Hello Eagles! Welcome to 2022.

I consider myself to be a student-journalist. I think it’s an acceptable label considering how I spend most of my spare time working on this fine little publication we call the “Inkwell.” Working on this paper has given me some knowledge and foresight into how the world works and how to predict the way future events may unfold.

But there’s no predicting what will happen over the next few months.

It currently isn’t an easy time to have questions about things. It’s hard to find a voice to trust. Every fact now has a caveat. Every trusted source now has an ulterior motive. Everybody and everything feels like a transaction.

But we want to feel safe! So we create safe spaces for those we want to protect, to make sure that they cannot be touched by the horrifying evils of the real world, evils that certainly exist and threaten us every day. We support each other’s identities to make sure that they are seen by their peers and that their unfair suffering comes to light.

We do this to seek justice, which, make no mistake, is a rare and worthy thing to desire.

We are in protection mode. We are in a cocoon. But we’re ready to come out of it.

I don’t plan to report on a lot of news that will make you feel safe. There just isn’t that much of it out there. I’ve looked. 

I want to do something better. I want to make you feel powerful.

Life is scary and dangerous. Evil exists, but as cliché as it may sound, there is no darkness without light. Good cannot exist without the capacity for bad. There are no angels without demons to challenge them.

So I want to begin this semester with a challenge: Be the brave, bold and good light that shines despite the crippling dark. Don’t actively pursue safe space. Look instead for zones of empowerment.

The world is scary and often pitiless. But it cannot defeat you if you plant your feet in the dirt, take inventory of your strengths and weaknesses and refuse to take a step back. 

Be brave. Take risks while taking care not to harm others. Give yourself the college experience that you deserve. 

No matter what the institutions tell you, your life is up to you–nobody else. You have the freedom to choose your path. That is a fact, and we are unbelievably lucky that countless have dedicated their lives throughout human history to make that a reality. 

And just as any overly-pretentious editor-in-chief should, I’ll end with a quote from a poem you may have read.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the road less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

         – Robert Frost