Alright, the latest editorial to be published in the Decmeber issue of The Knightly News. So here's the pre-screening:



“Okay…I’m a loser. But really, I’m okay with that.”
By: Eric Austin, Editor-In-Chief

I was perplexed recently by a comment on my Facebook from an anonymous person.
“You opinionated piece of… Expletive Deleted” is what the comment read. Needless to say, I was angered and responded accordingly. As the day went on however, the comment stayed in my head. Not exactly because of what was said. After all, I am one of the most politically opinionated people in the school and have no problem with saying it. So the fact that I may have angered a few people is no surprise, and frankly, I care not. It was the nature of the sentence, and really the fact that it was said in the first place (in an Honesty Box message of all places) that angered me.
I often feel like I am an oddball in today’s teenage America. I am very passionate about a great number of things. While the average teenager is just trying to survive his or her high school government class, I get angry and passionately discuss things in government while the rest of the class gives me those “how does he know all this?” looks. I am a self-proclaimed dork. I watch the news for an average of three hours a night, and then think about it for another two. In A.P. U.S., I remember one class period when I went through every election in the country’s history and tried to decide who I would have voted for based on the issues of the particular time period. Really, who does that?
My cousin tells me that “I’m obsessed.”
“With what?” I ask him.
“I don’t know,” he responds, “You’re just obsessed.”
My cousin, and many others who I encounter, cannot seem to understand why I care so much about things that seem so disconnected and out-of-touch with my daily life. All I can say to defend myself is that I am a passionate person. I am capable of feeling the strongest of feelings for virtually anything. It seems that this is something that the everyday teenager is not concerned with. They are concerned with other matters such as pop culture, or sports, or the opposite sex. While I do care about all of those things (particularly the opposite sex), they are not extremely high on my priority list. I feel more comfortable writing editorials than I do watching The Hills or Sports Center.
One can only imagine the feeling that a young adult feels when he can’t name the artist who sings the hottest song of the week. It’s not like I could tell the truth and say, “Well I might know who sings that hot jam, but unfortunately I was too busy listening to NPR and that intriguing story about wind energy to change the radio station to find out.”
Most American high school students find it strange and foreign to see someone who cares so much about the world that is happening beyond the walls of his own selfish life. While Hume-Fogg is a special case, at the standard high school, people who started freaking out in class about the auto-industry bailout wouldn’t make it through the day without getting shoved into a locker.
Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by the constant surge of thoughts that swell through my brain that I just want to scream “Stop!” Indeed it would be much simpler to only have to worry about what I planned on wearing the next morning, or trying to impress the girl that I like. But just as I begin to think like this, I’ll see a homeless person on my way to school and the simplicity is lost and the swelling in my head is back.
I keep myself content by knowing that one day I plan on actually doing something with the passion I have. I’ll never know who wrote that Facebook comment, and really I don’t want to. Someone who hates another simply for being passionate about something clearly is distraught because they have nothing of their own to be passionate about.
So to anyone out there who really cares, don’t worry. Our day will come. One day these passionate dreams will become reality, and I’ll wonder why I ever cared about who sings that song that all the other kids are freaking out about.