Former Editor Tells All: A Memoir On New Beginnings and Unwanted Memories

*Takes the stand to a cheering audience* Thank you, thank you folks it’s great to be here, truly You are the best people, possibly the best there ever was! (Crowd screams “we love you!”) You’re too much, you’re too much, thank you thank you all. I am here tonight at the request of well, myself, to give you this letter I wrote all the way back in September of 2024. This letter contains the pretentious and pseudo-intellectual rambling of a washed up, overstimulated, undereducated and underemployed former Features Editor.

But as you hopefully enjoy a night of cheap wine and just off the mark jokes, I ask that you please humor me for the next few minutes, and read this letter, as it was written for you.

You, the weary, who move though life with visible uncertainty. You, the jokesters, who make jokes at my expense and continue to do so even when I’ve made it clear that it’s not funny anymore, by the way, enjoy the piss in your stupid fish tank shitass.

You, the Dana sitters and the Dana shitters. You, the market capitalists and godless communists. You, who smoke Reds on the townhouse roof at night, and you who feel lost and alive at the bottom of every glass. The Fortnite players, the NPCs, the Hockey kids and the Ticker regulars, the Beta Boys and KDS girls. Please, take a seat, and listen to these words I have written down.

I was Features Editor for the last three semesters, and I can tell you it’s an interesting job. With virtually no writers, having to fill a whole section every week was a very fly by the seat of your pants type of deal, but with some help here and there it gets done. And, humble as I am, I can say that I’ve produced some good content now and again.

But it was never about the paper, I mean, not at first. At first, I just wanted to do my shit, get out and get paid. But slowly, the grinding process of layout drove us closer together, as being trapped in a room for eight hours naturally does.

At the end of my first semester at THN, after a booze-filled night, I found myself and another Editor were the only ones who were not consumed by a Sunday morning sleep-in. For the first time all semester, we sat down and had a real conversation, where we talked honestly and openly. They became one of my closest friends during my time at St. Lawrence University. To this day, that conversation was one of the best I’ve ever had, and to get to the belabored point, my advice is to take the opportunities that present themselves while you’re here. You never know who you’ll meet and where they might take you. Yes, yes, I know you mom said the same thing before you came here, but it’s true.

Another point from this story is, as cringe as it sounds, to be real.

So many of us put up a face, censor our beliefs, and keep our real thoughts hidden when interacting with other people. This often leavesus feeling isolated, distant, from even our own selves.

You have to live as who you are, say what you think, and always be honest even when it’s the most painful option. If you are real, others will notice, and you will attract people who will bring you more than a surface-level friendship, but a deep and fulfilling connection. That is, after all, the root of lasting happiness.

I understand being yourself isn’t always so cut and dry, and many people even struggle with knowing who they really are, and there’s no shame in that. Look, life’s hard, and things really suck out there.

And I’m not saying that in a pedantic, Boomer, out of touch, “hey life gets you down sometime” way. I mean life is legitimately hard, and everyone is suffering, and even if that suffering isn’t starving in a war-torn third-world country doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

Suffering is relative, and as a member of society I can see with my own two eyes that everyone is suffering, whether it’s from anxiety, depression, loneliness, family issues, economic issues, the abysmal state of dating culture, feeling alienated because your political or religious belfies, the list goes on. In fact, most people are afflicted by at least four of these things at the same time.

Many people (subconsciously or consciously) try to cope with this suffering in a variety of ways, from excessive gym time to regular drug use, many lean on these coping mechanisms so much that they become the user’s entire personality.

My advice, accept the pain you’re in, don’t cope in harmful ways (i.e. go to the gym a healthy amount and don’t lean on sedatives to numb the pain), and focus on what you can affect.

My esteemed former colleague and bucket hat king Noah Donnellan-Doser ’26 once wrote in an article about sobriety, “I am now over a year sober, and I am not happy.” I like this quote because, as crass as it is, it speaks to the point I’m trying to make.

Accepting the reality of your suffering doesn’t make that pain, anger, or helplessness go away, it doesn’t even make it better really, but the alternative is to spend your days self-destructing trying to pretend it’s not real.

Once you accept it, you can manage and mitigate it and focus on the things you can control, focus on actually bettering your life and the lives of the ones who love you. Focus on the beautiful things life surrounds you with, and not the horrible things inflicted upon you.

And sometimes the suffering is just straight-up bad things happening to you, sometimes over and over again as if you’re a shit magnet. To that the only answer is hey, you know, sometimes shit just happens.

In Greek mythology, a hunter named Actaeon was walking through the woods when he, by pure accident, stumbled upon the goddess Artemis bathing naked in a pool. Wanting to punish him for his unintended voyeurism, the goddess turned Actaeon into a deer, and upon returning to the other hunters, he was ripped apart by the very hunting dogs he had raised and trained.

The moral of the story? Sometimes shitty things happen to us that we have no control over, and it may seem like you’re being punished by some cursed fate to suffer, but the reality is sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand.

That’s just life, but that’s not all life is, either. The point is, don’t give up just cause bad things happen to you, because every misfortune is matched by an equally comforting beauty. There is an incomprehensible amount of beauty to be found and felt in this world, and even those suffering the most can recognize beauty, and choose to see it as a wonderful part of life.

The song “Real Love” by Big Thief is a beautiful song. Its rolling drumbeat and scratchy stringy guitar riffs have an emotional power that can be felt, more than heard. And the soft female vocals perfectly complement this overwhelming melody. In contrast, the content of the song is openly dark, the lyrics piecing together the story of abuse at the hands of one’s parents, and the effect that has on the victim’s perception of love and what constitutes a healthy relationship.

I mention this song because it encapsulates what living is like. Life is both excruciatingly painful and yet breathtaking in its beauty at the same time. And I implore you to go out, and however you find it, become overtaken with this sense at least once, and take in all the joy, bitterness, love angst, and hope that compose the song of life.

Thank you all for your time. Never give up, always say the truth, embrace the love and pain of life. *Crowd, in tears, gives a standing ovation (but in a humble way) *

Goodnight, and good luck to us all. *I walk away like that meme of Jake Gyllenhaal walking into the smoke*