Want to find your best material to start your college essay?

x

Enter your email address, and the guide is yours, free!

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Essay Intensive

  • About EI
  • Services
    • Admissions Essay Support
    • Tutoring & Coaching Plus
    • Applying to High School in NYC and Admissions Writing Help for your Middle School Student
  • Featured Essay
  • What They’re Saying!
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Login

Louis CK

Tell Us the Truth, Obviously

April 29, 2016 by Sara Nolan

Tell Us The Truth What are you really supposed to tell us in your college essay?  About that perfect cup of bitter coffee you made your mom, every morning, so she could have the energy to go to her job at the factory? Certainly not the obvious? Those everyday truths you live by and with?  How you whisper a wish to each spoonful of sugar you put in her second, evening coffee, a wish that her life could get just a tad sweeter, and you can get just a little more sleep? Actually, yes, exactly that. Did you think the obvious was just too obvious? Sometimes the obvious is amazing. But no one puts it into words. "It takes all kinds to make a world," an old, old farmer once told me (yes, I know farmers). This after we watched a woman climb out of a Jaguar convertible at his vegetable stand, and then haggle him down from the 50 cents he was asking for his cucumbers. It's imperfect, she insisted, her perfect red-red lips somehow never coming unpursed. That's what happens when food is organic, he told her gently, shrugging. She offered a quarter. He took it. It takes all kinds to make a world. Duh? The Obvious has resonance. When you (finally) put it into words, everyone feels ownership over that observation. Like it's theirs. The obvious is said in a particular voice (yours) from a particular vantage point (yours). But it carries universal resonance (ours). Another example: My petite 11-month old son is just learning to cruise on this atrocious orange walker we found on our block.  Yesterday, a man large in frame and big in bone passed him, looked down fondly and noted: They are little when they are little!  The baby probably measured halfway up this neighbor's shin, and that's with bed hair, and was about the size of the man's calf. But here the baby is, all 17 pounds of him, steamrolling down the sidewalk, eye to eye with puppy dogs. They are little when they are little. Well, duh? And then there is the comedian's prerogative: Or  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Integrity, State of Mind, Stories, Uncategorized Tagged With: anecdote, college essay, details, Louis CK, obvious, Story, write an anecdote

Crappy Moods, Comedians, and the Writer’s Cure

February 18, 2016 by Sara Nolan

Crappy moods: they happen. (Reader, are you straight-jacket-ed by a particularly crappy mood currently? Cut right to this Louis CK cure. Road-test the comedians' corrective. And come back to read the rest of this later.) Crappy moods are like reverse rainbows, showing up when weather conditions are darkly unfavorable in inner or outer environment or both. At their best, crappy moods facilitate discharge of the nastier emotions. and move on. You know the drill: kick your drawer shut, and break your own toe in the process.  Slam household items around.  Be snappy at those you love. Mope and mull. It's not usually a pretty picture. But Crappy Moods sometimes settle in like shower mildew, and can put a serious cramp in your creativity. Comedians: they help. Your Crappy Mood is an orchard ripe for picking for comedians, who can find the humor in anything-- the less seemingly funny it is, the better. Your irrational or irritable behavior is already slightly ridiculous to anyone who's not you. A comedian laughs not just with you, but at you. And you'll want them to. Because then you'll have to laugh at yourself, and this is the healthiest way to return to creativity, sanity, and general equilibrium. Let Joan Rivers explain Joan Rivers told Larry King, "I purposely go into areas that people are still very sensitive about and smarting about, because if you can laugh at it, you can deal with it. That's how I've lived my whole life. I swear to you - and I'm Jewish - that if I were in Auschwitz, I would have been doing jokes just to make it OK for us." But to deal with it, you have to know that it's there in the first place. Crap Under the Radar Crappy moods happen more frequently and more fiercely when something is bugging us just under the radar of our awareness. Some unaddressed stressor, or maybe a small mountain of them. Some factor out of our control, like whether or not-- emphasis on not-- our writing is universally loved. Or, more to the point  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Practice, Solutions, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom Tagged With: Bad Mood, college essay, Comedian, Crappy Mood, Happiness, Joan Rivers, Laughing at Yourself, Laughter, Louis CK, Positive Health Benefits, Psychology Today, stress, Writing

Primary Sidebar

About Our Conversations

At Essay Intensive, we are listening for the Big Challenging Questions to arise–physically, mentally and emotionally. We jump, word-ninja style, at the chance to be stimulated and engage in a true conversation.

Our bodies are holistic, courageous homes with a singular mission (in a multi-faceted world): live! It’s up to us to realize and share the rich outcomes of that drive. “A conversation” is a place for members of our community to do just that.

Think, feel and write deeply. Question. Sweat. Speak.

Find a topic

Tags

admissions officers advice anecdote anxiety attitude authenticity brainstorming college acceptance college admissions essays college application college essay college essay tips college essay writing Creativity Essay Writing exercise Free-writing freewriting ideas inspiration Letter from Birmingham Jail love Martin Luther King Jr. meditation parents personal essay perspective poetry prompts revision sample essay self-awareness stress stress reduction student stories supplemental essays teachers topic choice topics voice writer's block Writing writing process writing prompts writing tips

Recent Posts

  • When Should I Start My College Essay?
  • (no title)
  • (no title)
  • What do you want to be when you grow up? No-BS Brainstorming
  • Your college essay should be a work of art

Subscribe below to receive new posts in your email

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn