I want to write an article for Commentary. But what can I even write about? Certainly, it must be unique. So what does life usually look like for a high schooler? Breaking up with your boyfriend because it’s too hard to find time to be together alone. Being on the cusp of a four in math. Telling the Sykes counselor your mental health has never been worse, just like the three other students who were in here before. Constantly wondering if you’ll get into Harvard, when you haven’t done undergraduate-level research yet. High schoolers must have more on their minds than dating, grades, mental health, and university. But leafing through the weekly Commentary Section on The Phillipian simply creates the image that we don’t. Week over week, we’ve been reworking the same themes, trying to shed our perspectives onto it, even though we’re no Socrates. Looking through my old pieces, it seems I’ve written about being sad or being not enough so many times that it permeates even articles not focused on those topics. As seasoned writers fall into this trap, what can be said about new writers? Are the minds of the youngest class at Andover already tainted by looming struggles? More importantly, what these articles are inevitably amounting to is the death of Commentary.
The opinions that we write are often based on what we are, or aren’t, receiving in our lives. With that, companionship and love are required aspects of a functional life. Without affirmation from peers, family, or maybe even a partner, students can especially fall prey to negative thoughts. This is expressed in numerous articles from grades 9 through 12 in The Phillipian’s Commentary section. The purpose of writing for the Commentary section is to produce content born of students’ charged opinions. When done well, an opinion article is meant to spark debate or intellectual stimulation, encouraging Andover students to pick up the newspaper every Friday. What looking through The Phillipian has become is instead a reiteration that Andover students are too sad, too performative; the conclusion is rather that our thoughts are too similar. Recently, an article I wrote, “Feeling Blue? Blow Out The Candles!” covered the infamous birthday blues. While that specific phenomenon hadn’t been recently written about, it reads like another of the many latest articles on loneliness.
Of course, taking inspiration is inevitable. The editors of the Commentary sections– and any newspaper aficionado- will tell you that to learn how to write a piece, you must study them intensely. Yet, it often seems that a few weeks after publishing a work, another one will arise, framing the same questions, and offering the same answers. Rather than simply relying on inspiration, however, a greater problem exists that causes our creative output to be similar. Writers are forgetting how to be observers.
Intersectionality is a foundation of creative output. It is not solely the fact that the narrator has never had organic interactions with men in Jacqueline Harpman’s “I Who Have Never Known Men,” but rather the significance of being a stranger to humanity itself. Thought-provoking literature, as well as essays, attempt to stretch a surface-level concept into a spiral of outcomes and specificity. But what we’re lacking is an ability to intersect topics such as loneliness and love with others. In a previous article, “We’re Just Chameleons,” my words missed the mark and didn’t create an argumentative or controversial point for the reader to think on. Instead of arguing for the importance of romance at Andover, we could instead be exploring how revived interest in traditional courtship can bring back toxic relationship dynamics, and their reflections in one’s life as a student. To find these things, writers must become observers. Notice the consequences of the day-to-day Andover student struggles. Consider carefully the methods we use to escape our distress. Take a deep dive into how our small, teenage problems are a microcosm of issues in society. As a prospective Commentary writer, it is key to spend far much more time observing, than actually writing about a topic. The faces of Andover are what we tend to write about, after all.
Crocs are in crisis: if you’re on the Commentary email list, you’ve likely seen the heavy reminders about reused topics in the section. Yet, if teenagers are struggling to develop distinct output, the section suffers too. As writers, when crafting our weekly opinions, we must consider the scope of our pieces. Are we truly offering particular insights, or generalized thoughts on the happenings in the lives of practically every student on campus? No doubt, it is difficult to constantly generate distinct thoughts. But the future of the section is at stake; it’s time to start thinking deeper. The moment has come to shift from writer to observer and formulate opinions by critically analyzing what’s in front of us.
