Monday, April 20, 2009

Art is Resistance
Let's face it- I'm an artist. I can't remember a time in my personal history in which artistic expression has not been a part of my life. I grew up singing/ dancing and drawing. It was as natural to me as taking breath itself. Over time, some of that was to leave me (the preforming arts- specifically when I realized that I was not immune to the stinging criticisms of my peers) but the desire to create never did.

This, dear reader, is where the motto enters into the equation.
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Thursday, April 2, 2009

   I am my own executioner.
((Below is the essay I typed, most lovingly for the one I love. He will be using it to apply for an internship in the capital, far, far away from where I will be. It breaks my heart- but it is what he wants, and what he has asked me to do. And for him, I would do anything.))

It is rare in a student’s life that he is able to weigh his ability and opportunity, before acting to catalyze any work great or small which results in the betterment of his fellow man; and yet I find this to be my highest goal. I am an idealist- I am an extroverted dreamer with a passion and a plan. To be frank: it is my sincerest hope that in this life I will leave the world (if only slightly) bettered by the diligence of my work, and the fervor in my convictions. The impulse for altruism has taken me many places, though all roads lead back to one place in particular: Washington DC- the shining city in which my ideals reside, and take shape. To me, it is beacon of hope amid a tempest of cynicism; and it is a place of great potential, its residents given the elite responsibility for the safe steerage of the national course. I dream of one day joining their ranks. It is in this city that I find my greatest chance to further that dream. At present, I reside in Merced, CA, a place in which the opportunities are scarce, but the impoverished are not. Very little chance excists for an undergraduate student to effect the overall quality of life in the general public, it is a limitation that is both frustrating- and stifling for one of my ambitions. The university is removed considerably from the main town- and so many of the students are shielded from its harsh realities, happily ignorant, the student body has not found this dear town’s blight to be as great as it truly is. To me, this is both a thing of shame and a call to action. My area of academic interest is in executive and legislative ability to end, and means of easing, national poverty, a topic I have considerable personal experience with. I see it daily, and though I am among them, I am severely restricted in my means to ease the suffering. A semester in DC would provide me with the first-hand governmental experience and connections I would need to pursue this dream farther, to realize my ambition of aiding others farther than I could ever hope to achieve here. As a Political Science major, confident public speaker, and technologically literate individual, I find myself to be well suited to this realm of academia- a fine blend of action and ideology. I see great opportunity (for both personal and political growth) in the UCDC program, and consider it to be the best logical step along my path of personal calling to make this nation -- this world more than it is, to uplift my fellow man, and to do so by means of diligent study, cultivated idealism, and of course, action.
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

   “Eudaemonia”
When last my eyes took in the dawn breaking over the far off fields, the place I beheld was taught from effort, strained and tense- students spent to the marrow. Funa and fauna fried by the springtime burden of birth, opulent and overtaxed by the seasonal expectation, a manic thing- this birth- death cycle and the turning of ages, yet barely sustainable. And so, weary of my duties, I slouched at last into the comforting arms of spring break- and my sleepy seaside town, wherein I thought waited a well- needed reprieve from the unremitting dirge. And so I allowed myself to succumb to a life I had left behind, with the intention of (if only temporarily) shrugging off the weight of my current responsibilities. And immersed (and in fact, relieved by) a different set of cares, the call to celebrate myself fell away from my consciousness.
Making my return to Merced, I beheld a very different sight, the gift of rested sight, I suppose. I saw a phoenix land- raised from its icy sleep to resurface in infant splendor. It was a thing worth celebrating, as was the feat that had transformed it. Just as death had overtaken its summertime beauty- the spring had rebuilt (through struggle and diligence) and become greater yet- causing its previous grandeur to pale by comparison. It is a metaphor I hold dear, and personally applicable in many ways- seeing great triumph, diligence and reward as inexorably linked, and incomprehensibly a part of myself and disposition. These things, are the things worth celebrating.
And now I stretch, palms pressed up into the sky I had once feared would fall down around my ears. And with inhalation comes the knowledge that meditation is celebratory. It is life-affirming, and a luxury I do not often have the privilege to indulge in. Today I give myself that chance. So rare is the opportunity for a quieted mind, don't I have something due? Isn't there a midterm racing at me from somewhere in the distance...? None of that matters though, and I exhale it away. I have chosen to celebrate now- as I had not the chance before; I have chosen to celebrate myself, in this moment- this step in the process as I am, was, and will be. But now, I celebrate the moment itself, in which I am sustained and content to know that life is a process. It is breaking, it is building again, it is constant improvement and unremitting devotion to betterment.
I took the call to celebrate myself with suspicion, thinking ‘I’ll celebrate myself when I’ve done something to celebrate’—when I come home this summer with a much-deserved 4.0, when I am admitted to law school, pass the bar, or ascend to a position in the Senate. I had not assumed myself worthy of celebration as I am now, but still the persistent nag of an unfinished assignment demanded that I celebrate. And so it is not merely myself I celebrate. My meditation is on what I have accomplished, and what I yet aim to do- a sincerity and an ambition mark this celebration, for I know that this day is only the first f many more in my path to becoming all that I can, a dream in which I find great joy, and fulfillment- a sentiment also worth celebrating.

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