uninspired.

I'm cheap, so I'll toss out another college essay for you to read. This one was written more from the heart than my others, and I think that crazed adoration shows through my threadbare vocabulary and syntax. Forgive me?

TOPIC OF YOUR CHOICE.

“I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.” While I don’t usually agree with Asimov’s personal statements, I wholeheartedly believe in this one.

Because that same love for writing resonates in the quietest shadows of my soul. Great writing is a blessing that great writers have shared with little people like me. Like many composers before me, not only do I WANT to write; I NEED to write.

Through writing, I find my purpose. I can to produce something original that I can claim as my own. I can take what lies deep inside me, and put words to it, bring it into existence; through words, I can invent! Everybody has read at least one literary piece that has inspired them, the piece of an author they’ve never met, but by whom they have been profoundly shaped. I write every day in the hopes that, perhaps in my future, I will have a redefining impact on a stranger miles away, who will never meet me, but with whom I can share a piece of my heart.

I also write to defy the standards set for my generation, a generation of consumers and buyers. I suppose that in today’s society, I’m not really expected to contribute much of anything. I am expected to simply regurgitate and recycle what generations before me have actualised. Rarely does anybody my age create something new and lasting. But I aspire to change that. I have grown restless with the low expectations set forth by the infamous “They”, who have always assumed I’m not capable of giving back to the world yet, because I am young and inexperienced.

I am here to demonstrate that writing does allow me to give back. I know that my written words carry tremendous, intoxicating power. What is in my mind can take whatever form I will it to, venom or vindication, and the responsibility of controlling this power is great.

So I write to spread love. I write to praise, to encourage, to persuade, and to advocate. Writing makes easy what is so hard to live. Any disciple of text can attest to its ability to completely redirect a mood. This is the beauty of writing: that it is a fresh, raw, dynamic snapshot of one’s inner thoughts and feelings.

Furthermore, I write because I am an addict. This addiction begs no rehab; I don’t need pills or needles or restraints. I just need ten fingers and a mind of my own because I am addicted to the blood of a pen, the spine of a pencil, and the muscle of a printer. The feeling of a smooth new eraser will never stop reassuring me that I can always learn from my mistakes, with a few smudges left behind as promising reminders that there IS a future, should I choose to invest time in creating it.

I wrote this essay not as a chance to show off, or to impress you with any linguistic prowess I may or may not possess, but because I believed my love letter to letters was long overdue. The irony is that when I write, when I give so much of myself to paper, the paper is only ever giving back to me.

It is my gift to myself, and now, it is my gift to you.