Undergraduate / "DREAM"; CommonApp/ Personal Statement [3]

Hi here's my CommonApp personal statement! It's way too long though, and I can't seem to find a way to make it any shorter!! Any help would be great!

Here's the prompt:
Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

From a Dreamer

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." - Albus Dumbledore (in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

I'm a dreamer. In fact, I pride myself on always having been one.

I have been familiar with the word 'dream' ever since I discovered the beauty and art of the English language. The fine art of it, however, also meant there was no one box in my mind, that I could pack that, deceptively simple, monosyllabic word into. Growing up, a big dream was a prize-winning quality and a sign of delusion - it was what everyone was supposed to have and it was ridiculous. Needless to say - and like every other kid my age - I was rather confused. I was always told to have a dream; a purpose if you will. They told me not to cruise along the outskirts of my life with no sense of direction, like everything would unfold exactly as it should with no real involvement of my own - well, they had a point there. They also told me not to build castles that could not possibly stand on ground, in the air - I guess they had a point there too. Obviously I could do neither, and I could under no circumstance do both.

It was only when I picked up the fourth Harry Potter book as a curious and admittedly bored 7-year old that I met Professor Albus Dumbledore, the greatest sorcerer in the world. Now, of course, even in my innocent young mind I understood that this wise, old man from a wondrously magical world could not be any more real than Santa himself; yet this brainchild of the brilliant J.K. Rowling was every bit as real to me as the impact he had on me. When I began to read the series, I was acquainted with a man who had white hair and wore half-moon spectacles, but old? Not in the slightest. Behind those glasses were sparkling blue eyes that held a child's mischief and humor, but also the wisdom of a weathered old man; and I was hooked. It was much later that speculation about the man's true intentions began in the real world, but for an impressionable, wide-eyed little girl it was almost impossible not to simply adore Dumbledore - he was a teacher, a man who knew the world, and the safe haven I went - and still go - to in search of solace and advice, almost like a 'fairy-godfather', and he never failed to leave me in awe.

It was from him that I learnt to be a dreamer, and it was from him that I learnt to be realistic - Dumbledore taught me that dreams and reality were not opposites, that it was a chain reaction. He knew all the right things to say, all at the right time, and he unfailingly did so time and again with such lightness and simplicity that I found myself nodding along and having fantastic, new revelations. The messiest webs of thoughts and ideas seemed to untangle so easily as I heard his voice in my head, like magic, and I found that I had a tightrope I could balance on. From him I learnt that I could be both, that in fact being both was right; and it fit like a puzzle I'd spent years trying to put together - I saw the bigger picture. Being a dreamer meant being a realist, and being realistic meant dreaming.

As a reader I was never privy to his dreams, never looked through his lens, and even questioned my faith in him when I saw his shades of grey. Today, in retrospect, I understand that children's superhero stories are dubious - very obviously superhuman, heterosexual, feel good territorial battles of power and very in-your-face - and that the whole idea in itself can be castrated and proven fickle. But I also do understand the subtleties and the depth in the tragedy of Dumbledore's character. He showed me more than fantasy, he showed me truth. Being a dreamer has its own attendant difficulties - his desires were against the rules of the world, and added to that was the constant ridicule and condescension from the people around him. His past hinted that he may have tasted the other side of the battle, yet he dreamt of a new world in the wake of evil. Perhaps to dream is the only way to change the world, the only way to change reality, the only way to change yourself, and the only way to live.

And so - with overwhelming credit to Professor Dumbledore - I am a dreamer.

Because "Of course it is happening inside your head... but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" - Albus Dumbledore (in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Book Reports / Literature is permanent.; Amherst Essay (Literature) [4]

Hi, I've written this and I'm wondering if it's too impersonal and whether it sounds too much like I'm driving the same point in different words. Also I've exceeded the word limit by 15. Any feedback?

Prompt: Respond to the quotation;
"Literature is the best way to overcome death. My father, as I said, is an actor. He's the happiest man on earth when he's performing, but when the show is over, he's sad and troubled. I wish he could live in the eternal present, because in the theater everything remains in memories and photographs. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to live in the present and to remain in the pantheon of the future.

Literature is a way to say, I was here, this is what I thought, this is what I perceived. This is my signature, this is my name."

Ilan Stavans, Professor of Spanish, Amherst College
From "The Writer in Exile: an interview with Ilan Stavans" by Saideh Pakravan for the fall 1993 issue of The Literary Review

Literature is permanent. It is past, present and future, and with that I thoroughly agree - it is eternally now.
Literature makes a mark on the world that can never be erased, never be forgotten, and never be escaped from. It defies the transience of life - and the impermanence of every moment - and challenges its institutional rules. It overcomes the death of the human moment, and also the human. What one writes and what one reads is etched forever into the world, and remains even when one no longer does. The 'show' never gets over, it does not die, and it cannot be a lost memory because it exists to be revisited time and again, each time offering something new, as if reborn, yet remaining in itself eternally unchanged. Literature succeeds where memory falls short.

Literature is constant. All the unpredictability and inconsistency of the world freezes around the written word even while that itself tells the story of the incalculable and erratic. One could recreate or remember a moment - and one could perform the same scene every night - yet it is never really the same, and what is lost is forever; and what is gained, lost again. The word is final, remembered as it is, and the writer remains, unquestioned and forever, the man he immortalizes in his words - he has the power to define his name in the 'pantheon of the future'.

But literature can haunt. It is permanent, constant, irreversible - and it is painful. What is spoken leaves within the moment, and remains as a flash in a memory. What is written is relentless, autocratic - it can be read over and over and each time cause the same heartbreaking damage as it did the very first time.

Yet this is exactly how it lives and breathes, always today, always inerasable.
Even when life fails to be, literature is immortal, yet literature is life.