“The creation of a thousand acorns is in one acorn.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I thank peer pressure and an epic fantasy addiction for getting me to enroll in a Writopia afterschool program. Over the course of 3 years with my best friend, I wrote hundreds of disgusting pages of writing. To us the words were scripture, the characters loved ones in different faces, and the worlds were ours to rule.
By the age of 10 I knew who I was. By my senior year of high school, I lived, breathed, and dreamt of stories. In the middle of the night, I’d rush down the ladder of my bunk bed to frantically type all of my ideas on my laptop, like they were premonitions that would slip away in the heat of sleep.
I’ve learned now that every shred of plot I’ve written, minus the dragons and battle sequences, have somehow unfolded before me since I left for college. Does that make my writing prophetic, or does it mean that the pen was trying to tell me something?
“Let there exist for us not one single further sorrow.” - Sappho
In my freshman year at Cornell, I experienced the bravest thing I’ll ever see. On the day of its conception, more than a hundred of us linked arms in defense of this physical construction of our grievances, our rejection of the university’s role as accomplice, of its shady investments and lie of “institutional neutrality.” We were shield to the sword of justice that was the encampment, one that slashed through apathy of the administration and student body. It was our beacon, and for the first time, we were no longer in the dark.
“We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our greatest glory, and our greatest tragedy.” - George R. R. Martin
In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. argues that the greatest threat to liberation is not the actions of those who outright reject it, nor those who sit in the shadow of a political hot seat. Rather, it is those who opt for a negative peace, who choose order at the consequence of injustice, who place another’s person’s freedom on a timetable for convenience. This is the thinking that breaks a movement.
When I entered my sophomore year, I put a timetable on my dreams. I poured myself into notebook pages, made bonds I’ll keep for life, and left a part of myself behind in a desk on the Olin stacks where I had scribbled a lyric from Cole’s “Love Yourz.”
Today I find myself there by chance. It has been two years, and I wonder how much I have changed. Even more, I wonder if I went back, how much more of myself I’d lose in the process. Such is the double-edged sword of ambition: You can go very far just to realize you took the wrong turn.
"Show me your thorns and I'll show you hands ready to bleed." - Unknown
By my third year, I had watched a resistance, made some awesome friends (hopefully no enemies), waged war in a reading room, wondered if I should wave to people or not and became strangely athletic out of nowhere. Yet I no longer felt that childish high, the type that would compel me to dribble my fingers at a keyboard in a cold bookstore for hours.
“If I could gift wrap the globe I’d give you the world.” - J. Cole
Back home, I relay my love to one of my best friends in a tale of equivalent exchange: I share song lyrics and pages of reading, they share brownies and artwork and a striking drive to achieve their dreams I can only hope to emulate myself. I learn people are never truly absent because they leave you pieces of themselves, and I’ve gathered tons of pieces to build a mosaic that I hope I can share with everyone here.
“Go piss girl.” - Blair Waldorf, Gossip Girl
Why read this column? It’s a funny question that I, in truth, have no idea how to answer. Perhaps it is because I offer a valuable perspective among all of the spectacular writers in this section. To be honest, I spend more time reading their columns than writing my own! But perhaps that is the point: The medium of a newspaper section in which people espouse their thoughts not only enables people to listen, but inspires them to draw opinions of their own.
This had been the case with me. Last year, I met one of my greatest friends, who will surely read this article (hello, beautiful!). Her pieces on feminism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict inspired me to become an opinion columnist in the first place.
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” - Voltaire
The world is full of different narratives. My origin story as a writer was thanks to my best friend Eli who I still write with today. Everyone I’ve met has consequently made an impression upon me that I aspire to bring into this opinion column, where I will advocate first and foremost for humanity.
You may have noticed the quotes scattered throughout this piece. As a testament to the open discourse that the Opinions section is predicated upon, I decided to ask many of my friends a question: “What is your favorite quote in the entire world?”
“I just never thought I couldn’t.” - Lightning McQueen
“I love you more than I hate everything else.” - Rainbow Rowell
“Git gud.” - Hornet, Hollow Knight
The most we can learn is from each other, both through verse and between the lines. I will end this piece with my own quote, from a story that started my own, and one that has kept me going:
“Despite everything, it’s still you.” - Toby Fox, Undertale
P.S. I invite everyone to visit Desk 363 in the Olin stacks and write your favorite song lyric. Together we can create something magical.
Leah Badawi '27 is an Opinion Columnist and a Government and English student in the College of Arts & Sciences. She also serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Rainy Day Literary Magazine. Her fortnightly column “Leah Down The Law” reflects on politics, history, and broader culture in an attempt to tell stories that are often left between the lines. She can be reached at lbadawi@cornellsun.com.
