I’ve been writing for Obiter for all of my three years at Osgoode, and I decided pretty early on that I would write like I was speaking to a friend, and not like I was trying to win a Pulitzer. For the most part, it’s been rewarding. For the most part, I feel like I’ve done what I said I would. While I’m sad that this is the last time you’ll need to see, read, or skip over my words on these pages, for the most part, I’ve never minded if you do.
In some ways though, something is missing. I’ve been mulling over what to say in this last and final issue for a long time now, and of course, both everything and nothing came to mind. Normally, I’d share a story meant to make you feel, laugh, or smile. Unfortunately, as it turns out, sharing stories, however empowering, isn’t worth much in a world where people mostly don’t care about things that don’t apply to them. I don’t say that so you take it personally, I am mostly just stating the truth about being a raging empath caught in a tide of people with a more healthy sense of the value of their own time. At the end of the day, it’s exhausting to give so much of myself away, and to care so much about the mark each word I write makes.
And yet, with the exception of those who love the idea of their own words bouncing about in somebody else’s brain, most of us realize that to write is to put a piece of yourself on the line in some way. You show what you care about, and you open yourself up to others’ discerning eyes. It is a passive vulnerability that goes underrecognized. Almost every person who has penned a piece for this paper knows that feeling, and has had to actively overcome it. They have pondered the relative permanence of this publication, and have chosen to accept it. They become comfortable with being remembered as the person who wrote what they did, for as long as this record exists.
So for one final time, I get to wrestle with all of that. I get to offer a little piece of myself and do my best to leave a mark that means something. So I’m keeping it simple, and I hope it sticks.
What you write is a flag, tailor-made for who you are, and who you are is how you’ll be remembered. If nothing else, think of every word as an ember. My final ask of you is that you try with all your might to write like you’re trying to light the page on fire.
I hope it’s obvious that I am not writing about just a newspaper anymore. What I think most of us miss is that we believe our identities as lawyers, and our identities in general, are separate things. Beyond that, the rate at which we can produce and delete content, has somewhat diluted the value of our words no matter their purpose. Still, when it comes down to my ask, none of that matters. Today, I’m talking about every time you put words on a page with the intent of sharing them, no matter what role you’re playing, whether it’s an email, a factum, a treatise, or a text. The truest metric for the way the world is, is the way it was recorded. Is it a frantic flurry of anxiety, activity, and unrest, or is it a well-thought-out exhalation of long-held breath? Are you unloading your thoughts, or collecting them? Are you writing to inform, to explore, or simply to speak? Are you writing as someone else, or yourself?
What if we asked ourselves more of those questions before taking to our keyboards? How different would the world be if we thought through what the words we use really have the potential to mean? What if we saw that every word has a purpose, that commas can become real breaths? What if we realized that what we write can hold the power to make immense change, and equally, to stop it? Every sentence is a new chance to send a message that might rattle awake the dormant, sentient beings that have long been hiding behind our sadness-worn sternums. What if we stopped seeing writing as a way to fill space, and instead saw it as a chance to create something? To inspire? To be remembered? We could see it as a chance to fly our own flag, thwarting being regaled to silence once again.
For the last time, perhaps, my taking over of the voice in your head comes to an end. So what’s the point then, of leaving you with a message that’s essentially a long-winded and somewhat hypocritical way of saying to trim the flowers of your language?
Whether we are a flash in the pan or our very own sun, everything is at most ephemeral. When my eyes close, I want to be proud of the flags I’ve flown in the time I am able to stake them. So burn bright, and don’t waste a damn word.