On the Speech and Debate Team at Oxford Academy, I represent the school in Parliamentary

Debate and Lincoln-Douglass Debate competitions. I've written plays, short stories, and opinionated
blogs for my school's literary magazine, The Gluestick. I've put in more than 300 hours of volunteer
work at places like soup kitchens, libraries, and camps for kids with special needs. My SAT/ACT
composite score was much over the 99th percentile, per College Board data.

But I don't consider myself to be any of these. Never in a million years would anybody confuse me
for a student, a debater, or a writer. I consider myself a cynical punk rocker who is opposed to
nihilism. I did so after coming to terms with the following three facts:

1) The pajama-clad masses rule the globe. You may find a pair of pants that fits you well. You may
discover crisply pressed briefs for the businessman, casual cotton trousers for the average person
and hemp trousers for the eco-conscious. However, the trousers we wear not only tell others things
about us, but also influence our interactions with others in ways we might not even realise. For
instance, one of my fave pairs of trousers is completely ripped and threadbare, yet they are
surprisingly comfortable. Although trousers are relatively unimportant, whenever I wear my favourite
pair, I feel like I can take on the world. Clothes are the unsung heroes of our comfort and have a
profound effect on our identities.

The second is the moment I recognised I could never hope to fully understand the cosmos. I just
completed participating in the Orange County Speech League Tournament's Parliamentary Division.
Each side of a divisive political issue is allowed an hour to make its case. The question, "Should
Nation States eliminate nuclear arms?" was once put to me as part of a debate. Unfortunately, I was
given the task of defending the position that nuclear weapon production should continue worldwide.
During the course of the discussion, I had a strange realisation: we are the only known species that
spends so much of its existence trying to prevent its own extinction. In addition, I recognised that this
lecture had illuminated a topic that was considerably bigger than the whole total of human history. I
was standing before hundreds of fellow debaters and a cheering audience, but all I could think about
was the nuclear weapon that was being made someplace at that exact time to contribute to the ever-
growing arsenal of dread. Regardless, I came out on top in the competition. That's when I
recognised there was no way I could ever understand the way the world works.

Thirdly, when I found I liked punk music while being a philosopher. One night in the summer, a friend
took me to a hidden venue playing hardcore punk music. The setting was a long-abandoned church.
I was immediately accepted into this group once the event concluded. Many of them didn't have blue
Mohawks or nose piercings like I did, and they seemed perpetually lost. There were a lot of average
people there having conversations about Nietzsche, string theory, and political philosophy. Sticker
slogans and other advertising artwork were created by hand by many of these people, who were
also skilled artists. All around my age, they pulled off something truly remarkable by playing to empty
churches, recording their own CDs, and making thousands of buttons to distribute as promotional
materials. When I finally got it, I realised that punk rock isn't about the music or some guy with a blue
Mohawk screaming insults. The punk rock lifestyle is as important as the music itself. The result is
counterintuitive. It means committing one's all effort, energy, and resources to a team's success. At
this point, I began to see myself as a punk rock philosopher.