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Ian Carr - 6th Draft College Essay - Open Ended Prompt

   I have taught myself everything from ventriloquism and coin tricks, to graphic design and web site creation. What do these things have to do with one another? I have been fascinated, almost obsessed, with many things in my life, and because of these passions I have grown immensely.
   Last year I simultaneously developed the obsessions of reading the first three sections of the newspaper and researching blindness. My conversations began to be filled with anecdotal news snippets, something that at the time drove my friends crazy, but has left me with strong news reading habits. My free time at night was devoted to reading blogs and fact sheets about life without sight, and I now know more about blindness than I ever thought I would. As different as the two activities may seem, they stem from the same source. Like smudges on fogged glass they appear before the eyes, fingerprints of creativity begging to be expressed.
   Film making is the pinnacle of all this obsession. Together with my life-long friend, we have tackled ideas that alone we could not hope to understand, asking questions and initiating dialogs that we continue to this day. Concerned by the nature of teenage isolation, we completely created a film about a man who alienates himself from his own environment and his son. More recently a years work gave birth to the filming of a story about a father searching for a child he may or may not have had twenty years before - a work in reaction to the uncertain futures we currently face, and the nagging question "where will I be in twenty years"�.
   All my interests add to my films, just as my interests add to me. Jean-Luc Godard once said,  "The cinema is something between art and life ... cinema is truth twenty-four times a second." Like water washing dirt from my hands, film allows me to not only expose, but explore my own truths. I am obsessive, fanatical at times, out of sheer passion for learning, living, and simply being. My experiences, both rich and varied in nature, allow me to slowly grow and improve my craft. More than commentary or exposition, my works are the purest expression I can make.
   Uncertain futures seem to call for self-reflection. Like an editor piecing a film together, my life slowly unrolls in its scenes. A small projector lights up, and fading in from black a song plays. Images flash as the sound track to my life echoes its recurrent theme: Live, be passionate, dive in, be yourself.

 (427 words)