Dear Reader,
Not too long from now, the San Andreas Fault will cause a shitstorm of prodigious proportions—earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.—that will cosmically screw over millions and millions of people living in sunny California. The West Coast of the U.S. will drop off the edge of this flat world into the (ironically named) “Pacific” unknown. And there’s not too much we can do about that. Just, for the love of God, don’t live in L.A.
But not all faults are cause for such fear. I want to explore those less terrifying faults in these final words I write for Cipher—an epilogue to a notably inauspicious four years of writing and editing for the magazine.
Like many sentient graduating seniors, my impending departure from Colorado College has been cause to search for an echo of validation for spending four years and a lot of money here. The theme of this final issue has reminded me of one of the most important lessons I’ve learned at CC: how to look honestly at my own faults.
During my sophomore year, some CC acquaintances and I visited a high school friend of mine at the University of Denver. After my high school friend made one particularly lewd comment, a friend of mine from CC pulled me aside and asked incredulously, “Is that what you used to be like?”
In many ways, yes. I fancied myself a “good guy,” but didn’t go too far out of my way to be or do good. My general apathy applied to Cipher as much as it did to most other parts of my life. I spent the first 500 or so days of my tenure here unconvinced that working for the magazine held any inherent value—that is, any kind of transcendent, capital-V Value that that would go beyond tossing the experience on my resume. I stumbled through the first two years of my employment at Cipher writing vapid, lazy, and ignorant articles. But spending four years at CC offered me an opportunity to grow beyond that story and beyond who I used to be.
Here, I’ve met some of the most compassionate, empathetic people I’ve met anywhere. Bright, brave, people. Understated geniuses. People who devote more time and energy to those around them than they do to themselves. Years ago, a close friend eloquently captured the selflessness of many CC students. We were discussing a combative and rude friend of ours when my friend sighed and reminded me, “At the end of the day, everybody’s got their demons. You really can’t come at him with anything but compassion.”
Even small comments like this one helped me grow in a certain way. They forced me to reflect, and I don’t think you can grow without serious and exhaustive self-reflection. This manifested in Cipher as my decision to stop writing articles that literally parody CC students, and to start covering things that matter to me. Very slowly, I came to realize how writing and editing for the magazine teaches us new ways of thinking. Love letters, hate letters, drug deals, drug deals gone awry, arrests, job applications, explanations in job applications of why you got arrested, and so on: all of these require an adroit use of language and an ability to write. Cipher helps students do this.
I really tried to avoid getting cheesy and self-congratulatory in this letter, but it seems that I’ve failed. (One of the faults I’ve unearthed is what one might kindly call “excessive self-importance.”) To clarify, I’m very ready to leave CC. But that’s just because all good things must end, and if they don’t, they eventually become bad things.
So, enough of me. In the following pages, look forward to nine splendidly unique articles on all sorts of other faults. Read Kelan Nee’s brilliant article on the faults (and triumphs) of his hands—a reflection on his relationship with his father. Enjoy Sonya Padden’s dissection of the American psyche and Costcophilia. Skip my piece about the mistakes we’ve made addressing the issue of homelessness in America and how we can fix them (just kidding, read it, it’s important stuff). Learn about Title IX at CC in Noah Shuster and Anna Hill’s illuminating attempts to grapple with the contentious law.
It’s been a genuine privilege to work with the wordsmiths at Cipher, and the humans I’ve been around at CC. Now, Reader, I hope you enjoy the issue, and have a wonderful, excellent, no-bad, very good rest of your life.
Relax—it probably wasn’t your fault,
Andrew Braverman and the Cipher staff