"A few times in my life, I've had moments of clarity - where the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think."

I am very hard pressed to find someone, that I don't know personally, who has inspired me in as large a capacity as Tom Ford has. I could go on and on with the typical accolades - he's a creative genius, excelling in every field he graces with his toes, and is always on the forefront of fashion. Ford doesn't foresee trends; he creates them. You don't want what he's got because he created what you want; you want what he created because when you see what he's got, you discover that you need what you didn't even know before to want. Ford is globally recognized, revered by his peers, and worshiped by millions - myself included.

Tom Ford has influenced my life in ways that I often don't realize until later - sometimes much later. I remember the first time I saw Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent's print ad for their fragrance, Opium. I was about ten-years-old and flipping through one of my mom's copies of American Vogue, not really understanding fashion or really seeing what I was looking at (I pursued art as an all-encompassing entity, I hadn't yet comprehended it in application). My eyes glossed over page after page, flipping just fast enough to catch the gist of the images and never reading a word, until I stopped and stared at the page before me wide-eyed. Right there, sitting in my hands, was a picture of model Sophie Dahl lying down, pale as a sheet, wearing studded stilettos and an extravagant necklace - completely naked.

I remember thinking, "Can people do that?" Can people put naked pictures of girls in magazines? Can this girl really be paid for this? Is this okay? Is this an acceptable thing to be doing?

I'm unsure of the reason for my reaction. Maybe it was my age, but I'm more inclined to believe it was the time. What I think many people fail to realize about the genius of Tom Ford is that his success and his story is not just about aesthetics or his intuitiveness when it comes to style and fashion. Ford revolutionized fashion in this way that cannot be retracted. He pushed the envelope past the point of no return and fortunately received bountiful returns for his insight. Advertising was pushed to a whole new level now. And in typical Tom Ford fashion, Tom Ford doesn't just demand your attention. He captures it, bounds it, pleasures it, and has you screaming for more before you can even say Stockholm syndrome.

Tom Ford made me realize that things are possible beyond what you think are the limits of your imagination. He shows me that when you push as hard as you can, you can still push harder. There is always something new and enticing just lying in the wake to be created. Always created; never discovered. He taught me that when you have nothing, sometimes that's even better than having everything. You stand on the threshold of infinite possibilities, infinite building, and infinite growth.

I hate to think this is true, but it if motivates -

These are our glory days.
We are young, we are alive, and we can make this moment exactly everything we want it to be.
Make of it what you will. Will everything you can.

This is going to be personal and a little overwrought with emotion, but I feel the need to write -

Is it bad if I feel overwhelmed because so many positive things are happening today, but I don't know how to properly feel happy about them?

People have been so complimentary today, incredibly kind and things have been going my way pretty much since I've gotten up this morning. And I feel like I should be over the moon, but I don't know how to be. If I feel, I feel overwhelmed. And if I try to calm myself down, I feel like it's all white noise. It's all blunted and it feels wrong. It feels wrong to not be ecstatic, elated, or at the very least grateful, that my day is going this well.

I wish every day was like this so that I didn't have to feel this obligation to nobody when it is.

Absence of absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I can't decide if it's better to want things or not.

When I want, I am in pain. I never just want, I yearn. Whether it's for a designer scarf with a price tag I cringe to look at, or whether it's the approval of someone I admire, I feel like I have to have it. I have to have it or else my heart feels as though it'll shrink, shrivel so far into my chest that my nails will have to grow to the length of talons so that I can claw it out and slowly nurse it back to health. Or worse yet is when my heart feels like it's leaving my body. When it has its own mind to run away with its desires, resigning my lifeless body to to chase after its missing piece. I can never just want, I always have to need.

And when I don't want, when my heart is benign and I should be content, I am in disarray. I am lost and aimless, sinking deep and floating high. I have no impulses nor desires, no inclinations to choose. I am malleable and weak, but strong in my complacency. The static so powerful it's overwhelming - coming in from all directions at once with no rhyme nor reason. I can't be complacent, I'm only ever lost.

Writing a PSE feels like I'm on a dinner date with my laptop.

Writing a Personal Statement of Experience (PSE) is actually one of the most tedious things I have ever had to do - and this is coming from someone who has written more papers and worked in more groups than I can even remember in the last three years of my undergraduate degree. There's something extremely cumbersome to me about having to talk about my accomplishments. Most people love the opportunity to be able to expand on their duties in an organization or project beyond just the few bullet points that a resume permits, and I can obviously understand the value, but I just never know what to say.

I've accomplished a lot in my four years of undergrad, and I go above and beyond to build myself up to being an ideal candidate. I'm never not busy - I stretch myself in every degree and in every direction I can think of. But when you put it all in words, I can't help but feel that it's all disingenuous. I did all of this for me - not for the good of the school, the community, my transcript or applications. I did these things because I feel the need to fill all the crevices of my life with things that keep me busy, things that make me feel rewarded. And there's just no way to convey that in text.