Today is a good day.

I was typing up my essay, finishing my Georgia Tech app, when I realized that the September ACT scores are released today. So, I opened up a new tab, logged into my ACT account: lo and behold, I got a 35 composite on the ACT. I'm pretty sure I'm still asleep. Last time I took it, I misbubbled and got a 35 on Math, a 34 on English, a 23 on Reading, and a 31 on Science, with a 31 English/Writing composite. This time, I got a 35 on Math, a 34 on English, a 34 on Reading,and a 35 on science.

Sorry for gloating... I'm kinda pleased right now.

Anyway, here is my second college essay. Once again, if you plagiarize this, I'll probably eat you.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

Cliff Mabry set me on the path to enlightenment. He was my semi-Buddhist freshman Humanities teacher with an extreme case of ADHD, who spoke with incredibly slurred speech patterns and had arguably the most cryptic handwriting in existence. He “forgot” to censor the nudity in Romeo and Juliet, explained to us that green M&Ms are aphrodisiacs, and advised us to try snuff. I matured substantially that year. In spite of the questionable example that he set, Mr. Mabry taught our class so much—he taught us to live life to the fullest, and breathe in every small detail that life has to offer. That lesson, the lesson of passion, has remained with me longer than any property of Calculus or law of Physics. Most people don’t get it, though. Saints and poets maybe… they do some.

His class opened my eyes in so many ways—An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge reiterated how transient life is, and how little people appreciate it. Mr. Mabry showed us the brief film as a method of supporting the philosophy of his mantra, The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Willams. And no piece could reinforce it better. When the ticking of the watch became loud and ominous, when each individual blade of grass became visible, life became infinitely more transient. The idea that people only consider how precious life is when they no longer have it struck a chord with me. What good is life if you only appreciate it when it’s gone?

Personally, the fact that so few people pay attention to the beauty of life arouses as much emotion within me as life itself. Take, for example, stars. So many people see stars as pretty flecks of light, but so few stop and admire the beauty of the infinite universe. That kills me. Part of the issue may lie in technology: man has made everything that anyone could possibly want to know or see readily available at the touch of a button. Thus, people are hardly ever forced to look away from their cell phones and computer monitors to see true beauty. Technology also increases the pace of life: people adopt more jobs as technology progresses, gradually morphing into workaholic busybodies. They have to do something, they have to go somewhere, they simply don’t have time to look at how beautiful the moon is or how strange that bird is. But eventually, they’ll regret it. According to Erik Erikson’s eight stages of life, people spend the majority of their life preparing for the productive phase of their life, middle adulthood. Afterward, people are either proud of their experiences or regret them—at this point, most people wonder “if the trip was worth it” and realize that ultimately, the pursuit of success is of little importance, as practically everybody that lives to the stage of late adulthood ends up in a wheelchair, contemplating their life and playing bingo.

Of course, my opinion on the subject is probably biased—I was dragged into late adulthood as a freshman in high school by my crazy English teacher. Don’t get me wrong, the pursuit of success is as much a part of life as regret is; however, in the end, the time spent “smelling the roses” along the way matters more than the time spent accumulating meaningless monetary wealth. After all, so much depends upon a red wheel barrow.