Undergraduate / Waldo Prompt for UChicago Essay, the waldo that lives within you? [2]

This is kind of a first draft that I typed up in about an hour. I have had terrible writers block for a while now, and yesterday I was just overflowing with ideas which I just sat down and put on paper. There probably are a lot of fragments and what not, but I need more of a criticism of whether it makes sense, and are there good ideas within the essay. I'll probably end up writing another draft. Thanks loads for anything in advance!

Waldo Within

There are many questions in that exist in the world today that one can contemplate about and not be able to answer. Do aliens exist? What about vampires? Bigfoot? Was Abraham Lincoln really a Vampire Slayer? How long is a piece of string? Of course, nobody has the exact answers to these questions. But there are lots of answers to these questions. Answers that people have come up with on their own, which reflects who they are and what they believe in. So who is Waldo? Why does Waldo hide? Are the other characters that are dressed so similar to Waldo helping him hide? Is he afraid? These are all questions that will lead us to the answer of the one of the most commonly asked questions, where really is Waldo?

With striped red and shirt and hat, and blue pants, Waldo can be found wandering about beaches, metropolitan cities, sporting events, even in Dublin, Ireland, where three thousand eight hundred seventy two Waldos gathered to break a world record. All of these different characters cannot be the same person, it is not physically possible for one person to be in multiple times at the same instance. So how do we know which one of these is the one we are looking for? The answer will vary from person to person. Waldo, as we know it, is more than a person of interest. Waldo teaches one about himself, and his goals, fears, aspirations, and desires. He does this by imitating these different aspects of human emotion. Waldo is, in this sense, a teacher.

So the question now is why does Waldo hide? It is for the same reason that people try to hide flaws from society, whether it be with the excessive use of makeup, or just by acting differently. Waldo hides because he is perfect. He is the one person who a majority of society tries to imitate. This also answers the question of why do all of the other characters dress similar to Waldo. It is because they are trying to imitate Waldo. The obsession of society with perfection is seen by Waldo as a problem, hence he hides to try to stop it. By presenting himself to everyone, he would provide society with something much like Aristotle/Plato??'s perfect form.

It can be concluded that Waldo is afraid. Afraid of a world where everyone would try to imitate this perfect form, causing the originality in the world to diminish. By withholding himself from society, Waldo is preventing the emergence of a monotonously unoriginal world. A place without diversity. The gathering at Dublin is only the start of this type of society. This would cause the eventual collapse of society. Talent would not be recognized nor appreciated.

In this sense, looking for Waldo seems like a negative thing, which in a way is true. The ones who look for Waldo, are indeed, the ones that have not realized that this pursuit for the model perfection that Waldo represents leads to a never ending road. It is impossible to find Waldo because he is indeed everywhere. But there is one way in which one can find Waldo. This Waldo is one that helps one become original, formulate one's own ideas, to be a leader rather than a follower, and to realize that everyone is perfect in their own sense, that there is no one perfect form. And there is only one place where this Waldo can be found. Waldo, really, resides within you.