Hey guys. Thanks in advance for your time. I was hoping to be able to get some feedback on an essay that I've spent a while working on. Any and all criticism is welcomed. be not afraid of being too harsh, I promise that I can take it. =P
Prompt: Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.
Response:
I have spent the better part of an hour staring at a blank page. Searching. Searching for an item of concern that stirs something within me. Searching for some feeling inside me other than this indifference that I exhibit incessantly. Searching for some way to connect with the world.
I do not deny that there exists a vast pool of concerning thoughts prevalent in the world, there are simply none enticing enough for me to dive in. The trouble does not lie in finding these matters of concern; rather, it lies in my concern for the matter. I find these matters important, just not to the point where it evokes any sort of emotion from me. I am not trying hard enough, not thinking about it, not empathizing. If a reason exists for why I cannot relate, or why I cannot feel anything, it must originate in some fault of mine, some lack of effort on my part. Yet, I have always had trouble expressing emotion; any time I have been hurt, angry, or distressed, I have customarily laughed it off, stored it away somewhere deep inside, covered it by quoting some comedian I have heard. As a result, it seems I have lost the ability to relate with things that do not directly affect me. So what issue of concern can I relate to, what issue resonates so deeply within me that I feel there is no other choice than to write about it?
It is this essay. This essay where I am forced to peel away layers of the metaphorical onion I have decided to be. This essay that grabs me by the hand like an older brother does to a little one, so that I can subject myself to the tear-jerking process of cutting myself to the core in the hopes of discovering what might come out, all the while having this essay leer at me, taunting, asking me why I bother.
The issue of concern here is my lack of concern. It revolves around the gaping abyss located in the vicinity of where my empathetic core should have been, and more importantly, why it seems to have disappeared. It is this part that stops me, dead in my tracks. I, the conductor of this train, can transport any thought, any idea that boards my vessel on the previously laid tracks, that I am set on, but to explore my innards, the part of me that makes me what I am, or any idea I may be transporting at the time, is a novel exercise. I would rather be concerned with the outside world, focused on relations with others, rather than a relation with myself.
Maybe that is the answer. Maybe it is a relation with myself, my inner being, that acts as the crucial focus, aiding my path on the ellipse of empathy. Connecting with the feelings of others becomes infinitely more difficult if I cannot grasp the feelings I have within me, if I have no understanding of tools with which I am able connect. Being able to relate with my own feelings is the key that I have lost. Therefore, a relation with myself must be the answer. Quod erat demonstrandum.
It seems so simple. Isolate the variable and solve. But that is the real problem here: the real problem lies in the mathematical approach that I take for any situation. When I am running a race, I can tell myself that I need to shave five seconds off of my next two miles if I want to set a personal record. When I am stepping up for an improvised solo in my jazz combo, I can note whether I am a few cents flat or sharp. But that does not make me a better runner, or musician; what would help me improve is feeling rather than solving, psyching myself up for a race, knowing that I have prepared enough and pushing myself, because I know that the mind often fatigues before the body, or playing with the emotion in my soul, realizing that while the note may not be part of the key, it is the discordance that expresses how I really feel.
And that is how I feel; a cacophony of sound comprises the song sung by my soul.
The importance lies in understanding this and arranging it so that the notes do not change, but yet can make a symphony so sweet to the ear that every time a moment of silence graces my day I hear the beautiful refrain.
I think this is a really good approach to the prompt, extremely creative, however, I get sort of dizzied with all the metaphors you put in. You delve into music near the end and the focus of the "essay" is lost. I think you should focus more on the struggle to write the essay itself, and shed some of the metaphors/similes. They become a little excessive. Otherwise, it was a great read. Really compelling.
Um. You are aware that the point of this essay is to show what a *good* candidate you are, right? Not being able to think of a single social or political concern to write about due to self-confessed apathy is not a step in the right direction, as far as that goes.
In fact, the essay is entirely too negative for this sort of thing, as you have turned it into an essay on a personal weakness, which you absolutely do not have to do. I see what you are trying to do, but the pile of metaphors and the attempts to be clever cannot erase the primary images you start out with, images that reveal you to be someone full of
indifference that I exhibit incessantly,
and who has a
gaping abyss located in the vicinity of where my empathetic core should have been
.
Be smarter and less clever, and write about an issue that shows you take an interest in the wider world around you.
