As a writer, you develop a sixth sense. Every aspect of your life is a metaphor to be expanded upon until exhaustion; every experience can be traced back to a sole hindrance if you do enough living.
The heightened sense of everything around you sparks an incessant need to observe, to analyze, to capture each moment in a novel way. It comes like an internal monologue in the back of your throat. Just keep writing. Just keep writing.
Monty’s Adventures was the name of my first book. Self-published in 2014, the cover was bound with notebook paper, the title etched in blue by snapped-in-half colored pencils. It was the first in a series of books whose pages were stapled together and filled with illustrations colored outside the lines, sentences written in seven-year-old handwriting.
But it was also the first in a series of being unable to escape writing; it was the first time I realized I needed to write in order to feed my wild curiosities and navigate the precariousness of the world I’d been placed in.
Over the years, I’ve turned to writing as though it’s my foul weather friend. It’s a refuge from the moments when I don’t know who I am, when I don’t understand what I’m going through.
Picking up a pen forces me to analyze myself as though I’m a road map whose destination is unknown, whose route is well-worn with concrete fissures and burnt-down buildings.
To me, writing is like a rhetorical question: you speak ambiguously to yourself, to your supposed audience, and to the open air, hardly ever expecting an answer. Sometimes you do know the answer you seek, but most of the time you only think you know the answer and let the silence allow you to believe you do.
But when I joined Maroon and White the fall semester of my sophomore year, one of those painstakingly rhetorical questions that you labor over for years was answered: what do I want to do with my life?
It’s safe to say that now I know.
As I write this, it’s the Wednesday before my last issue with the Maroon and White needs to be edited, revised, and designed. I’ve avoided writing this for too long because I know that once I seal the envelope of this letter, it’s the last one I’ll ever send. But also, part of me is unsure entirely what to say. For the first time in my life, I’m all out of words for how to describe the most cathartic four years of my life.
But I’m taking that as a sign—a sign that I’ve said all that I set out to as a wide-eyed sophomore. My work here is done.
Through the three years I’ve devoted to this paper, I’ve come out the antithesis of who I was when I entered. The freedom that comes with paying attention to your daily life—constantly searching for a story, searching for that one thing that everyone needs to hear—has completely shifted my perspective on both being a teenager and being a highschooler.
When you enter high school, you’re often a naive, idealistic individual whose only goal is to get out as fast as you can. It’s that eagerness that comes with adolescence: the unrelenting desire for something more than what you’ve known your entire existence.
In many ways, the Maroon and White was my saving grace from this mindset. Instead of pining over my restlessness, I came to learn the value of embracing all that life has to offer you. I’ve made lifelong friends and gained irreplaceable experiences simply because I was bold enough to put myself out there, to slow down and recognize that everyone else is lost too.
That’s not to say this is always the solution to your unrest, but it’s a start.
Over the years, I’ve come to learn that this paper represents all the good the world has to offer—all the great people, the great voices who are dying to be heard.
I’ve always led this paper with the vision that we’re the sounding board for everything you don’t have the ability to say; we’re the means through which your voice, opinions, concerns, and praises are heard.
With a publication such as this one, students have the ability to see the varied perspectives of people who live and believe differently than them, they’re able to learn new things about people they didn’t know anything about before, and they’re able to see the thousands of lives around them that they coexist with every day.
But most importantly, they’re able to understand their importance and, over time, value their existence.
Looking back, I don’t think this publication has ever been more important than it is right now. In a world where so many of us are rapidly losing our empathy and awareness for one another, this paper is the cornerstone of looking at our community and truly seeing it.
The Maroon and White just celebrated its 110th year—making it the oldest student-led newspaper in Tennessee. For over 100 years, we’ve been the beacon that has helped keep this campus more informed and well-connected. Its purpose continuously enables our freedom of speech: something so valuable to young people and a human right for us all.
It is my sincere hope that this legacy of emboldening one another to continue speaking on what matters and what is unspoken never waivers. That is the heart of student journalism and is something that can never be forgotten or taken from us—no matter how different the world looks 110 years from now.
In summation, I would like to thank every member of this staff who I have ever had the immense pleasure of working alongside: you are the spark that keeps this legacy burning for centuries.
Every year, I am inspired by your passion and dedication to your beliefs and motivation, and it gives me much solace knowing that this paper is being passed down into your ever-ardent hands.
I would also like to thank our advisor, Mariel Story, for being one of the most unyielding role models I’ve ever been lucky enough to know, let alone look up to.
Your strong guidance in ensuring we, alongside our peers, are always seen and heard, that our ideas are never looked down upon or disregarded, is something that I will always embody as I move into the next chapter of my life.
Thank you for instilling in me so much pride and joy for what I get to do—for trusting my vision no matter how demented or unhinged it may be.
As for you, I’m here to tell you that something is there for you everywhere, you just have to remind yourself to pay attention to it.
Thank you for your words of encouragement, for your willingness to support us, for simply holding the paper in your hands instead of throwing it away, and most of all, for your presence. Without you, this paper wouldn’t exist.
This is for you. About you. Because of you. For a better Tennessee High.
With all my love,
Hayden Arnett, Your Editor-in-Chief
