Over the winter break, I caught a strange case of nihilism. It was an inertia, stuck between the gravity of unfulfilled dreams, and a future that I may never create. I tried to find a reprieve in hope, a hope that I could one day move beyond my current, unimpressive self. But, sometimes we have to disavow hope in order for our days to pile up into progress.
A past Editor once said that reading Honi is taking part in a “collective delusion.”
For people who do not read Honi, it may all seem frivolous. However, for us who share this community — the nine other people who I share the editorship with, our treasured contributors, and our readers who pick up the paper off the stands — it is a world in itself. A space built by students, wide-eyed and self-serious, hoping to find somewhere to dream and grumble.
In sharing these spaces with other people, we forget the worlds which exist outside the narrow frames of reference we live through. Though it is wise to keep an open-mind, there are times we should live in the warmth around us.
This edition, like any other, is a record of the strange, horrifying, and beautiful time we live in. I wrote the feature (p. 14) on unpaid student placements to shed light on what the cost of living crisis means for young people. Khanh Tran exposes the flaws in superficial university rankings (p. 8) and Ben C reminds us that young people can make change (p. 10). We look back, as Angus McGregor busts myths about Sydney’s history (p. 16), and Nicola Brayan asks us how we consider “time” in the first place (p. 12).
I often find myself thinking about time, and with Honi, legacy — to write and edit is to partake in a storied history of students dreaming above and beyond, telling the tales of people who are forgotten. When I’m in the right place, I realise I’m seeing it wrong. It’s always been about love, and that’s what keeps me, and this paper, alive.
