“PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT”
     by Jason Wilder Konschak
     
     It has been said that, life, to those who think, is a comedy, and to those 
who feel, a tragedy. I agree with that remark, except where it implies that I must 
choose exclusively to think or to feel; that I must do one and sacrifice the other. 
Because, it is a statement of my person to say that I will always try to do, and to 
be, both equally. My character is best seen in my art, and I feel that my most 
successful works support my efforts to be both thinker and feeler. 
     Looking to the world and its heartaches, and seeing hurtful defects, we that 
choose to feel know that mortality is tragedy. We are the romantics, the idealists, 
who are cursed by the world’s failure to meet our expectations. When I write from my 
emotions, it is from a need to create something deeply effective and complex, as 
emotions tend to be. From this comes my fantasy realm known as Outspace. 
     Outspace is similar by scope and intent to Tolkien’s Middle-earth, and by 
subject matter to not quite anything that has come before. It is an in-depth, ongoing 
mythology meant for modern America, raised with a body of history and legend, an 
attire of science-fiction to favor the American taste for technology, and a soul of 
myth, magic, and religion. It is faith, fate, and soul—the intricate stories of 
history, the heights and depths to which civilizations and individuals can move, and 
the wonders of humankind’s shared archetypes, nightmares, and dreams. 
     The Outspace universe lives in literally thousands of pages of text and 
artwork Yet, I have completed only a single Outspace novel—due to the experience I’ve 
won while working on it, which forces me to revise it endlessly. In-depth plans, 
notes, and outlines for an epic trilogy—and many hundreds of pages of rough draft—
have been completed, as well as similar progress on several other novels. Also based 
in Outspace is a role-playing game of my own design, whose guidebook has had five 
editions. The dozen or more member club that plays the game is constantly growing. The 
players are as interested in the expanding Outspace legend as in the developing game. 
Their greatest curiosity in the newest edition of the guidebook—which they have paid 
fifty-five dollars for—was in the updates in the universe and timeline. I am happy 
that they are captivated by the Outspace history. And after all, all histories are 
tragic: we don’t know whether or not all the suffering comes to a happy ending.
     Emotional expression of this kind is also involved in my poetry. Though I am 
not prolific, my work was published in last year’s school literary magazine. This 
year, I am Editor-in-Chief, and have taken hold of the magazine, moving it in ways 
it’s never moved before. Causing quite a pleasing uproar at the school, we’ve renamed 
it Nostrum Plumb: Unfinished Works, changed the content and standards, and made an 
elaborate drive for quality submissions that is entirely unprecedented. However, the 
most revolutionary change in Nostrum Plumb is not in the realm of feeling (all high-
school magazines are full of lugubrious love poems) but in the realm of thought. 
Striking fear into the hearts of the administration, we’ve introduced comedy.
     Identifying the world’s problems objectively, and detaching my personal 
emotional concerns when examining human behavior, I find myself laughing. Comedy is 
the result of a realist observing reality: for reality is strange, confused, 
imperfect, pointless, and in the main hopeless. That is to say, it’s funny. When we 
accept that we cannot single-handedly change life, we can at least laugh at it.
     Comedy in publication is a familiar niche to me. Starting in 8th grade, my 
underground magazine, Exzoobrent, has specialized in wit and satire that identifies 
the weirdness and failings of society and humankind. My short stories—in the 
magazine’s style—were also published in last year’s school literary magazine, and won 
me the positions of Senior Short Story Laureate and Editor-in-Chief.  But these small 
works would be a poor demonstration of my thoughts and subsequent laughs, if not for 
the result they have caused.
     Exzoobrent magazine spurred the Exzoobrent Theatre, a group—which I began—
of highly talented and unique peers who defy conventional definitions. We, together, 
as a unified, organized operation, work to meet our shared goals in dramatic writing, 
performance, production, music, and any other creative pursuit a member shows interest 
in. Through comedy—comedy with real thought behind it—we plan for nothing less than 
to fix the world a bit. Together, we have continued the publication of the magazine, 
expanded the web-site, and created our own television show—which also defies 
conventional definitions—on local cable. “Exzoobrent FREE tv” airs twice a month. 
To produce it, we find the sponsors, make the commercials, write the scripts, make the 
costumes, film, edit, compose music, act, and advertise in an “Exzoobrent FREE tv 
guide,” which is a companion to the show as well as a small literary digest. Today, 
we film to scenes for our hour-long Christmas special, but in a week, we’ll be typing 
up the screenplay for the next half-hour episode.
     The Exzoobrent-Outspace constitution—the contract to which a select few of 
five, who have thrived in both groups, have dedicated their futures—is an ideal that 
we realists live by: to help one another, to succeed together, and to save the world 
through laughter. Because, after we laugh, we can think about the truth behind it, and 
we can change the world. Just as, when we feel the emotional impact, we can see the 
eternal truth inside it, and we can change ourselves. The Exzoobrent-Outspace 
constitution sets down the same ideals and realities that make up who I am: the power 
of balance: the power of knowing the world as it is. It is both a tragedy and a 
comedy.
     In the end, it is my personal goal to be idealist and realist, thinker and 
feeler. For, in the end, idealists go down in flames in the real world, and realists 
go down in flames in their hearts. But, by being neither the more, nor the less, I 
will resist being consumed by the fire, and instead will be propelled by the touch of 
those flames on my heels. The Exzoobrent-Outspace dreamlike, visionary ideals—to 
change the world—will become concrete reality. 
     I will see to it, by calling both sides of the coin.