Please grade my SAT essay...

ChaosThRulesQED
Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:43:18 +0000

What must we do to truly understand ourselves?

The question of what must be done to ‘truly’ understand oneself is not an simple one to answer and that is easily substantiated by the fact that after thousands of years of civilization and soul searching no one-no philosopher, no biologist, has come up with an universal answer to it. There IS no fool proof manual, no ’ Finding Yourself For Dummies’ and there cannot be; the goal of ‘finding oneself’ is elusive and abstract-what we can call a moving target and so naturally the road to it equally conceptual and thus, relative. Assuming that ‘finding oneself’ refers to discovering a sphere of work to which our common uniqueness could most contribute; to find the place where we belong or to discover what we were meant to do, let us proceed.
Everyone has at least a faint notion of what they want; of what attracts them and that is the path they must follow. Yes, we must begin our quest, yes, quest, by doing what we ‘want’ to do. If we look at life of Michael Madhusudan Dutta ,one of the greatest Indian poets of pre-independent India we will find that he was greatly drawn to British cultures-so much so that he left India for England and his dream of becoming a great English poet, only to find out, alone, penniless and imprisoned in foreign country that his great dream had come to naught-his poems were dry and banal and thus, inconsequential .He was rescued and taken back to India wherefore he ‘found himself’ as a composer of Bengali sonnets. He revolutionized Bengali literature even though he couldn’t even write the language properly. The story of his life clearly shows that what we want may not always be what’s best for us but it eventually leads to our final destination.
If we peruse the biographies of Somerset Maugham, James Joyce, Thomas Hardy and George Orwell we will find a striking similarity-all of them ‘tried’ a number of different things before they found their calling and their previous experiences actually helped them in their writing careers. The word ‘try’ embodies many profound qualities needed to succeed in this quest-TRY different thing, TRY, try again…and that brings us to the third guideline.
Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, scientist Mani Bhaumik are among the people who didn’t abandon their search for themselves in the face of great opposition ;they were not restrained by clichés or restrictions imposed on them; they stretched their boundaries to find and follow their calling.
Back in the practical world, it is just not possible to try out all the things we want to and so it is naturally more convenient for us to learn by seeing. When there is a whole world of people with unique natures, talents and vocations what more could we want?
That is it. There is no direct answer to this question; only a few vague guidelines- listen to your heart, take risks, try different things, don’t give to 'herd mentality’, develop a keen observational skill and one more that would like to add- inculcate the virtue of patience; this ‘quest’ is also a process, it cannot be rushed- we will only make unnecessary mistakes or draw the wrong conclusions; we have to remember- the fruits of patience are always sweet. All the best