Reading is listening, listening is love

By Connor de Bruler

I love you. You: the reader. I love you. 

Week in and week out, I do what I can to provide one of two kinds of columns. I’m either trying to penetrate your skin of social correctness with my knife of raw anger and dissent, or I’m just trying to make you laugh. 

I normally don’t succeed either way, but, no matter what, you keep reading every little word I write on this page. I love you for that. I thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart. I love you for stopping me on the street and hallways of this college and telling me how much you enjoy my columns. I love you for writing me letters and telling me how off-the-mark I am, or how much you hated my last column. Even then, when you don’t like what I’ve done, you keep reading. I love it when people find out who I am and roll their eyes. That’s when I know they’ve read me, and I love being read. 

I love it when my boss tells me my columns have no point. I love it when the dean of my department comes hunting for me after I broke some well-known journalistic law. I savor every second I lose face inside the newspaper office among my colleagues, because I never thought I’d make it to this point. I never thought I’d be writing for my college’s paper. That fact humbles me. The two awards I’ve won are meaningless in the grand scope of things. I still can’t believe I write a column every week, or that I’m in charge of gathering new writers for my page.  

I rose to the level of editor here at the school newspaper through sheer luck. It was the right time and the right place. 

The previous Editor-in-chief, the one who hired me, saw something in me I will never see in the mirror. The current Editor-in-chief puts up with me because she is a truly loving person. It took so much courage (and so much alcohol) to apply and interview for my current position, and I’m thankful everyday that I get to write 400 to 500 words every week and showcase another student with an opinionated voice. 

I think it’s reasonable to say that I have become somewhat famous on this campus, at least among avid readers. 

I am not a shark in the ocean, but a medium-sized catfish in a small pond. I am not the voice of Winthrop. I’m just one of the many students passing through. Once I graduate from Winthrop, I don’t think you’ll be hearing from me again. I’ll get a little job to pay rent for my apartment and, hopefully, marry my girlfriend. We’ll probably get a cat too. 

That’s really all I want. 

My plan, two years ago, was to join an eco-terrorist cell in West Virginia and sacrifice myself for a giant elm or pine tree. Today, I’ve scrapped that bleak vision for my future. I scrapped that vision for my future because you, the readers of Winthrop, have told something I desperately needed to hear for so long: that my voice is of importance. No matter what you think of my opinions or my ability to write, by reading my words, you boost my self esteem a little higher. 

Thank you. 

In my opinion, listening is an act of love. Good parents listen to their children. Good boyfriends listen to their girlfriends. 

By reading my words, you are listening to my metaphoric voice. Thank you for listening. 

I love you. I am nothing without your readership. 

This column is about out of gas, so I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a long while. I’m going to shut up.