I just want to congratulate the human race on managing to survive going around the sun one more time, despite what certain other calendars predicted or the hundreds of thousands of other interesting ways we could end our short existence.
We take this time every year to remember the good things in life and make new aspirations, and I am here to tell you the reflections and forecast of my writings to come.
My readers deserve to know the motives for what I put in front of them every week, and there is no better explanation than from the beginning.
My family history is an interesting tale not meant for the paper just yet, but I will say that I was exposed to multiple cultures and points of view.
I was also bullied in my childhood for being a gamer and a little fat, so I spent a lot of time by myself.
Anger always seemed to be boiling beneath the surface, but that meditative time allowed me to push that fire into the corners of my mind and to see things for what they were.
I took every problem as a sociological issue because people affected the actions of others.
As I grew up and moved into high school, I wanted to help other kids who suffered alienation or various peer pressure issues.
Over three years as a peer mentor, I helped dozens of other students from homework to suicide.
It is from this experience that I could begin to grasp the positive effect one person can have, if they show a little human compassion.
I, like numerous fellow incoming college students, lost my social bearings upon walking through the university’s door for the first time; so I turned to clubs for some degree of social stability.
When I started at the Xavierite, I had no idea what to expect or really even how to write a weekly opinion column.
I could talk about movies and games until the sun goes down, but I felt having the opportunity to address thousands of people in an articulate medium every week bore a serious responsibility.
With the displacement of my close social circle, I turned to the national scale to find meaning because making new friends is not my greatest attribute.
My eyes were opened to the pain of the world and only just a fraction of it.
I was so very angry, lost, and did I mention angry, but then I realized something.
The passion that was flowing through me could be channeled in a similar constructive manner as my high school years.
I had to do something to help, and that is by spreading the word about what is happening.
The issues I write about often have a political nature because politics is people, which are the source of our problems, and people can change.
Except people need to hear, accept, and act on the truth for change to occur, so I strive to always dig as far as I can in the time allowed to find and present the truth to you.
This exploration often comes at an emotional cost because of the seriousness, complexity and passion I take on with every element of the article.
Probably the most taxing article was last semester’s editorial on drone strikes in Pakistan.
I dug into legal documents of the CIA, DOD and interviews of victims, which dredged up a lot of heartbreaking information.
That article still haunts me because it is just the tip of the iceberg of our compassion-deprived country, which I am a part of.
I believed this was a country of representation and ethics, and I have grown to see that these are true characteristics, but it is not our representation and not the honest hardworking ethics of the public.
With Congress’s approval rating at 9 percent and 12,000 lobbyists spending $2.47 billion in 2012 alone and only 61 bills passed by Congress in the same year (rollcall.com, opensecrets.org, clerk.house.gov)
I have come to realize that seeking political solutions to political problems is the most daunting task.
While this may be a dismal outlook, there is a shining beckon of practical hope: science.
The only people who solve problems permanently are scientists and engineers who give actionable solutions not the suits or judges.
Laws make social contracts regulating action based of the scarcity of material, which determine the actions of people.
We have the technology here and now to stop so much suffering, yet it is not implemented because of the imaginary ball-and-chain we call money.
The basis of fractional reserve banking, the world economic system, is that money is literally created out of thin air each time money changes hands in the form of a loan.
But I digress. I will attempt to no longer focus on political issues with political solutions because these are false prophesies.
nstead I will address important issues that can be resolved with technology (or just telling you about cool tech).
Technology applied to the planet and all of its inhabitants for the purpose of smart conservation and action will be the only thing between us and ruin.
As Charlie Chaplin said in The Great Dictator, “We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.” I love you and I am sorry that I have been a raving madman, thank you.
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