Requiem for a youth
Confessions of a student journalist conclusion
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
—George Bernard Shaw
I left The Peak in April 2002, almost a decade after I first walked in the door in September 1992. At long last I had graduated from Simon Fraser University with that most prestigious of degrees, the Bachelor of Arts. And without my ever meaning them to, my late teens had insidiously transmogrified into my late twenties.
Alas, The Peak swallowed up my youth almost whole. At this moment I can feel my bones becoming brittle and the sclerotic talons of dementia sinking into my brain. Soon—very soon now—I will be 30, and the darkness will be upon me.
And, like any convict standing before the gallows of destiny, I find myself asking that fateful question:
What have I done? Oh, sweet Mary mother of baby Jesus up in heaven, what have I done?!
Looking back across my epic career in undergraduate student journalism, I have no choice but to confess a wide range of immature and sinful acts.
Yes, I flouted journalistic convention every step of the way. I employed dubious language and questionable subject matter. Time and time again I arrogantly assumed that the reading public would care about trivial details of my personal life, and enraged many when I was usually proven correct. I fought tooth and nail for the right to be what I am: an irrepressible loudmouth. And I antagonized campus radicals and religious conservatives for the sheer hell of it.
Yes, I did all of these things and more, I was wrong, and I am very, very sorry. And I can only hope that, in the same way that a drunk feels better after a nice long vomit, the act of compiling this book will forever purge these antisocial tendencies from my being.
Even as I type this loathsome denouement, I sense the sophomoric slime of a long decade’s wallow oozing out of my pores and onto these pages, purifying my soul, leaving me cleansed to go on and write an enlightened work of mature and pompous import. Perhaps something inspirational about the hardships faced by several generations of a struggling immigrant family. Yeah, the public just eats up that shit.
But I digress. In keeping with the highest journalistic standards, this book has been unabashedly subjective, shamelessly sensational, gloriously one-sided, and replete with savage ad hominem attacks on anonymous people. But it is, nonetheless, the truth as I see it—subject, as all truths must be, to a bit of editing.
I’m sure that any number of my old adversaries would be happy to tell you that I was in fact the evil one at The Peak, and that I had to be persecuted for the good of humanity. And who knows, perhaps they were right. If you wish, feel free to think of this as a book with no protagonists—merely a series of gory dogfights told from the perspective of one dog who wasn’t necessarily the best, but certainly lasted the longest, and also writes books.
Like any wizened old sage, I would be remiss if I didn’t fling about a few pearls of wisdom before shuffling off into the night. So gather round, yon next generation, and listen—or at least look like you are listening, to humour me.
Yes, kids, my shamefully long stint at The Peak taught me some crucial lessons about life on this planet.
It showed me that all wavelengths in the political spectrum are corrupt beyond redemption, because of the fundamental greed, malevolence, hypocrisy, and incompetence of the human condition. It revealed the inner peace and spiritual balance that comes from disliking everybody equally. It showed me the crucial importance of media mind control in day-to-day life.
And it taught me that those who dare oppose the powers that be, even in an environment as small and seemingly inconsequential as a student newspaper, write themselves a perpetually-refilling prescription for humiliation and pain.
But hey, you gotta fight. Illegitimis non carborundum, eh? And you gotta laugh.
Dear reader, we have reached the end of my first book. But don’t weep, for there is more Wasting My Youth zaniness on the way. Stay tuned for the blockbuster sequels—Wasting My Youth Abroad and Wasting My Youth In Bed—coming soon to a clearance bin near you!
Until then, I’d like to leave you with an excerpt from the final article I wrote as a student journalist, in which I fondly summed up the experience of working at The Peak in the early 21st century:
Be warned. When you walk into The Peak, you wade up to your eyes in an open sewer teeming with piranhas that have evolved to live and breathe in a pool of bile and vomit. They fly the banner of free speech and diversity of ideas, but in truth they’re petty neo-fascists who devote most of their time to slandering and silencing those who don’t share their ideologies. If your vision is alternative to the designated alternative, you will be attacked. Your persecution will be directly proportional to your popularity. Welcome to communism.
On second thought, perhaps I’ll leave you with something else. Alas, the above selection might give you the impression that I left The Peak a bitter and jaded man—and believe me, nothing could be further from the false.
So instead, here’s a different excerpt from the same article:
Depending on my mood, my memories of The Peak wildly differ. When I’m feeling good, I fondly look back over my insanely long career at this paper, and I recall the friendships, the laughs at 3 a.m. while we were struggling to finish the paper, and those brief shining moments when The Peak did something right for a change.
Then I have my dark times, like now, when I recall how The Peak caused me so much pain, and I look back on all the treachery, the back-stabbing, the blood, the tears and the utter, unadulterated bullshit I’ve been marinating in for all these years, and I wonder if perhaps I’ve wasted my youth after all. I suppose only time will tell.
But two things I know: The Peak taught a shy small-town kid how to write, and how to fight. And my Peak writing is something I will always be proud of.
Hmmm. This is certainly better—perhaps even a touch inspirational—but dammit, it’s still a bit too bitter and jaded for my purposes. Maybe I should go with a completely random and silly ending, then. How about this?
Today you’ll be attacked by a cow, but don’t worry—you’ll only be grazed.
Eureka! Go now, and dance in the streets! I command it! •
Completed in 2004 as the last chapter in the Wasting My Youth book. The announced sequels Wasting My Youth Abroad and Wasting My Youth In Bed have since been, thankfully, abandoned.
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