Jashan T Personal Essay 2

    What is the purpose of mail? As a child, mail held little value to me personally, as I knew that I could never sit down and get through whatever "dumb" paper came from the mailbox. These sentiments still hold, unfortunately. I would be asked to bring it sometimes, though, so that's all when I thought about it. When he asked me to tell him what the mail was about, I would clumsily tear open the envelope and read, "Blah blah blah, ok, can I throw it away now?" Mail was fascinating to me. 

    One day, my dad asked me to fetch the mail again. I rolled over to the mailbox on my scooter, already half-asleep opening it, expecting more "adult boring stuff". Instead, I was met by a brightly colored magazine with my favorite toy all over it: LEGOs. "Woahhhh," I said. I examined it closer. "LEGO Club" ran across the top of the cover. I immediately sprinted to my dad, who was a few feet away. Being highly athletic, I had to catch my breath for 10 seconds before I sputtered, "What is this?!" He looked at the magazine and told me that he had signed me up for this since he knew that I liked LEGOs and it was free, anyway. I don't know why I even asked because I barely listened to the response before darting inside and sitting down to crack open the magazine. 

    I was captured in a trance as I flipped through LEGO puzzles, comics, and displays of new playsets. The latter sucked up most of my attention. The anticipation before discovering a new set every page filled me with intangible glee. 

    I tore through the entire 60 or so pages in an hour, not missing a single word or picture. I put the magazine down and picked it back up again. I revisited the sets once more, twice more, three times. Simultaneously, I started asking myself what those sets would look like propped in my room. I closed the magazine and shook those thoughts off. 

    Every few months, a new issue would arrive in my mailbox. It would be like a surprise Christmas when it happened. Every time, I would read and reread the entire magazine in one sitting. And every time, my sense of greed raised slightly. 

    Eventually, I decided I had had enough. The LEGO sets I owned simply weren't enough, and I marched to my parents to demand a Star Wars-themed spaceship on one of the pages. They said no, as I had already gotten a set a few months back. Expertly handling the situation, I responded by throwing a fit and dropping to my knees and begging. They said no again, and they told me to stop acting like a baby. 

    I walked away fuming. My parents were completely unfair: they should at least get me LEGOs if they could get jewellery or suits or whatever. Going into my room, all of the sets I had collected over the past few years seemed useless. I'd seen something new, so I presumed that new would be better. As the years drew on, we kept the subscription, but I grew increasingly uninterested in LEGOs. Although I got over wanting every new set in the magazines, my love for LEGOs had been tainted in a way that I could not repair until I lost interest in them completely. 

    What is the purpose of mail? In most cases, it's to connect the recipient to the outside world. That's useful for some things. What is the cost of knowing everything about a subject? If I had never gotten the LEGO magazine, I could have enjoyed my time with the LEGOs I owned instead of wishing for newer ones. There is a hefty price on knowledge: blissful ignorance. Sometimes, being uninfluenced by the world can focus your attention on what's most important: your own life.