Welcome back, Bearcats! We hope you’ve enjoyed the summer months. Perhaps you spent them gallivanting around various tropical destinations and have turned the color of a toasted marshmallow; maybe you attended a summer camp and are still combing pre-chewed bubblegum from your hair; or possibly you did nothing at all besides marinate in your bed and stream The Summer I Turned Pretty (The Record is Team Conrad!). No matter the case, we’re glad you’re back. Soon enough, the trees will glow gold and crimson, a line to rival your Disneyland vacation will materialize in front of Ms. Mechare’s door, classes will begin, and summer break will be irretrievably lost.
As we peer into the coming months, it is perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed. The daily nibble of schoolwork will surely become a painful throbbing, and for us Seniors, the college process looms threateningly. Some time or another, you will inevitably find yourself mulling over the eternal question: what is the point of all this?
To state the obvious, we come here to learn. To learn what, exactly? you ask. A reply is easy enough—we learn truth—but here our thinking skids to a grinding halt. The truth is far more complicated than we are made to believe. It is not facts, nor wisdom, nor any number of quizzable tid-bits that can be taught by your third-period algebra teacher. It can be tricky and complex, and oftentimes, it is too enormous to grapple with on one’s own.
To illustrate our point, let us imagine a hamster. Like most of his kind, this hamster is plump-cheeked and skittish; he is notable only so far as his behavior is entirely attuned to the weather. In bright and sunny climates, he is the picture of good humor, frisking about his cage and munching contentedly on his pellets. But under cloudy skies he comports himself much differently, ramming with aggression against the sides of his enclosure and biting contemptuously at fingers. What, then, is the truth of this hamster? Is it fitting to call him amiable, or is he foul-tempered and volatile?
Perhaps you can see where we are going with this. The truth is a mosaic of perspectives: different tiles flash brighter in different lights, and the only way to arrive at a complete understanding is to experience all of these contexts for ourselves. But this is a tall order, and we are busy people. We do not have the time to admire our mosaic in all of its possible forms, to sit back and contemplate the different facets of truth which are illuminated by varying brightnesses.
So what are we to do? Ironically, the solution is quite simple. If the truth requires a familiarity with all possible viewpoints, the only way to even approximate it is to rely on those around us. We must trust in others to illuminate the tiles of truth which we cannot make out ourselves, to share opinions that challenge our accepted beliefs and show us the happy hamster when we have only ever seen the angry one. This year, the three of us urge you to do your best to find the truth. Talk to those around you, engage fully in class discussions, and keep an open mind. You never know what you might learn.
