You seniors out there know exactly what I am talking about.
Since 1999, American society has transformed from an optimistic bunch of tech-savvy Silicon Valley millionaires into a collection of post-post-modern cynical naysayers, disillusioned with the current status of the world.
Perhaps that’s taking things a bit too far, but we have undoubtedly become more jaded than anyone could have imagined just four short years ago.
When did the bubble burst? We may never know the exact date. Who can we trust anymore? It seems to change from day to day. So how did we get to where we are?
Oh, the troubles that these eyes have seen.
We’ve seen Bill Gates roll doubles one too many times and be declared a monopoly. He must have had a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card.
We’ve downloaded our way through the rise and fall (and attempted rising from the dead) of free online file sharing. Who can forget Napster’s ascension to prominence in the first semester of freshman year? It was almost too good to be legal.
We saw our President impeached for lying about a sex scandal, and we found out that sex really is all this country cares about. Well, I guess that depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.
We voted in one of the strangest presidential elections ever, and we’re still not entirely sure who won the darn thing.
We saw the single-most horrific terrorist act ever carried out on American soil on Sept. 11. Then we sleep-walked through our waking hours, glued to CNN…
We witnessed first-hand the effects of corporate greed when Enron abruptly and unexpectedly crumbled. We saw thousands of innocent people lose their life savings in an afternoon. Suddenly no big corporation could be trusted.
Suddenly the Catholic Church couldn’t be trusted.
Suddenly we were at war with Iraq, and our own government couldn’t be trusted.
So maybe we have some pretty good reasons for becoming so cynical. The world just isn’t the same happy-go-lucky, E-trade-wasting-two-million-dollars-on-a-chimpanzee-commercial place that it used to be.
Over the last four years, we’ve learned more about ourselves than anyone thought possible. We’ve been oversaturated by the uses and excuses that technology affords us. We’ve been spoon-fed lies, violence, scandal and greed. We’ve seen unprecedented pain and suffering.
But I wouldn’t trade in those years for anything.
These are the stories we will share with our children someday, much the way our parents rehash the late sixties to us at seemingly any chance they get.
The breakdowns I mention above deal mainly with the loss of fame and fortune, with institutions and organizations behaving badly. I can accept this; I have even come to expect this. However, lost somewhere among the front-page headlines are the stories of human interaction-relationships. I believe that relationships still matter.
It was my job over the past two years to form a relationship with you. To bring you, the world of Washington University, sports-no matter what convoluted hijinks civilization at-large may have been up to.
But rather than harp on what I have contributed to the WU sports community via this newspaper, I’d like to take this space to give thanks for what that community has given back to me.
These are the relationships and memories that will last a lifetime.
Like freshman year when my friend Jenny Holmes told me that she had decided to leave the volleyball team to focus on her more academic pursuits.
Or there was the time when my work-study counterpart Ben Hord told me that he probably would never come back from his leg injury to play for the football team again.
There was the time that all-conference basketball player Chris Jeffries showed up at the memorial services for my suitemate who passed away during sophomore year.
And I’ll never forget the time that I shared a cold Pointer’s pizza with Chancellor Wrighton in the press box at a football game.
No matter what happens in this world, we will always have each other. No matter how bad things look, you will always be a part of a community. Take full advantage of the good communities when you are lucky enough to be a part of them.
Because eventually, all good things must come to an end.