#VoxPopuli | From the tiniest cracks
by Micah Salazar
The quest for truth is accompanied by a growing awareness of the devaluation of the esteem for the role and status not only of journalists but also of teachers and young people. Accelerated globalization, fueled by technology and a combination of economic and political forces, all impact society’s perception of truth. The resulting challenges for critical thinking and positive action are becoming increasingly complex. What can a PSHS scholar do?
In the ground beneath you is life: nimble-legged, dirt-digging, abundant forms of life. Years of construction and industry have covered much of what we see of the soil where they dwell, but moments through those tiny cracks reveal their sprightly and simple existence. Except, it’s not so simple: for instance, ants live in highly complex societies building kingdoms out of leaves and mud, fighting wars of conquest and survival, with specialized roles for different ant types. This is but one of the many details we often overlook about the world as we try to go about our bulky, mundane lives. That’s the thing, though — reality is often easy to miss.
Consider this: ants are like the truth. We only rarely notice them in their esse, but they are still there, living in the memory of the earth and changing its face mandible by mandible. Yet as we go about our days, we forget them. We’re so busy negotiating our march through time that we barely save enough of it to look down and see how atrociously we have trampled these creatures that run the world. To our eyes, they are expendable. We pick and choose which ants we care about. But if reality were a place, then it would be battered and beaten: a realm of ants that, although unspoken, demands you to see and hear it anyway. In the end, we are made to ignore the existence of ants because we end up thinking that they are not all that significant in the life we have. This begs the question: What truth is there to be told by the ants?
Well, it is that the only constant in life is change. Even in small ways, our experience of the world is a collective mound of transition and evolution. Every new technology, breakthrough, or broadcast is proof of that. But, not all of us are ready to change with the world. Some of us don’t even notice that it does. Some even act with malice in mind. Soon enough, our vision tunnels in this landscape we’ve made so unfamiliar. We become disconnected from each other. We lose sight of what makes us alike and become incapable of reaching out a hand to others who only want to learn our world. Worse, we stray away from those who are different from us in identity and ideology. Just as we trample ants in the bustle of life, we trample on the chance to create something good from the multitude of changes happening around us. It doesn’t really matter how it happens — corrupt politics, pop culture trends, exploitative industries, anything. Whether or not we mean to, the truth gets downtrodden and reality aches.
The ants and we are somewhat the same. We, too, are nimble-legged, dirt-digging, abundant creatures in some lonely land making sense of the chaos that we hurtle onto each other. Unlike ants, however, we are afraid.
Fear is the dust that muddles all perceptions of the truth. Suddenly, everyone is our enemy and our agencies and freedoms are being threatened. We lose any semblance of trust until we lose trust in ourselves. The moment we find a trace of hope in something, regardless of reality, we latch onto it because we think that this somehow makes our actions have meaning against the truth of change. This is the root of divisiveness: just as how sand muffles noise, upholders and educators of truth in society are doubted and buried away in animosity. People often say that progressive thought is pushed back because things won’t change. Perhaps what they really mean is that they have been so used to the chaos of dysfunction, that doing something to slightly change things for the better won’t be enough to matter. Besides, what does it count to be true when people are so afraid of change? What does our voice do when the people we’re fighting for are against us?
Scholars of PSHS have always fought for the truth even if it cost their lives. In times when the country needed voices to speak against oppression and abuse of power, we rose up time and time again, enlightened, to stand up for what we thought was right. Even if it meant being alone, even if it meant becoming martyrs, it is in our history and truth to fight for what we believe in. In our time in PSHS, we realize that despite everything, trusting in hope is how we begin to find the answer. Hope does not die, nor is it destroyed; it simply changes form or moves from place to place, or across time, because hope matters. In it, we find a place to run for us to think critically, a place to land for us to act positively. We find reality.
We may get trampled on, but even if we are impaired by those who fear our voices, hope will live on in the next generation of PSHS scholars. Hope is alive in every student admitted to this school, in every student who learns to change and see the reality of life: that no matter how small, good things matter, and the things that matter are things that last. This lives in using science and technology for the betterment of our local communities, using our education to write the truth, and using our platform to help mobilize and amplify the voices of the marginalized and be their allies. When all is said and done, trust is how truth prevails — and in being connected, we are free.
Perceptions of the truth may always falter, but reality is something that cannot be changed or erased. Our voices will not be forgotten, because people will always remember — ants will emerge from the tiniest cracks. Together, they build castles and fight to live. Imagine what we could do. After all, we are the ants. We are the truth. Every single one of us is significant. Every single one of us has something to change in the world.
*This was the winning essay for this school year’s Grade 12 Humanities Festival Essay Writing Contest.
