statement of purpose

I've always deeply admired the exuberant people. You know, the joyful people, incredibly happy to be alive and showing it at every moment; the ones who feel everything deeply and experience everything deeply. The outlandish ones, with bright-colored, creative outfits, wide-brimmed hats, and sparkling eyes. The ones who will suggest to take a chance; the inspiring ones.

I've always wanted to be like them. Unafraid to be expressive and to spread joy. Unlike them, however, I've always been very afraid of very many things. I worry a lot. I always have these fears, mainly one, and a lot of the time manage to push them back and ignore them for a while, but then something makes me remember them, and they take over again, and I feel dark and shuddering and sad and doomed and frantic. Needless to say, it's not fun.

Getting over fears has been quite hard for me. My main fear is one that I have had since I was very, very small; since I was at an age when children don't usually think about those things. The fear is called fear of death, fear of the unknown. I know it's not uncommon. But it's haunted me for almost as long as I can remember; though, I can probably pinpoint the time when it came into being, when my grandfather and great-aunt died when I was around seven. Ever since I knew what death was have I been mortally terrified of it.

Fear holds me back from being one of the exuberant, inspiring people whom I so admire and love. They seem unafraid; they seem stronger than fear. Is joy then stronger than fear? When I've been truly joyful, I have not felt fear; it was, in those moments, as if fear were gone, just a memory. But then it has always come back.

The knawing fear has held me back from the thing that saves most people from fear: faith. I've had such trouble having faith, because always is the haunting, painful doubt: what if I am wrong? What if I were to believe in something with all of my heart... all for nothing? What if I delude myself and devote myself to an illusion? But I know that these things are false. In my heart, I really do have belief. Name something mystical and I'll probably believe in it; everything from fairies to spirits to God and heaven. I'll at least acknowledge the possibility, because I believe that nothing is impossible.

But still, there is doubt. Nagging, knawing, biting, possessing, frenzied doubt. I do not like it; it is not a friend; and yet through the years I've almost made it a home, unwillingly. It feeds on compulsions and it perpetuates insecurity, something I've also felt for a long time.

But I musn't give it too many characteristics, for I know that it is not real. The doubt it what is really an illusion, not the belief. They are like two conflicting forces, and one does not know which is an illusion and which is reality. That is the scariest part. But the sight of newborn spring and the suffusion of dappled sunlight coming through the tree-branches, with the voices of children in the background, affirm faith. All things in nature affirm faith, and they all teach a lesson. I've found nature to be the greatest teacher.

I should abandon doubt, cast it off as an old, worn-out cloak: spring is come and one does not need the burden of a dark weight like that. I do love to learn such lessons, and would love to be unafraid. I just fear, in the end, having been wrong.