The Title of the Blog - Part 13

No matter what you're doing, there's a time when you have to stop. This, the thirteenth column of my time writing for The Bachelor was that time because it was time for me to graduate and head out into the world of teaching.

Nuts...now I'm gonna have to find something else to do with my Saturday posts...

You can’t kill an idea… - Bob Dylan

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
-Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

When the Bard’s Puck reads these lines, he asks his audience not to take any affront from the words that have been sounded upon his stage in the past while. He then asks for the audience to “Give me your hands, if we be friends,” so that he will know their true feelings before he departs. For me, these lines could be a very easy, very conciliatory opening to a close. I, however, choose not to let them be that.

I am not in the mood to apologize to those whom I have offended. In my previous bakers dozen of articles, I have attacked and chastised, poked and prodded, but have always tried to say my piece and get out. If you have taken the time to read my articles – from rant to rage to manifesto – then I thank you. If, even more rarely it seems, you took the time to formulate an intelligent response to that article, then I and the rest of our campus are forever in your debt, for you have helped me carry my torch. For the rest of you – those who quit on me or who chose to call my voice mail to leave obscene and idiotic messages, I wish we could have talked face to face.

I say that because face-to-face is the truest choice of those of us who wish to engage in open, honest debate. If you have a grievance with me, then I invite you to call me or to stop by the Lambda Chi house and talk to me in person. Or, if you don’t want to do that, then please pick up a pen and take my column’s space for next year. Lord knows they’ll need the space filled up.

If you do choose this last manner, then I shall charge you with a great duty. You will be a writer. True, your job will not demand the same objectivity that perhaps a good news writer must have, but you have responsibilities none the less. You must search your heart and the world around you, for the truest words come from both of them together. Rarely can you carry the shield or the sword for a cause in which you have no faith. Rarely will your words ever strike true in the hearts of your enemies if you do not wield them with the weight of conviction. And never will you convince someone else if you have not convinced yourself.

Having said this, I also charge you to choose your topics well. Some battles are lost before they are even begun. You may never convert a single soul if you choose only the fight on a battleground of faith. If you argue a side that some consider morally wrong – be it abortion, religion, or the Indy Star – your words will have to be more then perfect to win, and that is a very difficult thing to muster.

Thirdly and finally, I charge you to fight in the manner prescribed by Basil Henry Liddell Hart. I know nothing of the man other than his name and these few words, but I love what I know…

Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes - so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil – nothing is so self– blinding.

I will not try to improve upon his words, they are far better than mine could be.

I also know that I have no moral high ground when any of these charges are considered. I have called people names, have chosen religious battle grounds, and have contradicted myself in the same article. I am about to do that last again, for I do not think I was wrong in breaking these charges that I give for you. My articles, you see, fall under the opinion section, and that is assuredly where they belonged. These are not to be taken as gospel, accepted without challenge. Nor are they to be attacked because they were wrong in some way. They never have been wrong, for the opinions expressed herein have been right for me – no more, no less.

And, if am lucky, they have sparked something in you. Perhaps you have never thought of that point in quite that light. Maybe you have never realized that someone else was unsure of his place in the world. Possible you saw an issue never before raised to you – whether you agreed with it or not. And certainly, some of you felt confident enough to challenge me on my opinions. Thanks, I hope I did the same for you. Hell, sometimes we just need somebody to say something difference so we can reaffirm our faith in a cause. If I’ve even done that, I leave this space happy.

But please, do not stop challenging the writers in the paper, the professors in your classes, the politicians in your government. If we stop checking them, then we should start being afraid, for then we have given up our power over ourselves and have handed it over to them. Don’t do that…ever…
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Oh, as it seems I’m usually given free reign, I’m gonna thank a couple of folks before signing off completely. Thanks, JJ, for asking. You may not have expected what you got, but you sure got it anyways. And thanks also to Burr, Smack, Karlen, Keith, and Eric for being wonderful proof-readers, great sounding boards, and occasional inspirations…

Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead. – Scottish Proverb