The Cordell Beacon is pleased to share with you, our readers, the scholarship application essay winner that embodied the essay question wholeheartedly. Nathan Jackson is a Cordell High School 2023 Graduate and this year's Beacon Scholarship winner. Congratulations and good luck on your next endeavor.
One of the essay questions read as follows: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, please share your story.
Everyone has a passion that fills a large part of their life. It feels essential to them, to be placed right under food and water in the pyramid of human needs. For me, this passion is skateboarding. I am undeniably obsessed with it. It is something that I cannot go without. It provides many outlets to relieve stress and express myself. From the toughest of mental battles for a trick to the most peaceful of cruises, I enjoy every minute of skateboarding.
Personally, there is a certain sense of accomplishment to landing a trick after having tried it for hours on end that is difficult for other activities to live up to. Similarly to other physical forms of art, skateboarding takes an incredible amount of patience and resilience both physically and mentally. The literal blood, sweat, and tears that go into it are proof of this. Having the ability to skate at one's desired level is a physical trophy of the work one has put into it.
I crave the feeling of control that skateboarding gives me. I often find that social situations feel out of my reach. Without having a plan beforehand, I sometimes struggle to find any words that I feel contribute to the current situation. Skateboarding gives me an outlet to feel like I can finally be in control of what I am doing. This is because the largest concept behind skateboarding is that there are no set rules. I can decide for myself what tricks I would like to do and where I would like to do them. Skateboarding is a completely subjective form of art in the same way something like dance is.
The skateboarding community laid its foundation in counterculture. As much as our society can try to have standards for how this activity should function, there will always be a pioneer of a new style showing the community that even more is possible with this simple object: the skateboard. This rolling paintbrush brings creativity and color to the once blank canvas that we call the streets. Most sports require a specific court or field that must be built solely for the use of that single sport, but skateboarding asks the question: 'What can we do with what is already in front of us?'.
Creativity like what is displayed in skateboarding gives rise to a general feeling of acceptance. Although there are very strong and negative stereotypes about the skateboarding community, I have not found them to be true in the slightest. I believe skateboarders are very misunderstood people. The activity itself is very intense, but the people behind it are the same as any other person: human. Skateboarders have been some of the biggest supporters in my life, and I am proud to call myself one as well.
Skateboarding is my passion. Others might not view it exactly as I do, but this is what it is to me. After all, that is what is most important. Skateboarding provides me with the feeling of self-fulfillment that I need to keep going, helps me feel in control of my environment, gives me an outlet to express my creativity, shows me that it is more than okay to be different, and consistently introduces me to wonderful people. I have nothing but thanks for the ones that founded the skateboarding community and the ones that have enabled me to be able to experience it today.