The Besz Dispenser - This Week's Rant

For the week of May 5th, 2000

Hate Mail Anonymous

This is really a momentous day for me. So momentous, in fact, that I really didn't know what to write for this column. I was going to write about my crappy car and how it needs to be trashed, but I don't know if I can write about that anymore. Mark this down in your calendars: I got hate mail.

I am shocked and amazed at this. I thought no one was reading. Hell, I've sworn, I've told off faculties, individual people, Christians, Benny Hinn, and an entourage of others, and never, not once, did I ever get a hint of pissing people off which, I must admit, was the allure of writing this column in the first place. I had a campus full of people that I could upset. But no one seemed to care what I said. Or read it.

But now my life is complete. Now, I can rest knowing that somehow I'm not part of the collective and others disagree with what I say. I'm original. I'm insulting. I'm loving this. Funny thing is, I don't even know what was said. Apparently it is in the Letters to the Editor section. All I know is that it was an American Baby Boomer (at least that's what I've been told). This is so cool.

You may think me crazy right now, but I am very happy about this, and no, it's not just about the fact that I've insulted someone. I'm happy because someone out there is thinking about what I said, and had a strong enough belief that I was wrong to write in about it. They truly think differently, and are willing to admit it. Of course, many people so these kind of things all the time in newspapers and magazines, but the big thing is that this is the University of Waterloo. This is the apathy capital of Ontario, save Ottawa. No one seems to care what is going on around here, and that is really bad. Worse than words, worse than opinions, worse than being right or wrong. When you just sit there and shrug, taking it, nothing would get done. Nothing would happen.

We'd really be Gen-Xers then, wouldn't we? Well, anyone born before 1980 anyway would. Anyone after would ... um ... just act like Gen-X wannabes.

I don't want to sit idly by as people change the world around me. I want to have a say. I don't want to let life go by without me challenging it. I want to challenge thinking, I want to make people think. To, as Bill Hicks said, "squeegee that third eye clean." We're a culture bred to sit and believe what television and the media at large says about the world, about history, about culture, about right and wrong. There's nothing wrong with stirring the pot a little, just to make it taste a little better.

Yeah, this may seem like a lot of bull for one letter, but it's a first, and it's mine. And I can rest easy in the knowledge that at the very least that person reads the column.

Go Back to the Main Page