Statement of Purpose

Urban and Regional Planning

Florida State University—for the last 7 years of my life, I have been defined by the colors of garnet of gold that cover our beautiful campus.

However, back in 2012, regardless of my original intentions those long years ago, I failed. I was unable to meet the standards demanded by me, and I was unable to continue schooling here. Depressed, despondent, I regretfully packed up my things, unable to even obtain hope from the promise given to me by the school.

“If you obtain an A.A. degree, apply back.”

When I got back to my old house, walking silently around my dimly lit room, I realized something. I realized that in this moment, my life was paused. It was in an undecided moment in which my decision would affect the rest of my entire existence. In that moment, I saw two starkly different futures. The first future where, if I continued upon this path of self-destruction, I would spiral until reaching a painful oblivion. The second future where I rebounded and took this promise as a sign of a way back into my higher education, and life where I was defined through my exertion of will to get things done.

In the end, after considering both futures with awe, understanding that potentially I was tapping into an intuitive nature that I was not aware of, I chose to embrace hope.

From that moment forward, I started changing aspects of my life to facilitate the greatest amount of personal change. Even though I was working one job already at that point, I strived to fill my non-school hours with employment to raise money. This was in addition to me taking four or more classes at a college located in an entirely different county. At only a year and a half of attending Palm Beach State, I was already primed to graduate with my A.A. degree, ready to try again at the college that I had failed out of what seemed like years ago: Florida State University.

Initially, after driving up with my Dad to move myself into one of the numerous apartment complexes, I was nervous, even scared. However, with the relentless pace of classes, long bus rides, and the gentle sound of rustling leaves that permeates the campus, eventually the feeling settled on me.

I was home.

Near the conclusion of my time in the International Affairs undergraduate program, I found myself attracted to a certain departments classes and the benefits of continuing gradually increased my interest until I found myself engrossed in something that I had never even considered. If I want to help people, what better way than to engage in the practice of assisting people before, during, or after a disaster scenario? I also took almost all the UAS classes offered in this program, and found myself blown away by a new form of technology that could revolutionize the world: drones.

Regardless of these discoveries, after my schooling in this department, I sought to expand my horizons further. Additionally, when thinking about what I enjoy, and what I am good at, I think that my desired skill set lies in a different subject.

Urban and Regional Planning is the master’s program that I have chosen to apply for. Why did I choose this field to apply for, after bouncing throughout FSU’s many departments and subjects for damn near a century?

I realized that the natural skills that I possess in the creation, facilitation, and maintenance of preparedness across my life, and in the assignments I have completed during my higher education demonstrate that this is a part of myself worth investing into. Ever since I was young, I was fascinated with how, why, and where things worked in the larger structures that existed outside my life. I drew pictures of vast cities, intricately designed blimps filled with armies ready to drop upon unsuspecting forts, and wrote emergency guide books relevant to high school and its dangers to my brother. When I grew a little bit older, I stopped drawing battles and started to write stories with endless structure woven into the plot. I created worlds with realistic governmental systems, convoluted political strife, tangible histories, and complicated, multifaceted characters. As I passed into college, I moved on to the progression of my own thoughts, and dedicated an entire website to the machinations that take place within my head. However, not all of these passions exist in the realm of the fictional. Given the advances in technology in recent years, I have been fascinated with the idea of collaborating planning with the capabilities of a drone to map areas for a variety of utilizations. During my tenure at The Hobbit: American Grill, I wrote the official Emergency Action Plan to be used during a disaster and for general reference. This is in addition to my eagerness to engage in the research and deep thinking that goes into the multiple facets of this program. Humans create structure to be born, live, and die in. It is my desire to apply my energies into perfecting how we live on this planet, from a planning standpoint. Waste, inefficiency, and inadequacy define many things that we take for granted in this world. Restaurants are one of these aspects. While countries like France have banned the undue waste of food, the amount of food waste that I have seen in my time in the service industry of The United States is astounding. I wish to be a part of solutions for problems like this. Sustainability, protection of the natural environment, and economic progress; these all are things that I seek to instill into my career, and I believe that by engaging in this master’s program, I can allow myself to make the biggest difference in the progression of our country.

Today I was going through my old facebook posts–articles that I had shared, funny videos of cats–and came across something that I had posted a while back with hopes that it would spark discussion. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as no one had even bothered to leave any sign that they saw, much less read the article.

Now I could go about focusing entirely on the labors of maintaining your interests in a world that few can entertain, posting things on social media regardless of the perceived futility. However, I think that this time I wish to instead discuss the content of the article itself, given that it has dire implications for our country, and offers some exclusive insight on human progress.

Before we go any further, here are two articles. And yes, I realize that one of these articles is from Wikipedia. You can look up a different summary on Google if you desire more scholarly sources.

–https://www.minds.com/blog/view/562766803856531456
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman

The first article entails a quote derived from John Ehrlichman, former member of Nixon’s cabinet and the “brainchild” of the Watergate scandal. When questioned by the press about the war on drugs, John stated that The War on Drugs was created entirely to target two different subgroups of people.

I am sure that you read the quote in the above articles, but in any case, here is what he said.

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

-John Ehrlichman, 1994

Given that John Ehrlichman was “counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon”, this provides damning evidence that at one point the government interceded in the burgeoning of a cultural revolution, on top of oppressing and prosecuting two different subgroups within America, for the sake of perpetuating a war. This started in 1968, and the effects of anti-drug legislation during that period have completely crippled both of those groups to this day.

Now, we have two choices here. We could forget entirely that this event happened, that the government was complicit in removing the freedom integral to specific subgroups in the interest of vilifying their movements and arresting their leaders, and move on with the aim to try and make this country better.  If we let petty politics get in the way of the greater good, if we let entrenched politics lead us in circles, we will truly fall from grace.

The second choice, of course, is to acknowledge and use what we learned from those long years in order to prevent oppressive forces from overtaking this country again. Regardless of what you think of marijuana for instance, you have to acknowledge that people are going to smoke it regardless of what you personally believe. To prosecute them for this would be you implementing your influence to negatively impact someone else’s life. While drugs like heroin are obviously detrimental and addictive to the people using them, criminalizing the users will only perpetuate the problem. The real aim should be to prevent people from getting addicted, from a medical standpoint, so that they can be free to utilize their own autonomy for their own ends.

In the end, as has been demonstrated over and over again, you cannot completely dictate what a population does from a governmental standpoint, and in the end the only way forward is evolution through leaders who are open to change.

Even under the oppressive energies of anti-drug legislation, drugs like marijuana have induced some of the most intense cultural revolutions that our country has ever seen. An example of this would be the growth of rock climbing during the peak of the hippy revolution, where people quit their jobs and drove out the Yosemite to set bare-rock climbing records that will remain unbroken for decades. It set off a wave of originality and progress for humans in a time when many adult humans would simply grow up, obtain a 9-5 job, and retire. To this day the people that originally broke away from mainstream society to climb have created an ever growing culture of outdoors-loving individuals who live and commune in Yosemite.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3784160/      (Netflix Documentary on Yosemite)

In the end, I am left with a grim sense of awe. This country, the land of the free, the place that for the longest time I considered to be progressing to perfection, at least from a peace standpoint. To find out that at one time we had such intense and violent interactions between authority and its citizens, and, to a lesser extent, in 2017, is disappointing and begs the question: are we all truly doing as much as we can to ensure a bright future for everyone?

Helicopters overhead, people screaming into the afternoon sky, which has become shrouded in dark clouds. I hear explosions and gunshots outside my house, and ragged shouting. Someone slammed a fist against our house door, rattling the fans and scaring both of our cats. I hold a baseball bat in my trembling hands, peeking through the blinds at the chaos outside.

Someone is holding a picture of Donald Trump up in the air in the streets out front of my house. The photo is expanded onto poster board and has strange, hand drawn words on it. With the lighting and the din, it is impossible to say what the person is even trying to communicate.

A gun shot shatters my concentration, and the man crumples to the ground.

His comrades appear on the scene, running up from behind the house across the street. The man with the gun panics, and turns sharply to escape attention.

Suddenly the sound of breaking glass draws my eye. Down the street at the empty lot, a group of protesters tear down a sign, and burn it. I don’t even think that the sign had anything to do with the conflict. I think they just wanted something to burn.

…

Just kidding. Happy April Fools.

Regardless of what you believe, time will always continue on. No matter how intense the energy within your own sphere of life gets, there is always the spectrum of atmosphere. You just exist on a spectrum of events happening, where there is some solace to be had that somewhere else, the world is different. That somewhere else there is a peaceful atmosphere, smiles, laughter….or perhaps just silence. Like the silence of wind currents pushing air around vast mountains. Energy, but silence. The feeling of oneness with the great everything that exists around you, but also the powerful quiet that comes from refined energy transfer. Like a futuristic hot rod starting up, emitting a low drone, but with the noise and its presence in the surrounding environment carries with it an immense sense of power and purpose.

Hmmm…

Hmm.

Sorry, I got carried away.

The universe that we live in, the world that encompasses us, seems, at least for this moment, to be moderately stable. Of course we do have a share of problems.

Fukushima, admittedly, is a pretty big problem. However, with correctly placed human ingenuity, something that as a species we are quite good at, I do believe that we will see an eventual resolution to that.

In regards to our relations with other countries, I have started to see relationships that have long been tainted by a refusal to look beyond basic differences resolving themselves. It appears that we are enjoying better international interactions with Russia for instance, which has long been a country to demonize and butt heads with from an ideological standpoint. In addition to that, it also appears that Iran is now much more amiable towards us as well. I heard that a group of American sailors were caught by their military, and were quickly released back to The Navy. As summarized by the New York Times, “Their quick release was hailed by the Obama administration as an unintended benefit of the new diplomatic relationship with Iran established by the nuclear accord negotiated between Tehran and the United States and five other nations in July.” (NY Times 1)

So take a breath. Pat yourself all over and be thankful to live in a world that seeks to continuously progress, rather than giving up at the first sight of trouble.

History is unfolding before you.

References

David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper. (2016, January 13). Iran’s Swift Release of U.S. Sailors Hailed as a Sign of Warmer Relations. Retrieved March 30, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/world/middleeast/iran-navy-crew-release.html?_r=0

Hello folks! This is just a quick update to provide reassurance after my last post, given that it entailed me spiraling emotionally in the wake of my future!

I am pleased to announce that the particular emotional hole that I was stuck in previously has been filled by hope and faith that regardless of what life throws at me, I can adapt and prosper.

Here’s how I accomplished this.

Even in the worst possible, emotionally debilitating sense of failure, by channeling the emotions into something productive, like writing about your feelings, allows you to utilize this energy that normally would be used to render your will inert in the pursuit of something worthwhile. Obviously worthiness depends on the eye of the beholder, and in my eyes, having a permanent piece of writing dedicated to describing my feelings and detailing them for my audience to observe is something that helps me maintain my emotional balance.

Some could even call the carefully captured emotions from such an event as art, but I will not pursuit any particular label for the works that I post on here. Rather they are checkpoints in my understanding of the world and an effort to chronicle my life so that I might enjoy reliving it at a later point.

I imagine future me reading my angst filled posts with dismay, realizing that he had detailed so much of his inner emotional struggles on here, open wide for the world to judge.

If I could take a glance into those intensely regretful eyes, grinning slightly as I take in the clashing feelings of nostalgia and embarrassment that line his face, I would only say one thing.

“You think way to highly of your presence, both online and in person. Just do what you want, the world will watch or ignore you regardless of whether you want it to or not.”

I sigh, and press send on what appears to be the 5th employment application that I only have 75% of the qualifications for.

My email is full of confirmation messages, impersonal exclamations of congratulations that don’t actually confirm anything.

I glance at the date. Three months. Jesus Christ.

A small drop of cold sweat slides down the side of my torso, significant in its isolation.

My mind slightly panics as I come to terms with the reality of the situation.

I’m under-qualified for the jobs I want, and over-qualified for the jobs that I have already been working since high school.

My certifications are limited, and there is no guarantee that the places I apply to will take them seriously.

My job applications feel like shots in the dark.

Volunteering now feels like more of a cop out than an actual legitimate life choice. Some organizations actually charge you money, requiring that you pay for room and board like you are on some flashy vacation.

Signing time away so that you don’t have to face the world.

The stress of existing in this job industry with no solid plan on what to do next seeps into every action that I think of.

Where do I fit in this cut throat world of capitalism?

I sigh again.
This is going to be a long three months.

Hello my dear friends, I am here to present an interesting concept that I have been tossing around today, the idea that violence, or rather the acceptance of it, could be the answer to humans regaining a sense of balance in a world ripe with chaos and uncertainty.

Violence, as a concept, is universal in the basic structure of the world that we can observe. Nature is defined by the violent interactions that are carried out between members of different animal species, and even within the framework that surrounds animals of the same species. Depending on your definition of violence, even plant life could be defined as a facilitator of violence.

At this point, we need to solidify what exactly violence is, given the subjectivity based on context. In my definition, in an attempt to capture its essence, violence is an output of energy that causes another variable to change. This encompasses all organic instances of energy output, in addition to suggesting that chaos itself, or rather the flow of energy that takes place is in a sense, violence. Some people would hesitate to define chaos as violence, given the restricted conceptualization that violence suffers from. When I say this, I mean that despite human society having a fetish for violent acts, there is a rejection of it, and those who perpetuate its action must abide by moral standings in order to even be properly recognized for their role in it. The action itself, violence, is considered to be a negative, terrible thing. People strive every day to minimize and remove it from the order of things.

Why do we do this? If violence is so integral to the functioning of our world, why are we demonizing and restricting it, instead of accepting its everlasting facilitation in the organic realm? Now, I am not saying that instances of violence that are negative in result are something we should embrace and worship, rather that we need to open our eyes and accept that it is something to understand and study, rather than reject. A fair comparison would be our insistence of rejecting sex, labeling it a morally ambiguous action that should be hidden from plain sight. This is hilarious, because sex is literally the one action that keeps our little enterprise functioning effectively. Without people having the desire to have sex (hell, without orgasms) it would be very difficult to convince a sentient person (especially a female) to settle down, endure pain and hardship, just for the sake of perpetuating our species. Morality is a subjective notion that entirely depends on the culture and other random variables that coincide within the human social sphere.

So what, in the end, is the lesson that I am trying to deliver across this electronic medium? That, like everything, violence exists on a spectrum, and judging from the entirety of known history, has been a factor since the creation of our little organic spaceship. Nations have tried and failed to unite us all, instead embarking in violent enterprises to oppress humanity into an united front. Cultures judge other cultures for their understanding and role within violence. They enact violence at each other to try and convince the other that their style of violence is wrong. This continual ironic cycle is displayed to this day, as with the United States’ insistence to act as a moral judge of violence despite raining down our violence across nations, both with bombs, and with other, less direct forms of aggression.

In the end, all this does is perpetuate a cycle of violence that has negative consequences for all parties involved, while giving no actual credit to the action itself.

One wonders how long this practice will last.

Every conversation is a test of will between two individuals; a duel of energy that pervades into the metaphysical realm. Is it possible to measure the tension in the air, mood-wise? Can you empirically measure something like resentment? Human emotion is an tangible aspect of everyday life, yet intangible in calculation.

Perhaps this is why some people view “the party” as a miracle, combining directed energies between multitudes of humans on a variety of different emotional levels. It is a chemical testing center of both organic compounds, like hormones, and intoxicating compounds, like alcohol. An observer on the outside of this festival full of self-indulgence and friendly games of skill would be truly humbled by the intricacies of human body language, and the almost frightening consistency of the varieties of personalities involved. The imperfection of the system is what makes the perfection. Even the adverse aspects of human interaction in these events have a place in progressing the whole. Is an outsider negatively impacting the party? They are removed shortly by the party goers, and in addition to refining their innate groupthink ability to coordinate the changing of a negative variable, the person who was removed learns a hard lesson. At the conclusion of this negative, possibly aggressive interaction, both parties have benefited.

S0, is there a metaphysical realm where the different faces of human emotion and interaction are manifested as tangible, measurable variables? Can our eyes hope to capture images of such a thing? Would our brain be able to fathom the images it is being presented? Who knows.

Given the advances in the sciences the last couple years, one could only hope that if a venture into this theory proves correct, that we adequately prepare for the consequences if it is abused.

Light shining from the florescent fixtures hanging from the ceiling.

Persons of varying disposition approaching you, the light enveloping them in golden halos.

Rowdy crowds, drunken shouts, and quiet kind gestures.

The TVs are deafening, and prevent much of the words from translating themselves into your ear canals.

You have 4 hours left in your shift.

You sigh.

The Peace Corps represents in a lot of ways me trying to fight against the growing sense that the world I live in crumbling around me. We live on an enormous organic spaceship that is composed of wondrous natural environment’s, diverse and fascinating cultures, and gorgeous human settlements. However, as I have looked further into the workings of this planet, I have been confronted by the fact that there is an uncountable amount of terrible things being done to the people, environment’s, and wildlife that perpetuates over and over again. Given this grim reality, I have taken it upon myself to dedicate my life to trying to help insert positivity and good vibes into my surroundings, and I feel that applying for the Peace Corps is me taking a leap into exponentially growing that process. I fight not just for environmental balance, or for the injustices done to the innocent, but to balance the scales of existence itself. Regardless of where I go, or what I do, I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that goodness comes from my involvement, both in attitude and effort. The world has too many people who are complicit in not getting involved in trying to make the world better. I wish to be a part of the movement that sees that and moves the other way. I don’t just evaluate the paths by the amount of people traveling by them, I go off the road and find my own unique way. I don’t just settle, I push to progress and create better situations. If confronted by adversity, I don’t just mindless rush into the battle. Rather I evaluate and find the best possible, nonviolent route that leads to the greatest possible amount of good will and benefit. When I run into a wall, I don’t just go around, climb over, or knock it down. I find out why that wall was built in the first place, and put efforts into ensuring that the significance is respected, and its effects are mitigated to those who suffer the effects the strongest. The structure of this world was not made to just be arbitrarily broken down and chaotically undermined, but to be carefully and peacefully changed until every possible version of sentient being can exist peacefully and happily on this world. I love everyone that has ever existed. It sounds far-fetched and unrealistic, but I feel that until you can fully appreciate every version of consciousness and feeling that exists, you are farther away from understanding yourself that you could ever realize. To the person reading this, yes, this includes you. This statement includes every person that you have met today, those who you know, and those you don’t. I want to use this love to help others, and if I didn’t put efforts like this into my life than this ability would be wasted, in my opinion.

Anyway, thank you. I hope you consider my application with the seriousness that I put into writing it.