Help Sorala turn Illness into Art At NYU

Help Me Attend NYU: Turning Years of Illness into Meaningful Art

The wound is the place where the light enters you —Rumi

Introduction:

Hi, I'm Sorala (Sara) Farkas, a writer, artist, and scholar recently accepted into NYU's Experimental Humanities program. After surviving over a decade of debilitating undiagnosed neurological illness, I'm finally stepping into the dream I fought so hard to reach: studying meaning, myth, and the limits of language—while turning my story into transformative, creative work.

My Story:

From a young age, I was filled with questions: Is life meaningful? Where does meaning come from? Where does God reside when words fail us? But my path to explore these questions was far from traditional.

For years, I suffered from neurological symptoms—seizures, joint pain, severe insomnia, cognitive dysfunction—and was misdiagnosed over and over again. During this time, I could only sleep 45 minutes every third night. I spent my savings on medical treatment and was often too ill to speak, read, or walk without agonizing pain.

In 2024, I was finally diagnosed with neurological Bartonella, a tick-borne illness that had impacted every system of my body, including my brain, central nervous system, vision, joints & internal organs. I am currently in active treatment—improving but still unable to work full-time due to ongoing symptoms and the demanding medication regimen. Despite these limitations, I continue to write, create, and study as much as my body allows.

Why I'm Fundraising:

I’ve been awarded a Draper fellowship from NYU, and I’m attending school part-time to accommodate my health. But even with student loans, scholarships and aid, I still need $15,000 to bridge the tuition gap and afford the ongoing medical expenses (over $1,500/month) that make healing possible. I’ve spent my life savings on care and have no safety net left.

This GoFundMe will help cover:

What I'm Creating:

My MA thesis centers around a novel, The Book of God, about myth, mysticism, and the collapse of meaning. It follows a Seeker whose spiritual revelations fracture into the realization that his symbolic universe may have been self-authored all along. The novel interweaves fictional narrative with theology, musical structure, prophetic language, and typographic experimentation.

Alongside this, I’m completing a poetry manuscript, & The Stars Walked Backward, a body of paintings on mystical themes, and a photography series exploring light, perception, and the human threshold. My goal is to pursue a PhD in comparative literature or religious aesthetics and eventually teach and publish works that offer others a way to grapple with the big questions—through art, inquiry, and embodied truth.

Why It Matters:

I’ve never asked for help like this before. But the cost of survival has been immense. I kept going when it felt impossible—painting through visual distortions and joint pain and showing up again and again to my creative work through bone-deep fatigue. Now that I’ve been given this chance at NYU, I want to meet it fully.

If you believe in the power of meaning-making, if you believe that art and resilience matter, I hope you’ll consider helping me. Even a few dollars brings me closer to safety, healing, and the ability to continue this work.

Other Ways You Can Help:

Thank you—for reading, for caring, and for helping me turn hardship into something luminous.

With deepest gratitude,

~S. Farkas