I wrote the following essay in response to the Rice University Prompt:
A. The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice? (Most applicants are able to respond successfully in two to three double-spaced pages.)
Thoughts? Feedback? It's all appreciated!
I was young when my father first told me that he though I had been blessed with the gift of perception.
It was written in a letter I had received at the end of my eight-grade graduation, he said that he was constantly amazed by the insight I showed towards issues and problems. It was mentioned; I thanked him, and nothing more was said of it until my grandfather started to die.
He was... off-base when he died. He was extremely resistant to new ideas and constantly attacked their harbingers; he grouped everything simply and easily into good and bad. My father couldn't stand it, and so, one day when we were driving, he explained perception to me.
He told me that when a person is young, a child, things appear as black and white, good and evil. As they grow older these shades slip and blend together, creating a tapestry of gray, he told me that at the height of a persons perceptive powers, they realize that just about everything in this world is a shade of gray. After that, they get old, they get scared, they retreat and revert, everything once again establishes itself as clear black and white and the cycle is complete. He told me that me that my greatest asset was I had been blessed with the keen ability to see things as they were, to always recognize that things were more complicated then they seemed and to understand their true ramifications.
Now this isn't to say that all morality is relative. There are certainly good and evil in this world, lighter and darker shades of gray, but few things are unabashedly evil or to be completely rejected. Every action, regardless of its character, has intentions running beneath it, and every intention colors, tints, and changes the action. Apart from pure malice and true altruism (two exceedingly rare motivations) this leads to a constant twisting and changing of what is right and wrong.
And that is where morality and perception comes in. Goodness doesn't necessarily come from grouping actions or people or ideas into good or evil, it comes from understanding and acting. Only through a thorough understanding of what we hate or fear, what drives it and propagates it, can we conquer it. Only through this perception can I draw my principles and ideas, only through understanding other peoples motivations and actions can I create a moral code which is simultaneously rigorous while still existing within the realm of human reason.
I grew up in a home without faith, I grew up in a home which didn't subscribe to any real political ideology, in short, I grew up in a home without any base code or idea to drive my actions. I received the lessons that compassion was good and cruelty was bad, I received the basics of kindness and goodness but it was ultimately up to me, and me alone, how I would live my life, how I would choose to conduct myself and what idea or code I would subscribe too.
And this is the greatest gift my father has given me.
I am my own person, I know myself, I know what I think is right or wrong, I know what drives people, and, perhaps most importantly, I know what drives myself. I can accept myself and others for all their good and evil, I can work to change the world while acknowledging, understanding, and even embracing its dark side.
Integrity born of perspective, perspective born of understanding, understanding born of empathy. This is who I am, this is what I do, and this is what I can bring to Rice.
A. The quality of Rice's academic life and the Residential College System are heavily influenced by the unique life experiences and cultural traditions each student brings. What perspective do you feel that you will contribute to life at Rice? (Most applicants are able to respond successfully in two to three double-spaced pages.)
Thoughts? Feedback? It's all appreciated!
I was young when my father first told me that he though I had been blessed with the gift of perception.
It was written in a letter I had received at the end of my eight-grade graduation, he said that he was constantly amazed by the insight I showed towards issues and problems. It was mentioned; I thanked him, and nothing more was said of it until my grandfather started to die.
He was... off-base when he died. He was extremely resistant to new ideas and constantly attacked their harbingers; he grouped everything simply and easily into good and bad. My father couldn't stand it, and so, one day when we were driving, he explained perception to me.
He told me that when a person is young, a child, things appear as black and white, good and evil. As they grow older these shades slip and blend together, creating a tapestry of gray, he told me that at the height of a persons perceptive powers, they realize that just about everything in this world is a shade of gray. After that, they get old, they get scared, they retreat and revert, everything once again establishes itself as clear black and white and the cycle is complete. He told me that me that my greatest asset was I had been blessed with the keen ability to see things as they were, to always recognize that things were more complicated then they seemed and to understand their true ramifications.
Now this isn't to say that all morality is relative. There are certainly good and evil in this world, lighter and darker shades of gray, but few things are unabashedly evil or to be completely rejected. Every action, regardless of its character, has intentions running beneath it, and every intention colors, tints, and changes the action. Apart from pure malice and true altruism (two exceedingly rare motivations) this leads to a constant twisting and changing of what is right and wrong.
And that is where morality and perception comes in. Goodness doesn't necessarily come from grouping actions or people or ideas into good or evil, it comes from understanding and acting. Only through a thorough understanding of what we hate or fear, what drives it and propagates it, can we conquer it. Only through this perception can I draw my principles and ideas, only through understanding other peoples motivations and actions can I create a moral code which is simultaneously rigorous while still existing within the realm of human reason.
I grew up in a home without faith, I grew up in a home which didn't subscribe to any real political ideology, in short, I grew up in a home without any base code or idea to drive my actions. I received the lessons that compassion was good and cruelty was bad, I received the basics of kindness and goodness but it was ultimately up to me, and me alone, how I would live my life, how I would choose to conduct myself and what idea or code I would subscribe too.
And this is the greatest gift my father has given me.
I am my own person, I know myself, I know what I think is right or wrong, I know what drives people, and, perhaps most importantly, I know what drives myself. I can accept myself and others for all their good and evil, I can work to change the world while acknowledging, understanding, and even embracing its dark side.
Integrity born of perspective, perspective born of understanding, understanding born of empathy. This is who I am, this is what I do, and this is what I can bring to Rice.
