Existence.

My personal statement paper on Oedipus Rex. Written late at night and early in the morning. Forgive me.

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From the day we are born, released from the ethereal safety of a mother's womb and drawn into a world of sterilized equipment and masked doctors, we begin our search for truth. Not just one truth, not a singular notion of what is true, but many truths. The warmth of an embrace becomes a truth. The sound of our mother's beating heart becomes a truth. Every day we discover one truth and begin our search for another. But unlike the simple truths that come to us at first, such as the love of our parents and the satisfaction of sleep, there is a greater truth that we will struggle to understand for the entirety of our lives. It is the truth of our existence, of ourselves; it is the truth about who we are and what we are meant to do in life.

Others will not necessarily agree with what will ring true for us, but as Tiresias did in the play Oedipus Rex, we must believe in the truth about ourselves and where we are going, despite what others may say. After Tiresias tells Oedipus that he killed Liaus, Oedipus accuses Tiresias, in a fit of rage, of being Liaus's murderer. In the face of this lie, Tiresias does not weaken or give in; instead, he says "I have gone free. It is the truth that sustains me." The truth about who we are and where we are going is difficult to know, but when we feel that we have found it, we must stand by it and let it guide us in life; we must, like Tiresias, allow for it to sustain us, even in the face of great opposition.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of definitions for the word "truth." And yet, after scouring dictionary.com and online encyclopedias for a definition that suited my view of the word, I found that one does not exist. My definition of truth cannot be found in any dictionary or a philosopher's guide to life. To me, truth is not just a fact, it is a feeling. It is the discovery of a thought that fits so well with who we are and what we desire to become that it is impossible to ignore. It is the clarity and awe with which we can see the pieces of our future come together with the discovery of a single idea. Truth is what drives us, what motivates us to get up in the morning, to smile when everything is bad, to breathe when everything gets worse.

I have struggled with the truth of who I am for longer than I can remember. Growing up in a house where multiple cultures exist and thrive, I had a hard time finding my place within it all. It was a house straight out of an ancient collectivist society, where my truth and my parents' truths were supposed to be one and the same. But the older I got, the more I realized that I would never become a doctor, I would never be the domestic goddess my mother hoped I would become. With the realization that I wasn't doing anything wrong if I didn't agree with my parents was the discovery that the truth to me was simple. What got me up every morning, what I thought about in almost every spare moment of my life, what I focused on when listening to the ticking of the mechanical clock that hangs in my room is the children of the world.

More than anything else that I have ever yearned to do, I want to feed children. Hungry children, impoverished children, children with no families, children with no homes. This is what my life has come down to. It is a simple truth, a straightforward truth, and it is my truth. There is nothing I would like to do more than go to a third world country and feed a hungry child with my bare hands. To others, this is an idealistic dream, an impossible dream; but at the end of the day, it does not matter what anyone else thinks. It's about my desire to make a positive difference; it's about the knowledge that encompasses everything that I am. Feeding these children is what I strive to do, is what gives me a feeling of purpose. It is what, in Tiresias's words, sustains me.

I have been faced with many things since the day I entered the world of sterilized equipment and masked doctors 17 years ago, on the other side of the planet. I have learned countless things that have helped me get as far as I am now. But amidst all of these facts, all of these realizations, one sticks out amongst them all; and to me, it is the greatest truth of them all. It is a truth that I discovered within the last few months and it is a truth that has changed my life for the better. I want to feed children who have no one else. And that is the truth that defines who I am, that helps me be free, that allows me to get up and day after day and feel that I am going to a better place. It is my past, it is my present, it is my future; it is everything that I have worked towards and everything I have become.

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