The end is still long, senior leaves legacy

By Francesca Lo Basso
Collegian Staff
April 25, 2007

Sheer egoism. George Orwell said it, and if it’s good enough for one ardent socialist, it’s good enough for this one. If you’re a real writer, a true artist, a sincere patron of Apollonian ideals, the kind with an itch in the marrow of your bones that can only be scratched by putting ink to paper a thousand times and even then knowing it’s not enough, you’ll never respond to the question “Why I Write” without saying it’s for pure unadulterated egoism.

Bliss is transient, happiness often a farce, insouciance commonly trampled by the militant presence of reality, but words are forever. Do we all want to be glorified, revered, exulted, canonized, regaled, put on a golden pedestal and captured in marble? I can’t say I know, but what I’ve come to understand is that we all like to be reminded of what it means to be alive.

The first time I wrote for the Collegian, two long and industrious years ago, I can recall the painstakingness with which I crafted my “premiere” article on the first time I went to an SOA protest. I got back from Georgia – which was an experience in itself, almost getting left below the Mason-Dixon line at four in the morning at a truck-stop which incidentally had the Ten Commandments tacked to the wall of its McDonald’s – and had to say something about it. On my return, I felt empowered, emboldened, enlivened, energized – I had found that there really was a spirit in nature, a human spirit that spoke of brotherhood and benevolence; it had found me and under its guidance, I had been resurrected. I needed to tell people this – they needed to be reminded that you do not get acted on, but are the actor. Your existence, your very presence, your perishable body and flaking skin, the oil on your fingertips and the scars on your knees – these imperfections are what make life beautiful.

This is what I wanted to say, but this revelation is what could easily be lost behind the pomp and circumstance of knowing that my words would be rolled off the press in duplicate and soaked up by hundreds of wandering eyes.

I froze when I sat down to write that article, because I didn’t want it to be just for me. I wanted it to be for everyone. Now, when I look at what I’ve written over the years, at every leftist Bush-bashing, anarcho-advocating, hippie-heralding, morally lofty, occasionally pretentious piece that has worked itself into print, I realize that while I was trying to write for my peers, trying to educate, to inform, to urge, I was still writing just as much for myself.

This newspaper has kept me sane (well, this and a certain Republican doppelganger in upstate New York). Knowing that I had 500 words (or the occasional 1,300, sorry again about that) with which to unveil my woes, grievances, indignations, slings and arrows is what has made this last year so unforgettable. I was able to live my life as usual, but was forced to reflect on it at the end of the week. This reflection is what I have come to both love and loathe – to have to take my moral idealism and document why war is bad and peace is good every time I sit down at my computer is what grounds me whenever I get lost in the fog of jargon and theory.

Maybe it’s not possible to separate the art from the artist. You can only create if you have something to build with – you need those broken pieces of your life so you can forge something beautiful with them. There will always be an inherent selfishness in wanting to leave your mark on the world. Maybe compunction’s hard, compassion difficult and true altruism impossible, but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying to make the world a better place. You just have to have hope. I’ve been mocked, jeered, berated, praised, applauded and ignored, and though there is no permanence in this world, my hope is still resolute. Taking a page from my heroes, “if you’ve lost your faith in love and music, the end won’t be long.” So have faith.

obassof1@lasalle.edu