每年，在申请季结束后，南森都会搜集一些优质文书进行分享。今年我们又选取了一些被顶级名校录取的文书，供大家参考学习。
我们可以在这些文书中，感受到学生们对于生活的敏感，深刻的洞察力和有意思的古怪想法。
哈佛大学近日公布了2023年度10篇成功申请哈佛大学的文书并给出了点评。本次入选文书主题多样，文章风格各异，为各大准留学生提供了一个很好的参考。
今天我们来点评分享其中的第三篇！希望大家可以通过这篇文书的评析，领悟一些文书写作的技巧！
文书鉴赏
文书名称
Simar B.
《Simar B.》
June 2nd, 2019. The birth of the new me, or "Simar 2.0" as mom called me. However, I still felt like "Simar 1.0," perceiving nothing more than the odd new sensation of a liberating breeze fluttering through my hair.
2019年6月2日。新的我诞生了。妈妈叫我“Simar 2.0”，但是我仍然觉得自己是“Simar 1.0”。除了微风拂过我的头发带来的奇异感觉之外，并没有什么其它感受。
At age seventeen, I got a haircut for the first time in my life.
17岁那年，我平生第一次理发。
As a Sikh, I inherited a tradition of unshorn, cloth-bound hair, and, for most of my life, I followed my community in wholeheartedly embracing our religion. Over time, however, I felt my hair weighing me down, both materially and metaphorically.
作为锡克教徒，我继承了不剃发、用布束发的传统。在我生命中的大部分时间里，我都跟随我的社区全心全意地信奉着我们的宗教。然而，随着时间的推移，我感到我的头发在物质上和隐喻上都给我带来了沉重的负担。
Sikhism teaches that God is one. I asked mom why then was God cleaved into different religions? If all paths were equal, I asked dad, then why not follow some other religion instead? My unease consistently dismissed by our Sikh community, I decided to follow the religion of God: no religion. My hair, though, remained; if I knew my heart, then cutting my hair served no purpose.
锡克教教导我们说，神是一个整体。我问妈妈，那为什么上帝会被分成不同的宗教？我问爸爸，如果所有的道路都是平等的，那为什么不信仰其他宗教呢？我的这些不安一直被锡克教的社区所忽视，于是我决定信奉上帝的宗教：无宗教。不过，我的头发还是留了下来；如果我了解自己的内心，那么剪掉头发就没有任何意义了。
Nevertheless, that unshorn hair represented an unequivocal beacon for a now defunct identity. I visited my calculus teacher's office hours, only to be peppered by incessant questions about Sikhism. He pigeonholed me into being a spokesperson for something I no longer associated with. Flustered, I excused myself to the bathroom, examining this other me in the mirror.
尽管如此，那头未剪的头发仍像一座灯塔一样，代表着一个已不复存在的身份。有一次，在老师办公时间里去拜访我的微积分老师的时候，被他不停地询问关于锡克教的问题。他把我当成了某种我已不再认同的事物的代表。心慌意乱的我借口去洗手间，对着镜子审视着另一个自己。
Why this hair? This question kept coming back.
为什么是这头发？这个问题不断浮现。
I ransacked my conscience, and it became painfully obvious. Fear. Fear of what my conservative grandparents might think. Fear of what my Sikh family friends might say. Fear of what my peers might ask. This hair had usurped my sense of self.
我扪心自问，我是怎么看待我的头发的。结果我痛苦地发现，我很惧怕别人的视线和目光。我害怕、恐惧。我会在意我保守的祖父母会怎么想，害怕锡克教家人朋友会闲言碎语，害怕我的同龄人会询问我。这头发，它篡夺了我的自我意识。
So off it came.
于是，我把头发剪掉了。
A few days after crossing my personal Rubicon, I flew to India to meet my grandparents.
在跨过我个人的卢比肯河几天后，我飞往印度去见了我的祖父母。
Breezing through the airport, I perceived something remarkably different about my experience: the absence of the penetrating surveillance that had consistently accompanied me for seventeen years. It was uncanny; I felt as an anodyne presence.
穿过机场时，我发现自己的经历有了明显的不同：我感觉那伴随了我十七年来的无孔不入的监视突然消失了。这非常地不可思议。我感觉和自己达成了一种“和解”。
Apprehensively entering my grandparents' New Delhi home some eighteen hours later, I found myself enveloped in hugs. Savoring the moment, I failed to probe why. I recognize now that, in spite of their intransigent religious views, they appreciated that I had made a decision about my identity based on belief, based on being true to my evolving sense of self. I think my grandparents found that admirable.
大约18个小时后，我忐忑不安地走进了祖父母在新德里的家，一进门发现自己被拥抱着。我享受着这一刻，但没有探究原因。我现在认识到，尽管他们的宗教观点顽固不化，但他们赞赏我基于信仰、基于忠于不断发展的自我意识而对自己的身份做出的决定。我想我的祖父母觉得这一点很值得钦佩。
A few weeks later, dad confessed, "I regret that you did not cut your hair earlier."
几周后，爸爸坦言："我很遗憾你没有早点剪头发"。
I have no regrets.
我不后悔。
My hair made me work harder than everyone else simply because I looked different. Sanctimonious people lecture us on having pride in our differences, rarely considering the difficulties which being different entails. For example, a fake Facebook page created by an unknown schoolmate with my birthday listed as September 11th, 2001. Dealing with attacks fueled by ignorance never becomes easier, but such aggressions bolster my courage to face what other people think. In standing up for myself, I become myself.
因为我头发的与众不同，让我比别人更努力地去证明自己。道貌岸然的人教导我们要为我们的差异感到自豪，却很少考虑这些差异所带来的困难。例如，一个由不知名的同学创建的虚假 Facebook 页面，我的生日列为2001年9月11日。处理因无知而引发的攻击从未变得如此容易，但这种攻击增强了我面对他人想法的勇气。在为自己挺身而出的过程中，我成为了我自己。
On some level, I know appearances should not matter. Yet, in many uncomfortable ways, they still do, and they give birth to many disparities. Through the simple act of cutting my hair, I left the confines of intolerance, but my experience opened my eyes to those whose struggles cannot be resolved so easily. This motivates me to never be a bystander, to always energetically take the side of the persecuted in the fight against the powerful.
在某种程度上，我知道外表并不重要。然而，在许多让人不舒服的方面，外表仍然很重要，而且还造成了许多差异。通过剪头发这个简单的举动，我摆脱了不宽容的束缚，但我的经历让我看到了那些无法轻易解决困境的人。这促使我决不做旁观者，在与强权的斗争中，始终充满活力地站在受迫害者一边。
Over my years of shadowing, I have seen a healthcare system where patients receive inferior care solely on the basis of perceived race. Exposure to this institutionalized injustice motivates me to volunteer with a free health clinic to provide glucose screenings to the underprivileged. We must lead with personal initiative first, starting on the individual level and building from there. Only then can we bring about systemic change to reform the institutions and practices that perpetuate prejudice within medicine and without.
在我多年的跟踪工作中，我看到了一个医疗保健系统，患者仅仅因为种族而接受较差的护理。这种制度化的不公正促使我成为一家免费医疗诊所的志愿者，为弱势群体提供血糖筛查。我们必须首先发挥个人的主观能动性，从个人层面开始，并以此为基础。只有这样，我们才能带来系统性变革，改革那些在医学内外延续偏见的机构和做法。
文书评析
顾问点评：
以小见大的典范 巧用留白引深思
这是一篇以小见大的文书。剪头发这件事本身（即使是留了17年的头发）能写的并不多，重要的是这件事背后的纠结和思考，以及由此展现出的作者的思想。
因为锡克教续发的习俗，作者遭受了很多异样的眼光，也引发了ta对于自己身份和宗教的思考，在这个过程中一步步探索自己是谁，想要什么。这一系列的思考也是向内挖掘自我的过程。
另外值得学习的一点是，作者虽然最后因为剪短头发和自己以及身边的世界取得了“和解”，但是ta并没有停留于此，而是进一步想到其他不被理解、被偏见区别对待的少数群体，未来希望为他们发声。
结尾并不是happy ending，更多的是暴露一个严肃的问题，然后再反思如何做才能改善这一问题。
这点我们也可以参考：很多同学文书结尾都想要突出自己的“成就”，比如终于获得了认可、作出了改变等等。但是一个中学生能做的毕竟是有限的，与其一味给自己“歌功颂德”，不如也想一想有什么现在你改变不了的，但是会一直思考如何解决的问题。
话不要说得太满了，有时候退一步，给画面留个白反而会更有力量。
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