Malachi Mungoshi
Viewpoints Editor
I’ve stopped reading news headlines. Especially anything to do with politics. Especially American news. I’ve stopped arguing with white people. Especially online. Especially cishet men. I’ve also stopped trying to listen to new music. I’ve been listening to the same music for the past two years. And, I’m pretty happy with it. The point I’m trying to make is that life is really short. Painstakingly short. And yeah, I want to make the world a better place. Part of that process, for me at least, entails viewing everyone as human and important and worthy of love. I remember when I was very young, I read this fact about how 3% of people dream in color (that’s actually extremely inaccurate by the way). I thought to myself, “I hope I dream in color.” And I’d wake up and try really hard to remember if I had seen any color in my dreams. I still do that; sometimes I know for a fact that I picked up some reds, or greens or something… and other times, I have no idea at all.
I guess dreaming in color is like seeing the world through a specific lens. Like that feeling you get when someone tells you life-changing good news, or when you hear a truly infectious laugh. I feel like we are starting to dream in black and white. Wooster is bad, being gay is good, being Christian is bad, etc. So many people live to break down binaries, but are creating all sorts of binaries themselves. Which I find weird. Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of “so-and-so is a bad person because…” To qualify something as bad is to rid it of any chance of redemption. A bad apple can’t suddenly be fresh again. It’s to place someone in the same boxes that so many people have been claiming to want to eradicate. When I think of it in this way, it kinda makes me sad. The same way I get sad whenever I feel like I haven’t dreamt in color in a while.
So I hope everyone gets a chance to dream in color. To engage in activities, people, places, that truly feed their soul. I know that not everybody is more “good” than they are “bad,” but they’re still human. Naive? Sure, I guess so. I don’t know. I second-guess myself often. But I have hope. I know hurt, I know hate. I just hope we choose love.