Reading literature in your class over the few years of high school was one of the most influential periods in my life. This was the first time in my life someone challenged me in seeing the world in a more expansive view. I sort of imagine it to be like the feeling Jean-Pierre Seurat might’ve had when taking his first step back to view the completed “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte” painting after working on it for two years.

Between mythologies and short stories of the evolving periods of literature, I learned how others in time viewed the world they lived in and saw the person within them. Thus, I began to gravitate towards these ideals and perspectives I never heard of before but wanted to become more aligned with in thinking.

There are three defining moments of this educational period that has highly contributed to my life today so I thank you for the following specifics:

Mythology class opened me up to the world inside my mind — the world of consciousness. I read the stories of many men battling through grandiose tales of defeat then glory, but when exposed to the core, I learned the universal tale of every man on a journey to ultimately find himself, and so I myself started this journey as well. I began to question who I am, how I saw the world, and what my purpose was here in this short time on earth. Transcendentalism sparked the start of the ever-evolving spiritual journey of my life. I gravitated towards the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, which seemed to vibrate close to the same frequency as the philosophy of my soul that had been waiting to be unearthed for sixteen years. My outlook on the individual and life has grown largely from the sixteen year old’s first exposure to spirituality; however, because of the clear impact it’s had on my viewpoint, transcendental ideals will always resonate with me. The analysis of poems, stories, books, and even movies developed this wonderful skill of writing I never knew I had. I didn’t have much praise or positive reinforcement at home so I often lacked self-worth and largely depended on self-recognition to build myself up. I was often hard on myself and felt like nothing I did was ever good enough so self-recognition wasn’t easy to attain as well. This truth did not lend itself to ever include writing. Writing always gave me the confidence I needed as a growing adolescent that I was an intelligent being and that I had a future beyond the days of parentless struggles. Now I exist in this future time I had once thought of, using my writing to thank the people who shaped and created the vocabulary of words I write with.

Especially because of the lack of parental influence I had in becoming open to the world, I am so grateful for the universal life lessons I learned in class that helped me become who I am today.

Thank you.

Mr. Smith was my 9th & 11th grade English teacher. He taught 9th grade English and 11th grade Mythology class. We remained in touch after high school, and he and his wife attended my wedding in 2015.