Personal Statement
Twenty years ago when I was tasked with writing a “Personal Statement” to get into college, I didn’t have writer’s block, I had emotional blocks. I skirted around any task that would make me confront my hardship as an abused child with a sick sister of confused and tortured Korean immigrant parents. Growing up, when my sister and I were disciplined by Dad, we’d get hit repeatedly while he would scream, “Dduko-chuh!” Suck it up! It just wasn’t in our culture as Koreans to express our emotions; suppressing them would be our first line of defense from the judgment of outsiders. So we sucked it up and hid as much as we could from others, who probably found us as alien to them as they were to us. And so, when it came time to actually tell a personal story to college admissions boards, I circumvented the task of reflecting on my personal vicissitudes by instead writing a creative piece on the trials of writing the college acceptance essay. I’m likely not the first or last kid to pull that number but somehow it got me to where I needed to be – at NYU on a half scholarship in an elite double-major engineering program. Being an overachiever also helped – I was a computer programmer, the Vice President of my High School, academically advanced and an active community volunteer.
I spent the next 18 years trying to barrel through my emotional blocks like a running back in pursuit of a Heisman Trophy. My M.O. was to suck it up; work pain had nothing on what I had already been through. I had the torment from my abusive father, a tyrant and an addict, anguishing me through every life decision I made independent of him. I had the knowledge and experience of life’s fleeting quality having lost my sister at the age of 17 (she was 20). I had my newfound atheism which I clung to for dear life to help me understand how one person could be the receiver of such an incredible amount of bad luck. After losing my sister, I renounced my Catholicism which was so deeply ingrained in my psyche. From then on, my compass would be guided by probability, statistics and rationality; management controls were needed to conquer the myriad risks associated with coincidence and happenstance. I thought that I could overcome all my emotional baggage by working extraordinarily hard at not having enough time to think about them. I had some mild successes but the harder I worked, the deeper I drove myself into depression.
Workaholism overtook me and I feared for my life. Around every corner, Newton’s 3rd Law came into play: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I could never be satisfied; my career stagnated and I had fallen out of love. Through my immaturity and egoistic enterprise, I created a world of base artificiality and mindless consumption in the spirit of corporate expansion and underground dance music culture. For 18 years it was work hard, play hard. I felt cancer coming on. Anything that I clutched and consumed was never enough. Not millions, not a beautifully slutty wife, not the privilege of living a luxury lifestyle in Manhattan, not owning and operating my own Internet startups, not even rationality could save me anymore. I was an accomplished Internet entrepreneur, Web Developer and Corporate IT Audit Manager but still my life was unraveling faster than I could chase a dragon.
There’s something peculiar about the zeitgeist of our day that awakened the spirit inside me – the same spirit that I denied for so many years – something that was telling me that everything I had been doing up until that point was dead wrong. I was brimming with arrogance and disdain. I was outraged at our rigged political system, our fake healthcare system, our enslaving monetary system; everyday I had a new government agency to blame for the gross misuse and misappropriation of my tax money. I’d find myself in a hopeless daze walking the city streets. My emotions poured out of me like a backed up toilet; no one wanted to come close for fear of getting caught up. I lost my grip on what was real and finally at the age of 34, I had one emotional breakdown after another. By the time Hurricane Sandy came around, I took stock of myself: I was a beaten-down, spiritless, faithless atheist.
In an attempt to save myself from a life of regret and human waste, I relinquished all my worldly possessions and all control. I packed a 40-pound suitcase and left my wife with everything. There could not be any excuse to turn back – not my prescriptions, not even a single piece of furniture. There would be no safety net as I would surrender to the higher forces of nature. It was a harrowing, ego-shattering, and yet, intensely spiritual experience. I left behind all my crutches and dependencies the day electricity was returned to our building post-Sandy. I left after spending a full week alone with my cheating wife in darkness (and hot-waterless) in our otherwise posh East Village apartment. I left, her, for the third and final time that year on the grounds of irreparable broken trust and suspicions of infidelity. I finally had faith in my gut and the insistence from my cats telling me to leave. So, with little more than the clothes on my back, I fled to my family in Las Vegas, then to family in Los Angeles, then to Burning Man and finally back home to Queens, where I was brought up. I was the prodigal son who had returned to my aging parents, made weak by time and fate, but still strong in will.
Now it is my will, guided by higher forces that I have yet to know how to explain, that has evolved into something far greater than me. My will brought me to sacrifice materiality for the chance to get one step closer to a spiritual inner world where I could finally embrace my shadow. My will healed me through a faithful commitment to proper nutrition. My will guided me to the revelation of altruistic enterprise as I selflessly and proactively share my knowledge of web programming and technology with others less fortunate. And as I tap into the higher forces of my will, I am able to sow my emotions rather than suppress, circumvent or ignore them. My emotions are now my high-octane fuel, my boon, as an actor.
So now as I contemplate how I should conclude the next iteration of my “Personal Statement”, I can truly say that I am grateful for the emotional blocks which led me down a winding, wayward path and helped me to rediscover and reinstill my spirituality with seemingly methodical precision. I have an overwhelming desire to express how the divinity of this mysteriously gracious universe has granted me the gift of self-expression. I have realized the artist in my DNA and I am wholly steadfast in my commitment to the craft of Acting. In my newfound endeavor, I seek only peace and friendship, to act if I am called upon, to be taught if I am fortunate. I know that I am but a single organism in a vastly intelligent and interconnected network and it is with humility and hope that I ask for your acceptance into your acting program.