In my freshman year of high school I found my love for chemistry. After years of meandering around math I had become burnt out as my passion became poison; Extraneous circumstances pushed me to the edge and though I still loved math my relationship to it was forever altered for the worse. I was looking for something to make my own, and I stumbled upon chemistry. I had always liked chemistry—just as I had always liked any of the sciences—but it wasn't something that defined me, only math could be that. Through one of my clubs, I had acquired use of a general chemistry textbook early into the year. I was taking an honors chemistry class at the time and in my growing fervor I had blitzed through most of the textbook in a few weeks tops. Somehow, more than understanding at a surface level the content in the textbook, I had developed a surprisingly adept intuition for chemical phenomena. I thought about chemistry for hours a day—it was intoxicating. I would try to sneak in a few pages of reading in school when I could manage—though typically to a lack of success—and when I got home I would read some more. A little while after my frenzy had begun, a senior at my high school noticed my growing passion and offered me a helping hand. He had passions for chemistry and our club far exceeding mine. Under his guidance my passions grew to greater heights. Every Sunday, or just whenever we could find time, we would meet and discuss USNCO, the United States National Chemistry Olympiad. He had been competing for years—since he was a freshman like I was—and I was similarly motivated to start competing that year.

Due to extraneous circumstances, most of which are my own fault, I lacked motivation to care for my passions anymore; generally speaking, I no longer cared to do what made me happy. He graduated that year and unfortunately he believed in me. Something about his belief made me begin to believe in myself, but still I lacked motivation to continue learning at the same rate I once had before. I slowed to a snail's pace. I say that not in comparison to the incredible rate I had been learning before my care ceased, but rather in the sense that my learning had almost entirely stagnated. Unfortunately, my condition persists still. Textbooks adorn my floor and my desks. Despite having so many of them and resting them constantly in my way such that daily interaction is required, I couldn't bring myself to read them. The words became drivel and my knowledge had become broad yet sparse in such a way that following along with the standard order of textbooks had become mind-numbingly boring. One, seemingly more novel, chapter on slightly more advanced thermodynamics than I had previously learned had further arrested my development and in my continuous frustrations led to me abandoning my quest for nearly a year. Somewhat to my present amusement, after thinking about the ideas for the last while, the content of the chapter has too grown intuitive to me.

In my sophomore year since my mentor had graduated it was up to me to ensure that USNCO was continued at our school. The teacher that had proctored the local portion for many years had left, and so I began my witch hunt for another teacher to serve as a proctor. I didn't learn much in the way of chemistry that year. I spent much of the year tackling my understanding of Molecular Orbital Theory—which I, again to my present amusement, learned incorrectly multiple times. Looking back, my failure to make the fundamental principles and their results intuitive to me is almost embarrassing. I learned very little real chemistry that year, but I did absorb a decent amount of trivia somehow. Though the year previous I had failed to qualify for the national section of USNCO for reasons that I will leave as a story for another time, I had qualified for the national exam with ease that year. Unfortunately, I dropped the ball at nationals pretty hard. I wouldn't have done very well nonetheless, but I could've done far better with just some minimal preparation. Once again to my present amusement, I didn't realize for over a year—almost two years—that the prior national exams were just a short scroll under the prior local exams on the ACS website.

Something changed in my junior year, however; sometime in August I began to learn organic chemistry with new found conviction. Rather than going through linearly structured textbooks and meticulously learning the subject, I instead decided to learn organic chemistry through the internet in whatever order I desired. I was attracted to the more difficult of the elementary topics, and so I threw myself at them as I often had with math back when my passions had flared hotter for it. I worked my way backwards through the necessary knowledge, and soon I had worked myself into the habit of reading constantly again. I believed that I should understand why every reaction occurs as it does in order to really understand what will happen in novel conditions, and so in many of my classes and at home I spent time looking at the initial conditions for a reaction and then I did my best to predict the results of the reaction. My constant practice quickly paid off, and I learned much of Organic Chemistry I and II in the span of a couple months. Unfortunately, I deemed the reactions of alkenes and alkynes to be less interesting; I assumed that since the functional groups were composed of two carbons that their chemistry would be unimpressive. Only towards the end of my journey did I realize how wrong I was. My knowledge is now far more solid and my intuition is sturdy, but there are still many gaping holes. As you can imagine there are several problems with only approaching what I immediately find to be interesting; many topics I would've found interesting are never seen, and my understanding is only the more incomplete for it. Furthermore, some nuances, mastery of reagents, and deeper understanding that can only be gleamed from a textbook has never befallen me. I don't have reactions memorized for the most part and I tend to derive the mechanisms on the fly. My accuracy suggests I am quite capable, but my speed suggests that there is still much for me to discover even in the realm of the fundamentals. Furthermore, my inorganic chemistry and physical chemistry have been neglected. If you try to hold discussion with me about Crystal Field Theory or Ligand Field Theory for anything that isn't octahedral, I may very well just die right there on the spot. If you try to talk about statistical mechanics or even just the van der Waal's equation with me, I'll crumple like paper. Even in the field of organic chemistry I am easily lacking; if you ask me to interpret simple NMR, IR, or UV-Vis data, I'll shatter like glass. Weirdly enough though, my understanding of Band Theory is somewhat refined. As such I find that my knowledge is very branched and extremely variable topologically (please don't hurt me math people for misusing my words).

I'm not sure if my mentor had similar internal struggles like I do or even if he had someone to help him pursue and develop his passion for chemistry as he did for me. Regardless, I want to be what he was for me for someone else. During my ongoing high school experience, I saw math die—which is a story for another time—and I don't want to see chemistry go the same way. As of writing this, I am currently in my junior year. I yearn to find someone to nurture a passion for chemistry in to continue spreading passion for chemistry years after I am gone. I can only hope they don't face the same struggles I do and grow to ever greater heights. I refuse to believe that the passion I feel is rare. I worry that I will pressure someone—much less someone without an innate passion for chemistry within them—into this business and that it will leave their relationship with chemistry forever changed for the worse as math was for me. If I can pass it on though, I hope I can. I have failed countless times and spent much of my life in an equilibrium between self-torment and swiftly-ending joys. In passing the frenzy in me on to another, the world would grow slightly more illuminated with passion for chemistry. I wish to live in a world where such passions for chemistry are commonplace.

P.S.
My passions aren't limited to only chemistry—far from it in fact. I expect the same from you, dear reader. Make the world you want to see. I think things would be far more interesting that way. Pursue your whims.