Hello, reader. It’s been some time since I’ve greeted you on this page, as just myself. It brings back nostalgic memories of excitement brought by seeing my name on a freshly printed paper, speaking my mind on topics that, at the time, were pressing thoughts begging to be poured on an empty page.

Most of my time here has been spent writing editorials arguing a point on behalf of the publication. Now it’s just me, a writer whose words again stand seemingly alone. As it is, I am delighted to be back.

However, my writing has so long assisted the ideas of a group, it struggles to stand alone and find not only the words but the argument most pressing to today’s emotions and headlines.

I find myself worrying about this — conformity — in and out of writing. Often, I observe others in the same position but a different context, seemingly oblivious to the fact.

In the bustle of the Manhattan High morning, I see fellow students in their natural element. As I peer closer, I look at the faces of these bright, intriguing people walking around in a sort of daily fog, unnoticing and dull, fueled by the chatter and clutter of congruent white noise.

We, as a generation, complain so constantly of the stress and trifles of adolescence and rightly so.

However, how can we expect to destress when we clutter the aspects of our very lives with the plague that is the noise of conformity, as opposed to the inner voices of ourselves? We accidentally stifle creativity and halt thought in its footsteps for the sake of group verification — an argument said many times before but a thousand times still true.

It is rare I stumble upon a lover of the classics or an appreciator of the world’s past artistic-vigor. I find it to be the greatest tragedy of our generation, that no one knows the free songs of Whitman nor the sorrows of Millay nor the chucklesome romances of Austen and Shakespeare. That no one is aware of the great painters and musicians, who started rebellions and fueled social change, or the current carriers of these trades unless their account is public.

This does us and life the greatest disservice.

We have become such mundane, grotesque, unambiguous, circadian masses trudging through today’s life like an ad on the television — without meaning or depth of character in just line with the common archetypal.

We ask ourselves what is the meaning of life, but how can we ever answer that question without genuinely living?

Ironically, I’d like to propose an answer by recirculating advice from a Tumblr text post by user lynds-love that has crawled its way into the systems of current social media:

“Go to the concert of a local band you’ve never heard of or have a water balloon fight at 2 a.m. or go to a new restaurant you’ve been wanting to go to, but for God’s sake, stop falling into the idea that you have to be traveling all the time or have tons of money to have incredible adventures and make your life mean something.”

I implore you, have adventures, read the words of the greats; listen to the music that ended wars; go to a museum merely to go. Drink in all that life and its creative well has to offer.

I have the greatest hope for those who lead our world in the path of new and revolutionary ideas, yet I hold the greatest fear for those who walk in conformity’s uniform lines.

Until I write again,

“Have incredible adventures and make your life mean something.”