Lend me your perspective

We live on a spinning planet and each revolution marks a new day.  After 365 days we complete our trip around the sun, and we begin a new year.  This isn’t “astronomy hour” at The Eagle, its a reminder. Now is the occasion for casting away past failures and forging our resolves anew.

Most of us will make our resolutions with the consistency of a Teflon telescope; we have a stellar outlook, but ultimately fail to stick.  But, resolutions will be forced upon many this year because of change.  Families have to make changes to accommodate another child, and patients are issued a doctor’s ultimatum about changes to health and lifestyle.

My concerns are nowhere near as grave, but I too face the challenge of change in this New Year.   I’m stepping up to the plate to provide perspectives to you, the reader.

My resolution is to not fall in the terrible rut of preaching stock arguments about politics and religion, but rather to antagonize, incite, and provoke contributions from students, faculty, and alumni.  The perspectives you collectively want are not going to come from the vacuous wasteland that is my mind.

I mean, that lumpy mass of grey matter situated between my ears is already spongy, bruised and taxed to the limits as it is.  I could continue with the self-depreciating track for a few more paragraphs, but you get the picture.  I’m the Opinion editor, not the opinion writer.

My friend Michael Drummond has said, “People are usually so occupied talking that they forget to listen.”  So I’m not going to dominate the conversation, but instead offer that forum to you.  You have your opinions, and they carry more potential to impact change than mine ever will.  It is important that you get a chance to have your voice heard.

Many of us are not strangers to complaining.  We entertain our friends with our lengthy and honest rants, and we do it without the thought that we are trying to persuade our points.

Why limit it to your comrades, when I’ll give you the most powerful resource your message can have; an audience.

Once your opinion has an audience, another reader might have a solution to the questions you raise, or better yet, offer a different perspect that you hadn’t quite considered.

When you look at these columns, they now become a pretty powerful vehicle.  By expressing your opinion, you get your chance to spark action and get problems solved. The other opportunity is the insight you gain; the other sides of an argument, and they might differ from the personal beliefs you hold, but this is a great scenario.

My hope is that I can dispel cynical attitudes by giving as many angles of the picture as possible, because as my hero Henry Rollins has written numerous times: “Cynicism is intellectual cowardice.”  The only way to cut that cynicism out of your life is to sit and digest all the possible sides of an argument.  I know that not everyone will be convinced, and not everyone will be fired up into action over a specific issue.  But if at least one reader engages this thought and takes on the challenge, the whole community gets to reap the benefit.