One interesting thing about myself
If there's one thing
you should know about me, it's that I'm never satisfied with anything being
"good enough." I'm not sure why or how, but as far back as I can
remember I've always questioned how everything could be improved around me.
Perhaps it's because I feel a drive to help people in some way, and questioning
is my vehicle. Perhaps it's because I want to paint my visions of what could
be, with the world is my canvas. Perhaps it's because I feel compelled to build
something great, and critical thinking is my tool. Perhaps it's because I'm a
tool who just likes to snarkily point out what others are doing wrong while I
ramble about myself and mix metaphors. Whatever the cause, I have come to
accept that this inquisitive, ambitious nature of mine isn't going anywhere.
Figuring out how to use it in a way that doesn't drive me insane was another
story.
Extracurricular
Activities
For a while I
attempted to fit into the mold of the classic overachieving kid, taking every
honors class, presiding over clubs, playing a bunch of sports, but I found it
increasingly impossible to turn off my mind. So thinking about the world in
time became my main extracurricular activity, an activity which eventually
equated with existential suicide. I began observing the world so much I
couldn't observe myself. Since I couldn't see my self, I ceased to be myself,
so my self was deceased. As I sought to solidify existential structures, these
constructs consumed then destructed me. I thought I was playing with ideas but
really I was playing with fire. My life went up in flames after my freshman
year of college. I was severely burned.
The wreckage forced
me to build from scratch, a construction that took a leave of absence from
college and a year of dedication. Building with ideas about ideals didn't work,
so instead of thinking about what I ought to do I thought about what I wanted to
do. By the end of my leave of absence, I had so intensely dedicated myself to
that end that my passions were endless, and my ambitions innumerable. But as
they built they became a blur; a whirlwind which unfurled the following fall.
With a misplaced locus my focus displaced. I had seen my self as seamless; now
my seams seemed severely severed. So my second downfall went down in a second.
Another exit was evidently inevitable.
After a year of
prioritizing tactfully, I returned to college having both halves fully intact.
I lived a life I loved again. I felt in love again. I felt alive again. But my
reassimilation was a rollercoaster ride. Prior to that year rollercoasters had
made me nauseous, but I've learned the closest one can come to curing motion
sickness is focusing on the horizon. Through that method I got through that
second sophomore year.
Now the horizon has
arisen, and my burns have healed. I'm ready for a life I wasn't ready for
before I steadied my mind.
If the past is still
present, the present will still be devoted to the future. But if the past has
passed, the future will have a presence in the present, and the present can be
devoted to the moment.
I'm not looking down
now, because I'm confident I can climb the latter's ladder. Leaving my life for
so long has made me stronger. And more alive than ever.
Major, Minor, and
where I see myself in five years
This incessant drive
to improve upon the status quo has led me to a major in psychology, because I
have found the empirical study of the human mind to be the best way to assess
how to live a most enjoyable life. The disillusionment I've felt with traditional
education has also led me to a minor in leadership, because I am now also
driven to have an administrative and perhaps even founding role in an
educational institution where students are able to collaboratively engage in
the sort of critical thinking which led me to feeling alienated by education.
As such, in my
biggest and most outlandish of dreams, I see myself in five years as the
founder and president of an educational institution which I have been calling the Eudaimonia Institute.
What I wish to gain
from participating in this class
What I wish to gain
from this class is to develop my capacity to be the best leader I can be in the
context of an innovative educational institution. I wish to develop the ability
to see what isn't and should be as what with will will be. I wish to develop
the ability to live verbs and speak words that make words verbs. I wish to
develop the ability to wear glasses that fill the emptiness of half-empty
glasses. I wish to develop the ability to never submit to never summiting.
