Facebook Twitter
search
newsletter
Loading... Loading...

world maps
keep going
keep going
have a look

identity sucks

July, 21st 2009 0:44:45 / by Jacob Pritchard

Lorelei Trammell, 16, Berkeley, California


Name: Lorelei Trammell
Hometown: Berkeley, California
Age: 16

 

What´s your goal and why?
Given that I have not lived enough of my life yet to judge what to do with it, I cannot say that I have one goal. In middle school I wanted to spend my life creating a great work of literature or art that would add beauty to the world, when I realized that the genius works created by other people hardly affect me. The people who get the most out of another person’s work are those in the very same field. A day laborer may not be affected by Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs Du Mal, but a literature student would.

The problem is that there are so few literature students. Higher education is terribly expensive, and not even worth the effort. A normal person can see just as much beauty in the world as a student taught to recognize it through their discipline’s jargon. True beauty should not have to be taught. This is a lesson I learned when I became entranced with the beauty present in both Roman Catholicism and Judaism. People with faith find beauty in practically everything. It is an amazing experience to be part of a religion because everybody who follows that religion is connected through it. I am addicted now. In Church, I find no sneering intellectuals who think they see beauty better than I. I find no prejudice against my mixed philosophies. Everybody is loved in the Church as long as they are willing to love in return. I would like to be a part of this love exchange for my entire life.

I am currently attending an ambitious New York City school, where the message constantly running through my mind is that the only way to make an impression on the world is to go down a strictly studious path. If I tell my college advisor of any other aspiration it will be met with a disappointed frown. Consequently, my college search experience has been mainly sour, though that instilled New York ambitious behavior still prompts me to challenge myself. But personally, challenge does not mean kissing every professor’s ass (I put this word in bold so you could replace it with butt if need be) that is paraded in front of me. Frankly, I only want to go to college so I can go to a theological seminary later.

Last year I became inspired to study aviation because planes are a brilliant, beautiful invention, but also for the reason that the challenge of flying an aircraft is so ultimate. A pilot must endure the long hours of in-flight time, excruciating jet lag, and extended periods of concentration out of the cockpit. Through flying, I will develop a better sense of the world and the people in it than any sort of “study abroad” program now at my disposal could offer. There are endless career opportunities open to young pilots, spanning from governmental to corporate. If dog fighting in the Air Force were not about to be replaced by battles between remote-controlled fighter jets, I might even consider joining. Though liberal arts colleges offer slogans promising the vast opportunities available when you “discover yourself” through their program, I would much rather discover myself on my own terms, through a career where the obligation is to stay calm and concentrated in real-world tricky situations, and where the beauty I encounter (in religion) does not have to be decoded.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Respond | Trackback

Comments (3) | RSS feed for comments

  1. Comment by Freigeist on May, 24th 2010 (6:25 am)

    I hope Miss Trammell will continue to spread her free-spiritedness to all who meet her – especially to those part of the conformist multitude. It seems the message she carries is all-too-often smothered by convention. However, her subtle, leitmotif lifestyle is capable of diffusing to the most bourgeois, buttoned-down, straight-laced lackey, making her actions akin to those of a martyr.
    If only she would give herself this much credit.

    Indeed, in my eyes, she is a saint.

    Reply to comment

  2. Comment by Halla on August, 10th 2009 (3:35 pm)

    Lorelei rocks!

    Reply to comment

  3. Comment by abbz on August, 10th 2009 (2:35 am)

    So honest.

    I love Trammell’s commitment to being a genuine person before others, and in addition “be[ing] a good person to myself.”

    Reply to comment

Leave a comment

Profile Jacob Pritchard

I'm a photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. My main work is in portraiture, and my approach is heavily influenced by my background as a documentary photographer.

read more

worldmap

worldmap
have a look

keep going

Ship of the desert (Burka, Afghanistan)

November, 28th 2011