Undergraduate / Common App essay on swearing (Prompt #1) A Funking Piece of Ship [4]

Hi! I wrote this essay pretty last minute and was wondering if anyone could take a look and it and give some feedback. Any advice or edits?

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

A Funking Piece of Ship

(Title might be a bit weird, but essay is about swearing so I thought I might as well take a risk)

Practices linked to abstinence are well established, having been proven to stimulate mental growth, and just improve the general well-being of an individual. There are many forms of it, including alcohol, sex, and drugs. I, amongst most, have great respect for the people who decide to adhere to this grim pledge; so, it's probably going to come off as pretentious when I say that, up to this point this in my life, I have prided myself on abstaining from swearing.

As I progressed throughout my high school career, any brief foray into profanity was followed by a sense of unfulfillment and intense dissatisfaction. I no longer shared my parents' mentality that swearing was bad, yet I felt bad for swearing. I'm not C.K. Louis, whose usage of vulgarity complements his comedy routines. I'm not the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, whose obscenity while lambasting his troops instills respect out of fear. The Morality of swearing wasn't a concern to me; Hell isn't reserved for uttering meaningless series of fricative and plosive consonants strung together. The disappointment stemmed from forcing myself to do what is normally impulsive and casual, simply out of a desire to convert and conform to the mentality of my classmates. It truly was, in my case, unnecessary. My behaviour had already been subject to a number of unwanted changes to fit in. Teetering on the edge of becoming someone I no longer identified as, I took a step back. Lent came early in the year of 2013, and I was giving up swearing.

I have yet to encounter someone who respects my refusal to swear aside from my parents - but it is understandable. Abstinence from swearing is laughable compared to abstinence of the things mentioned at the beginning. I embrace the barrage of mocking questions from my peers regarding the reason I follow this strange rule, to which I smile and shrug, coupled with the occasional "why not?". There's no easy answer unless I e-mail them a PDF of this essay. I uphold this rule unconditionally, no matter how badly I want to insult someone, how enraged I am at the unfairness of a situation, or even how painfully I smash my head or stub my toe on a door-frame. To quote my 10-year-old self, I do it because I can. I relish in the knowledge that I can commit myself to something with absolutely no foreseeable end goal. It assures me that I am a person capable of self-restraint. As I become more independent and free-thinking, it assures me that I have not lost the basic family values of discipline and control.

With variables controlling every aspect of our unpredictable lives, I have sought to find a constant. As trivial as it may be, it remains unchanged, a fixed value during the execution of the grand algorithm of life. I cannot say that my refusal to swear has directly benefitted me in any situation. I cannot say that my refusal to swear has stimulated mental growth or improved my well-being. As an aspiring Physicist, It seems ironic that I abide by a rule grounded in little to no logic, but basic regulation permeates through all fields of education. Rather than grounding itself in something, it grounds me to reality, to my family, and to my beliefs.

552 words

Thanks for reading!