Pardon My Naïveté Jan 13 '03    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Irene Hunt - The Lottery Rose: A Novel From $6 John Steinbeck - East Of Eden From $7 The Bottom Line Though I would rather you discern for yourself the significance of this essay, I will admit that its purpose is to enliven the individual to the benefit of society. For as long as I can remember I have possessed what I had once believed to be a totally mysterious motivation; I knew naught of its purpose, and I knew less of its value to me. I recently stumbled upon the realization that this motivation—which I tried many times to name—is useless to me in the present, and was useless to me in the past, but may be invaluable to me in the future. It is the sort of motivation that cannot have a name, because it does not motivate any one or a small few or a great many of my aspirations. It is the motivation that I can only describe as the desire to celebrate life by giving back to that which gave me myself. A curious coincidence it may seem that this past year I have been swept away by a pleasant flood of American literature, exposed to the brilliance of transcendentalist thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. Perhaps it is coincidence that my mind was suddenly electrified at the start of this past year, pulsating with newfound self-awareness, unveiling to me the void in my head, the void filled with my transparent naiveté, that I must slowly and laboriously attempt to liberate from ignorance with spades and pickaxes. Or perhaps it is not coincidence. Perhaps it is because such greats as those with whom I have so recently become familiar have so encouraged me to the notion of personal betterment that I am driven constantly toward any reflecting object I can lay my eyes on for another glimpse at my own soul. And as I stare at my reflection, I often ask myself questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I want to be, and why will “there” be better than “here”? What do I know, and what do I not know? And it was during one such period of my reflection that I happened to encounter my naiveté. One may think of my reflection as a casual walk across the hilly and spontaneously cultivated patches of my mind. It seems that I had, in my spacey way, walked over the hole in my brain without noticing until I was already halfway across. Looking down at my feet, I was, of course, quite taken aback by the sudden thought that I must have been walking on thin air. I was no more comforted to come to the understanding that it was not thin air, but rather my own ignorance, to which I was previously totally blind. It then occurred to me that the only remedy for this horrendous sight would be to remove the ignorance and to replace it with something more handsome. I found a solution: I would make suitable the soil of my mind, plant what I could of its vastness with the seeds of knowledge, harvest that sacred crop, and attempt to cover up the void of ignorance with the fruits of my labor. I know that I can never succeed—everyone knows this—but not to attempt such an endeavor, simply because I will be doomed to failure, does not mean that I will not reap some profit. For who can give up living, simply because we will die? I wish to petition humanity. Let us all become addicted to knowledge. Let us each discover our own niche in the aid of human progress, and let our search for experience be perpetual. We must not search for that so-called “place in society,” into which we must squirm to fit. Nor can society have such ranking for individuals. Let us be thankful that our predecessors have done away with such evils as class distinctions and gender-specific spheres of activity. Let us be thankful, but let us also embody the trait of generosity in the most profound manner as we now give back to humanity, as we selflessly strive to further the good of the whole. And in so doing, we must never forget our duties to the individual: for as we dedicate our efforts to the advancements of society, so too must each of our brethren in the human clan; and in helping one, we may help us all.

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