Let's get personal.
This is me warming up before the kill. I am starting with pen (my signature Pilot Precise V5 0.5 mm extra fineroller tip) and paper. This means something serious is about to be written. So far I have written "I need." Indeed. What do I need.
Admittedly I have procrastinated long enough. It's just that I loathe writing personal statements, with all of my heart and soul. It is because I love writing. I love the honesty, the non-judgmental face of an untarnished blank white surface. But personal statements are not about creativity; they are not about honesty. However, I do not write to sell myself. I write to expose myself.
I do not say this to appear virtuous; I have never considered genuine humility to be a part of my nature (rather, I too often exploit the fact that I seem so humble). I am saying there is something in my nature that forcefully resists accentuating the positive. It is like a reflex to think of the negative -- to find my own faults before someone else does. I live in fear of lacking introspect in anything I do. Because people, abiding by the tenets of social decorum, are functional liars. So it is up to oneself to correct foibles before they become visible, or worse, irritating.
So, in having to sell myself, I would have to let my guard down. The ideal would be to find a balance between my harsh honesty and whatever good I see in myself, so that I would not be compromising my instincts as an exposer, yet not playing muckracker to my own soul. And I have failed each time in the past. For the college essay. For the medical school essay. It is a source of frustration. Knowing I have the capacity to write. But having the capacity being stifled by the demands and goals of the assignment.
Part of it is, as always, the lack of passion. As trite as it seems, without this drive, any amount of work would produce something as lack-lustre as the will that created it. And this is not something you can forge - this passion.
Better,I suppose, to fill this empty page with the usual fluffy drivel and cocktail-banter than to procrastinate. Some of the saddest moments in life are when you have to sacrifice ideal for practicality. I will sell myself, and will probably succeed in doing a mediocre job of it. But it is difficult - this creation of something so detached from yourself.
Admittedly I have procrastinated long enough. It's just that I loathe writing personal statements, with all of my heart and soul. It is because I love writing. I love the honesty, the non-judgmental face of an untarnished blank white surface. But personal statements are not about creativity; they are not about honesty. However, I do not write to sell myself. I write to expose myself.
I do not say this to appear virtuous; I have never considered genuine humility to be a part of my nature (rather, I too often exploit the fact that I seem so humble). I am saying there is something in my nature that forcefully resists accentuating the positive. It is like a reflex to think of the negative -- to find my own faults before someone else does. I live in fear of lacking introspect in anything I do. Because people, abiding by the tenets of social decorum, are functional liars. So it is up to oneself to correct foibles before they become visible, or worse, irritating.
So, in having to sell myself, I would have to let my guard down. The ideal would be to find a balance between my harsh honesty and whatever good I see in myself, so that I would not be compromising my instincts as an exposer, yet not playing muckracker to my own soul. And I have failed each time in the past. For the college essay. For the medical school essay. It is a source of frustration. Knowing I have the capacity to write. But having the capacity being stifled by the demands and goals of the assignment.
Part of it is, as always, the lack of passion. As trite as it seems, without this drive, any amount of work would produce something as lack-lustre as the will that created it. And this is not something you can forge - this passion.
Better,I suppose, to fill this empty page with the usual fluffy drivel and cocktail-banter than to procrastinate. Some of the saddest moments in life are when you have to sacrifice ideal for practicality. I will sell myself, and will probably succeed in doing a mediocre job of it. But it is difficult - this creation of something so detached from yourself.
posted by Maureen @ 12:21 PM
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