she has the need to shapeshift, though.

So the other day when my professor asked which television or movie character we best relate to, I said Lorelai Gilmore but I really should’ve said Gumby. Truly, everyone should’ve said Gumby.

I’m torn on whether shapeshifting is a skill I (and everyone) should lose. Because on the one hand, it keeps the peace. But if we were all more authentic, more ourselves and shameless, we’d all be more individually happy, I think. To be more transparent, we, as a society, would have to learn to be more tolerant and accepting.

The skill of shapeshifting can certainly carry over into your life outside of college and be beneficial, like in job interviews or networking opportunities. But rejecting the social normalcy of shapeshifting can also be greatly beneficial.

I saw a guy doing pirouettes down Hempstead turnpike the other day, and I bet he’s not a shapeshifter. He is probably one of the happiest people around because he doesn’t alter himself to appease other people or to make people think he’s something he’s not. And you know what? Good for him.

Even if I stop shapeshifting it’s unlikely that everyone else will too. And maybe that’s a part of being unabashedly yourself. You just have to accept that the Blockheads will sometimes win but as long as you’ve got your Pokey, in my case my friend Nicole, you’ll be alright.