I wrote this essay when I was trying to apply for Common App when I was 18. I didn't get the opportunity to submit my application, but this essay holds a close place in my heart, and I like to remind myself of it once a while. Putting it here is not a brag, but just something I wanted to do because I really liked it.
There are a lot of stories that I can tell, and most of them start with the same five words — “There was this one time”. Pretty much anything that will come after that will sound like the wildest psychedelic grassland world. If I reflect on this, I can notice two split and contradicting viewpoints I have received, from other people as well as my three AM existential thoughts — the awe of dedication, and the hidden uncertainty of where this would go.
So, there was this one time in the summer of 9th grade when my dad introduced me to a science communication competition and I was immediately hooked. But neither him nor I was ready to see the lengths that I would go to research my topic. At this point, I would like to introduce the fact that I’m a big fan of getting carried away. I’d like to go as far as running tiny little qubit simulations through IBM libraries just to mess with the concept and see how it works. (but 9th grade me couldn’t figure out that you can actually run them on actual IBM quantum computers)
These adventures have raided all parts of the waking engineering world as my ADHD induced generalist CPU architecture begins to have its go at any and every tool available at my disposal. Physics optics and mechanics simulation in Desmos? yes. Fixing drivetrain of a random team’s line following robot? yes. a 400 line script to pick tasks out of my to-do list? that was a fun time. Efficiently summarising “there was this one time”. I wouldn’t quite call the trouble of non-conformist tendencies with a fixed ‘schedule’ as a disadvantage, but the conflict of being highly procrastinating without deadlines, and at the same time not being able to function without the quick springs of DEEP projects is troublesome.
Ive grown to believe deeply in experimenting with everything the moment you get the chance you get rather than waiting for the right time. I’ve been repeatedly told and you too can find evidence of it, that life is in stages, and you get your “shot” by completing each stage at just the right time. and believe me I rigorously tried following that, but it just didn’t feel right as my schizophrenic conscience kept bothering me. I’m constantly attaching my self-worth to the things I’m able to do, and it catapults itself really low when its only a linear graph to plot. If we are intelligent beings creating Turing tests, why should we only fit ourselves to the concept of finite state machines?
It comes as a heartbreaking but practical realisation that I can’t become a wing profile aerodynamics expert in a day (have tried), but whether that happens or not, whatever you learn, it always come back when you need it. Not too keen to admit that I sometimes use this as an excuse to keep watching meme compilations to ‘download’ humour and reference it later.
I mean, we’ll never change the world with just focusing on meeting the baseline (probably works for corporate, don’t tell Dunder Mifflin I said that). So, At the slight disadvantage of risking the stability my self-actualisation, and resting on only the current state of my functioning, we can uncover a huge advantage of never resting on one’s laurels. Learn but never hold on. And hence, I found one of the biggest realisations from my wonder box of epiphanies, some of those allegedly contain the realisation that death is in realms of possibility.
I like to give things shiny names, and you can think of this as “Evidence Driven Esteem”. Sometimes this is a risky situation and it has created hard to recover downhill situations, but on a thin line of ice, it became a driver of growth and experience in me, and I feel like thats pretty good character growth. We only got one life, whats it for, if not to get carried away.