Undergraduate / Common App "Dear Identity..." [7]

Hey guys... I decided to take a different approach by making my own prompt.. "write an epistle to your identity." Please edit!!

Dear Identity,

How do I define you? The dictionary says you are "the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes disturbed in mental illness, as schizophrenia." Second opinion, please? My best friend says you reveal the depths of my character and personality, show my habits and tendencies, and you are what makes me special. Tell me something I don't know. My pastor says you are "who God has created you to be in his image." What exactly is His image?

After hours at the drawing board, I think I've finally figured you out. You are f(x)= 5cos(x) + x/2. Ever since x equaled zero from the time of birth, you started your perilous journey from one extrema to the other, ever oscillating through your ups and downs. When x equaled three years old, you were at the lowest point at the passing of your mother, but time carried you back to the top, higher than ever. Venturing into a foreign land, discovering big Macs and bigger people, starting afresh like a true American pioneer, you kept climbing the frontier. Your biggest potholes were finding Pokïmon cards and climbing the monkey bars. But low points got harder and high points seemed further.

You fell to the bottom as your brother started slipping down the ladders of society into a dangerous but all too familiar path of corruption: alcohol, drugs, expulsion, jail, and too many near death accidents. We became numb as we watched our grandmother cry away endless nights in locked doors. But, it's okay ï by this time you've already figured out that there is beauty in depravity because out of sorrow comes a stronger passion to live. Just as you start feeling the breeze on your face and noticing the magnificent scenery during a hard run even if your chest is piercing and your legs numb, you started understanding this paradoxical concept of suffering and beauty coming together. Not the beauty of a reward at the end, but the euphoria of feeling more refreshed the more you press on during the process. That is why, my friend, you are a cosine graph ï you push yourself onwards despite your ups and downs. And at the end, when you look at the big picture, you'll see that you've been progressing at an upwards slope towards a higher destination, whatever it may be.

I hope you remind yourself from time to time the progress that you've made and the promise that you made to me. Promise to share the same hope that we found during our trials with the rest of the world, for what is humanity if there is no empathy and mutual emotions to console and cherish one another? In the context of our society, our pains may have been magnified, but out there in the world, suffering and corruption never end. Genocide, AIDS, oppression, nuclear proliferation, loss of biodiversity, poverty, tyranny, the list goes on. But, remember? We agreed that we wouldn't be another person who desires but does not act. Carry that frontier spirit with you and stay true to me!

Sincerely,