Last week, I wrote an article about the meaning behind the word “weird” and how that resonates with people who get called that and worse all the time. A concerned student eventually expressed disinterest in the piece. First and foremost, I’d like to thank that student and all those who read my columns every week. Your attention and readership is greatly appreciated.
Second off, I’d like to ask how opinions are supposed to, in any way, lack feelings, emotions and personal beliefs about various matters. Whether it has to do with how a student views the campus bus system or why someone disagrees with a policy made by a state official or just how they feel about a disheartening conversation, those feelings are what make up the articles you read on this page every day. Those emotions are the basis for opinions and have every right to belong on this campus and in this campus newspaper.
With the growing number of high school and college student suicides, that reality is a very important one. Feelings have everything to do with not only how we interact with those around us, but also how we think and believe. Sharing those thoughts we’re able to let the people around us know what our beliefs are. We’re able to express that none of us are alone in any belief and to potentially save someone who thinks they are.
The fact that we all have the opportunity to say what we want, how we want with the freedom we deserve is a truth that many of today’s society forgets is actually a privilege. We are lucky to be able to have this newspaper and have the ability to express our agreeing or disagreeing thoughts on whatever subject matter, whether you put your name to it or not. It’s bold to speak your mind, but it’s often more courageous to put your entire self out there for people to read, enjoy or tear apart, but all are the freedoms we have.
No matter what they discuss, people’s opinions have substance. You may think the same. You may think he or she has gone completely mad. But every opinion, every feeling woven into it, has substance because it’s what the person believes. It’s what the person wants to share with those reading and with which wants to evoke emotion, whether that emotion is anger, hatred, love, acceptance, and so on right down the line.
When you watch a friend deteriorate into a shadow of himself and you discuss his suicide in relation to the thousands who’ve met a similar fate, you tell me that’s supposed to lack emotion. When you have a columnist express his indifference with his university’s band and seemingly the entire campus lashes back, you tell me that lacks feelings. When you have a writer, whether talented or just talking, simply trying to make it known that it’s all right to be different in a world that’s not completely used to that yet and someone shoots it down for being inane, you tell me that lacks purpose.
We are a merely a forum. We are the names that get you all to talk, express and feel. We are just here to help you and, in turn, make us better communicators. So, yes, feelings have every right to belong on an opinions page and most absolutely matter in the grand scheme of our campus and campuses across the country. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this section in the first place.
Debra Flax is a junior majoring in journalism. Her column runs on Thursdays.
