Loneliness is a widespread problem that many students experience, yet most keep to themselves, typically because it is perceived as a weakness. To acknowledge that you are lonely is often seen as admitting failure when everyone else appears to be thriving. But staying silent only intensifies the situation.

If I hear one more person groan when the words “Taylor Swift” are uttered, as if her existence is an assault on their eardrums, I might just lose it. But here’s the thing: the people who canonize her as if she’s the sole beacon of light guiding humanity? Also crazy. Neither blind devotion nor knee-jerk disdain is interesting.

As a student busy with academics, extracurriculars, work and various other things, it is easy to see cooking as a chore and choose a meal plan or eat out. However, the perception that cooking is a chore prevents students from realizing the benefits of a home-cooked meal.

We’re not here to tell you what to think or believe. We’re here to help you find truth in and make sense of the ocean of information your brain is drowning in daily. Truth is always worth seeking, even if it isn’t always what you want to hear — and that truth can’t survive without journalism.

The top priority is understanding that it takes courage to speak up in a government-created society of censorship. Cancel culture is not doing anyone favors. Stand firm in your opinion and be loud in your delivery, and as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

I’m slowly learning that hobbies don’t owe me anything — not content, not income and not a line on my resume. They’re supposed to give, not take. Maybe the best thing a college student can do right now is to keep something private and useless — read a book you’ll never post about, dance in a dorm room with no camera on, paint a banner that no one pays for. Joy doesn’t need a price tag to matter.