Mission Statement

In this series we will consider particular artifacts.

Once, many years ago, a psych professor tasked our class with creating personal mission statements. It was a dark time for the rebellion. I did not sleep. I did not speak. I found myself in a parking lot, an hour to kill, waiting in the fading light and considered this assignment.

What if I answered sincerely?

The coping strategy I chiefly employed was silence. It's easiest to just not draw any attention to yourself. When you are unremarkable no one asks any questions. They expect less. I would liken this to avoiding eye contact - when you are not being actively perceived you are functionally invisible. It allows the hidden to believe that they have deferred judgment; that this is not yet real. Because I wasn't ready.

The difficulty is, of course, that as the gap between your thoughts and behavior widens, it becomes increasingly difficult to communicate. True intimacy becomes impossible. The lack of intimacy increases feelings of alienation which lead to further withdraw. It whirs like a turbine.

I wondered if I could actually express myself, even in so petty and fleeting a medium as this assignment. With a notebook propped on my knee and squinting in the halflight, this is what I wrote. This was my mission statement:

I will endeavor to unite the disparate aspects of my personality into a defined and objective whole. Through this unification I seek to solidify an identity that can be displayed, tended, and understood. I will better my relationships with those I hold dear by behaving in a way which is constant and reflective of my internal dialogue.

I will endeavor to make peace with my past before bitterness and regret poison the things I value completely.

I will endeavor to distill the composition of beauty in the hopes that it will no longer hold power over me.

I will endeavor to discover whether having no convictions is a weakness or a strength. I hope to see if there is room for compromise between the fluidity of intelligence and the rigidity – and comfort – of belief.

I will endeavor to find a field which I enjoy and which fits the particulars of my talents and shortcomings.

I will endeavor to sleep adequately every night, preventing the shamanistic horrors of sleep deprivation from compounding other, unavoidable difficulties.

I will endeavor to finally begin the process of writing. It is necessary, at the very least, to create one book. This will serve to flush my system, begin my unification, and validate the tenets that underlie my reason.