My law school applications are done. After four years of diligent rehabbing of my academic image, it's officially out of my hands. I've got three safety schools, six priority schools, one stretch school (perhaps better termed a "no-chance-in-hell" school), and there's literally nothing I can do at this point but wait. 

In a strange sense, I'm alright with that. Actually, I think I need this time period right now - this interlude of powerlessness that swirls around me like those initial, restless winds before a powerful surge of storm and tide. I'm not the restless part; to the contrary, I'm actually as calm today about this process as I have ever been and likely ever will be. I have a few lines on my calendar devoted entirely to school and excelling at final exams and term papers, while my applications make their way through the scrutiny of admissions committees. 

One thing that has always bothered me is the concept of someone reading something I've written and not being aware in real time that it's happening. I know for a fact that at least half of my applications have received their initial glance-over, and someone has likely already pointed out a flaw in my personal statement that took me months of revision to come to a draft even remotely close to my standards for personal creative writing. It might be while I stop to pump gas, or walk from my car to a building on campus, or while I take an afternoon nap - institutions all over the country are, at one point or another, deciding who I am and whether I'm worthy of their time, and my present self has no say in the matter. Sure, some past iteration of my existence, manifested through a series of forms and artificially manufactured essays has given them the illusion of knowledge on the subject of me, but the person they are evaluating ceased to exist the moment I hit send on that application and moved forward to the next one. Even the perspective of gaining perspective on what is seen and unseen, inferred and implied, and blatantly stated or openly acknowledged allows me to change for the better, or for the worse. A paper summary of me is not omniscient, and that is the only part that worries me.

It comes from the inner conflict I find myself consumed with, in that I do not have a shred of self-doubt. Yet, I simultaneously have to fight every morning to believe in myself. Those may seem like diametric opposites, and trust me - I don't understand how they coexist with some degree of harmony, and yet they do. This is the part of me I can't let show through papers and essays and personal statements; this guy who is both self-conscious and self-confident, not in a balanced sort of way but in the way those terrible old evangelism brochures used to describe Jesus, as the 100% God, 100% man, 200% God-man. Am I comparing myself to a deity? No. Absolutely not. (At least, not that I'm willing to admit). In all seriousness, it has nothing to do with the subject of the analogy and everything to do with the principle of the analogy, in that these concepts do not shift from one side to the other; they each occupy all space inside of me. 

I don't have a great resolution to this stream of consciousness (which, you could argue, is certainly not atypical), but I do have this: I can't wait to move forward in life and feel the terror and morbid sense of abandonment that comes from plunging into an unknown. But the only part of this process that bothers me is being judged and evaluated based on these data and that clever phrase and that failed class from community college, when the person who will eventually arrive at their door is a jumbled mass of experiences that can't possibly be summarized in three pages and a few questionares. I get it; that's how life works, and I don't blame any school for using a model of evaluation that is really the only one possible. But it's an odd feeling to know that somewhere, at some point, your next life decisions are being narrowed based on the standards of a room of people you'll almost certainly never meet. It's necessary, but I hope it's not something I have to experience too often. I'd like to think that human beings are complicated and wonderful enough that we ought to seek personal bonding and mutual experience before making ultimatums. 

Idealism starts with an idea. Everything starts with an idea. Idealism is everything.