If you’ve picked up a copy of the Tam News this year and thumbed your way to the opinion section, there’s a good chance that you’ve seen my name beneath a cartoon rendering of myself, created by the incredibly talented Cassie Jeong. Perhaps you even stopped long enough to glance at the multitude of words I’ve written.

Last August, I became irritated with the hypocrisy surrounding the double standards of celebrity sexualization and the disgusting nature of songs that perpetuate rape culture. This irritation manifested in the wake of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke’s performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. The next month, though, I was again irked: people complaining about political correctness. By that point, I realized that I could commit to an ongoing column dedicated to exploring tough issues in our culture. I’ve had a lot of opinions, some of which may have made sense to you, while others perhaps less so.

Maybe you think I’m obnoxious, over-sensitive, or worst of all, not funny in the slightest. It’s really up to you, I suppose. Opinions, as long as they don’t threaten someone else’s rights or fundamental existence, should be respected.

But now, in this last issue of the school year, I’m not here to write about a wrong. Yes, I can talk about other things; I’m actually such an optimist and despise being angry. (That said, there are some things that are worth getting angry about.) No, the point here, is to not take my word, or any one person’s word as a firm standard for anything. Mine is but one voice. I’m not going to say that I don’t want you to ignore my opinions, because I do believe that I’ve done my best to communicate in a coherent and accessible manner on topics that I generally have some authority to speak out on.

But the world is an incredibly multi-faceted place, full of incredibly multi-faceted people with incredibly multi-faceted opinions. Even when you zoom in on individuals within specific minority groups to see what their opinions are on pertinent issues (which is my recommendation for staying informed on these sorts of things), you won’t get the same answer every time. Navigating what suddenly seems like an ocean of differing opinions can be very overwhelming. So that’s where it becomes up to you, dear reader, to piece together some semblance of a stance of your own.

An awareness of the various intricacies of the more complex issues (i.e. mainstream use of the word “queer,” cultural appropriation versus cultural exchanges, affirmative action, etc.) is absolutely vital to participating in informed discussion. And this diversity in referential ideas can only be obtained with a broad array of differing ideas.