Passionate Writers, I need your help!

W

Worship

New member
Would you mid taking a look over a paragraph I wrote. It doesn't quite flow all that well in my mind. Any suggestions or criticism would be great. I'm applying for a work internship at an eco-village and the question is why I want to join their community.

Here's a link to their website if you were curious.
Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance

I would love to finally develope a strong sense of spirituality in life. First I ask you to bear through my sob story about my life. I feel like a ******* child that my parents didn't really love or know how to love. Growing up my mother failed to teach me any life skills, instead she spoiled and sheltered me from the world. I have no sense of character or self worth, in other words I'm a pathetic quivering child that doesn't know how to face my fears or cope with reality. Through out my teen years I struggled with social anxiety and depression which lead to my social isolation and smoking marijuana. I was never diagnosed but I am positive that I have aspergers along with my parents. But to them I'm a failure and a loser with no friends or job. I thought the only logical option in life was suicide if I couldn't benefit society and was incredibly depressed. I failed to buy the wrong bullets for my brother's rifle, which I'm glad I did. i then thought the surest and most painless way to go would be with a shot-gun. I spend days researching how to properly kill yourself. I had this idea in my mind that I would buy a shotgun and blow my brains out in the desert some where. The thought of suicide became my only comfort each waking day. There was only fear left, fear that I might be cursed with a worse life after i ended this one. It was this time that I gave up on any further suicide attempt and began researching the metaphysical world. It began my new obsessive interest. It gave rise to the idea that I could heal my DNA and overcome my Aspergers symptoms. I began to the light once more. It was only until recently that I found out about the marvelous idea of an eco-village, the perfect solution to my problems. Sustainability is one of my passions and interests that I haven't devoted enough time into and I feel joining your school would give me a chance to totally emerge myself in a sustainable lifestyle. Also I'm looking for a place to develop new life skills, friendships, and a purpose to life. No more sleeping my life away or giving in to my depression I want to change for the betterment of human kind. So that in my future I can contribute to the movement from urban life back into nature.
 
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ImNotMyIllness

Well-known member
Worship said:
Would you mid taking a look over a paragraph I wrote. It doesn't quite flow all that well in my mind. Any suggestions or criticism would be great. I'm applying for a work internship at an eco-village and the question is why I want to join their community.

Here's a link to their website if you were curious.
Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance

I would love to finally develope a strong sense of spirituality in life. First I ask you to bear through my sob story about my life. I feel like a ******* child that my parents didn't really love or know how to love. Growing up my mother failed to teach me any life skills, instead she spoiled and sheltered me from the world. I have no sense of character or self worth, in other words I'm a pathetic quivering child that doesn't know how to face my fears or cope with reality. Through out my teen years I struggled with social anxiety and depression which lead to my social isolation and smoking marijuana. I was never diagnosed but I am positive that I have aspergers along with my parents. But to them I'm a failure and a loser with no friends or job. I thought the only logical option in life was suicide if I couldn't benefit society and was incredibly depressed. I failed to buy the wrong bullets for my brother's rifle, which I'm glad I did. i then thought the surest and most painless way to go would be with a shot-gun. I spend days researching how to properly kill yourself. I had this idea in my mind that I would buy a shotgun and blow my brains out in the desert some where. The thought of suicide became my only comfort each waking day. There was only fear left, fear that I might be cursed with a worse life after i ended this one. It was this time that I gave up on any further suicide attempt and began researching the metaphysical world. It began my new obsessive interest. It gave rise to the idea that I could heal my DNA and overcome my Aspergers symptoms. I began to the light once more. It was only until recently that I found out about the marvelous idea of an eco-village, the perfect solution to my problems. Sustainability is one of my passions and interests that I haven't devoted enough time into and I feel joining your school would give me a chance to totally emerge myself in a sustainable lifestyle. Also I'm looking for a place to develop new life skills, friendships, and a purpose to life. No more sleeping my life away or giving in to my depression I want to change for the betterment of human kind. So that in my future I can contribute to the movement from urban life back into nature.
Click to expand...

You seem like a very good soul. I think they would be lucky to have you. Try not to become too obsessed with trying to change your symptoms, just focus on having a better self esteem and enjoying life.
:)
 
V

vitalis

Well-known member
Hey, you wrote many weeks ago, but I felt like I wanted to give you my opinion and hope you read it - I'm also sympathetic to permaculture, intentional communities (IC) and such.

The paragraph you wrote was well written in literary terms. But not definitely to apply to an eco-village.

First of all: eco-village and other types of IC living is very demanding, in terms of effort and self-sacrifice. Hence it's mandatory that when you apply to a place like that you expose not what that experience can mean to you, but first to highlight what you can do for that project, i.e., your skills and why you think the project can benefit as a whole from your presence. After that, it's time to write some personal notes, specially to highlight your enthusiasm in a positive way, but indeed not by talking about the things you mentioned.

If I was the guy in charge of an eco-village and was to receive that letter I would be quite scared, and would definitely reply kindly asking you that you took a break in your life, that you could try to get experience and skills with WWOOFing or other local sustainability initiatives you may have nearby, and once you've done so and make sure you want and you can commit to a project like that, just wrote back again showing your skills.

I'm sorry if it sounds too harsh, but I'm talking from personal experience. I committed a similar mistake like six or seven years ago. The letter I sent was not that desperate, but it transpired a similar need to connect to people and a lack of skills and life direction, so I got no response, was blocked and lost that possibility forever.

It took me a few years to finally realize that the path I had to take was not that immediate, and traced a plan in a similar way I've just described above; started taking related courses, meeting local people, joining community gardens... basically, getting interested in these things even if I was feeling depressed and had quite severe social anxiety feeling. So now it's three years after I began learning and developing some skills (my social anxiety level has decreased dramatically and I'm quite of a new person), and now I know if I wanted to enter an eco-village, I could have good chances of doing so. Because I would instead write the motivational letter I've just sketched above.

Hope you have good luck with whatever you decide.
 
Esperance

Esperance

Well-known member
I think that you are focusing too much on your story. They are going to receive many letters of passionate people and well, the problem is that you don't talk about it at all, if I was in charge, I wouldn't take you because I would be afraid that you could give up within weeks because you will realize that's not your things.

You need to talk about what makes you a fan of the nature, what makes you want to go there but deeply, forget about your problems, forget about your story. Just close your eyes and imagine that you are alone in the nature, what are your feelings ? If you're happy, what makes you happy.

Also, you can talk about your story because it's a good way to gain sympathy but it is about peace and tranquility. You should show those qualities, take a look back at your story and write it like if it was a story, like if it was a book. That will help you to talk about it with spirituality, that you can see things with another Point of View.

But good luck for you, hope that you will succed in it, you seems like a nice person and it looks like you did huge progress, hope that will continue^^
 
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