First College Essay: Meditations to the Letter V.

        I always wondered what Coldplay’s famous song “Viva la Vida” actually talked about; especially since I never actually heard the words “viva la vida” throughout the song. Growing up, my lack of English vocabulary prevented me from understanding all of the words while listening to them, so I always felt obliged to search for the lyrics in order to understand what the band was talking about. However, plain laziness continuously led me to avoid searching the lyrics and instead getting used to singing and dancing to my own made-up verses.

As a result, today was the day when I finally defeated procrastination and looked up the lyrics; gaining a pleasant surprise from the first paragraph: “I used to rule the world / Seas would rise when I gave the word / Now in the morning I sleep alone / Sweep the streets I used to own” (Coldplay). I realized then how ironic those four verses are but how accurately they describe life. The band uses the example of a king who “used to rule the world” and is now poor and alone, as a metaphor of how individuals can go from being happy, wealthy, and feeling satisfied with their lives, to being unhappy and in a bad situation. This contrast between the vibrant and the vulnerable life of the king continues throughout the entire song, demonstrating that the negative moments in life cannot be avoided.

Moving on, I proceeded to look up the meaning of the word viva in order to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the title and the lyrics. Though it does not belong to the English language, we have heard the expression “Viva!” many times in our lives and have associated it with the expression “long live!”. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as “a cry of ‘long live’ as a salute or greeting”, and describes it as a conjugation of the Latin verb vīvĕre; meaning “to live”. With that in mind, I discovered the irony between the title and the song; the lyrics tell a story of vulnerability and defeat while the title celebrates life.

Moreover, learning that the word viva is defined as a cheer that celebrates life led me to think about how well the letter V, which is also associated with words such as vital, vivacious, and vivid, represents life. To begin with, the letter is as short in size as life is in length, and it possesses a vibrant buzz that, just as those wonderful moments in one’s life, never goes unnoticed. It may also be confused sometimes with a U or a W when it is read or even a B when it is said aloud, yet it still preserves its distinctive shape and sound.  Specifically, its descent and ascent, which gives the letter its characteristic waffle cone shape, is also what makes the letter an accurate representation of the importance that positive and negative situations have in life. In other words, just as a V cannot be a V without having an acute angle that resembles a downhill, life would not be the same without moments of vulnerability and violence.

For instance, the renowned author Yann Martel expresses in his novel The Life of Pi that there are in life moments of pain—or a madness, as he chooses to call them—that “can be saving; it is a part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species could survive” (Martel, 39). With these words, Martel explains that those moments of physical and/or mental vulnerability are vital; that even though they are considered negative parts of an individual’s life, they are needed in order to balance and thrive.

Similarly, violence shapes a person’s life by making them weak before making them stronger. For example, Anne Frank’s The Diary of Anne Frank demonstrates how being surrounded by so much violence and pain, both inside and outside the annex, cause Anne to become more volatile and less vivacious. As she learns to deal with her situation, she slowly regains her own values and feels empowered enough to help others through words such as: “I've found that there is always some beauty left –in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you” (Frank, 542). Frank then continues to inspire readers to find their path towards V’s ascent by recovering their own values in times of violence.

Another woman working towards helping individuals facing violence is Dr. Gertrude Mutharika, the First Lady of Malawi. Mutharika teaches young African girls how to recover from violence and demonstrates to them that although they have reached V’s sharp end, they can and will be “well taken care of and protected from gender based violence,” as is explained by the article "First Lady Commends Fpam for Helping Young Girls”.  So far, the movement has also involved parents and volunteers that together train more than 50 young girls about their worth and potential, thus guiding them towards overcoming life’s negative situation and regaining their vigor and vivaciousness.

Indeed, those moments of vulnerability are still dreaded, those of violence are still feared, and those of vibrancy are still wished upon. Just as there are “shattered windows and the sound of drums” (Coldplay) that cause crescendos and decrescendos, and a characteristic downhill in the vivid letter V; there are still individuals, including myself, struggling to overcome their hardest moments and regain their hope. Yet, I know that either positive or negative, those moments are as vital and unavoidable as listening to “Viva la Vida” at least once in our lives and assuming that at some point, the ironic song will actually say “viva la vida”.

Works Cited

Coldplay. “Viva la Vida.” Viva la Vida Or Death and All His Friends. Atlantic Records, 2008, http://coldplay.com/release/viva-la-vida/

"viva, n.1 and int." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web. 10 September 2016.

Martel, Yann. The Life of Pi. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003.

Frank, Anne. The Diary of Anne Frank: Revised Critical Edition. Edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold Van der Stroom, Doubleday, 2003.

"First Lady Commends Fpam for Helping Young Girls." Africa News Service 14 Mar. 2016. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 10 Sept. 2016

First College Essay: Meditations to a Letter.

Side note: This essay's challenge wasn't just that it was our first college essay, but that we were expected to "meditate" about life--discuss its irony and meaning--by associating it with a letter of our choice. We were asked to "illustrate" the letter using literary works, real-life allusions, anecdotes, and/or current events, which explains why this essay is as random as my mind and why I chose to include the works cited here.