I was told last week that if it wasn't sex, sports, parties or politics, anything I had to write about would go mostly unread.

"Stay away from the sophistical stuff," our educated populace doesn't want to read it.

Queue spit-take.

I can't say why this viewpoint exists, and I can't claim to be able to do anything about it. But hell, come on people -- doesn't reading the same mad-libbed article on alcohol or Democrats or textbooks get a little old? The same people have been participating in the same arguments on different days.

It gets stale, doesn't it? Doesn't it get worn out? Don't you get tired of mentally defending your position in the same way, about the same things?

Maybe the reason for it is laziness. "What's the most universal human characteristic -- fear or laziness?" I wonder which one holds more power over us as students, peers and intelligent beings. I wonder how many of us would like to admit to it.

Hey, I'm right there with you. I like picking fights I can win. If I pick the same topics to respond to, I have no opportunity to be made out to be a fool. I have practice, knowledge and voice.

A football player doesn't suddenly pick up a baseball bat and start swinging because he saw Barry Bonds wearing pads, right? Gangsters don't start working for Merrill Lynch the day after they saw Wall Street on TV, do they?

I bet some have tried, and some have succeeded. It might not be a big percentage, but a percentage point is a percentage point. Dreams are found in those two or three one-hundredths.

My opinion will always be more important to me, regardless of what I'm told. The things I write and the things I say all have a slight edge on anything anyone else wants to throw at me.

I am right to me. It shouldn't matter what I am talking about. "I am a college student" -- the infallible tagline to end any and all arguments.

At least it was 30 years ago.

The reality is that the truth of the matter will never be found in my opinion or your opinion, or even the opinion of the president of the fill-in-the-blank club. The truth is found in the desire to argue, explore and comprehend -- the desire to prove the other idiot wrong. It has nothing to do with opinions.

"The truth is in the contradictions," Francis Bacon, an 18th-century philosopher, might say.

Quit being lazy. Take the leap. Risk being wrong. Hold your ego out in front of you like a shield and step to the front lines. Complacently fighting the same battles will get you nowhere and nothing.

Actually, I take that back. It will get you another foot in the hardening concrete and a few more worry lines on your brow. I challenge you to explore new frontiers. Be your own Magellan, and instead of just trudging around the Mediterranean for years on end, set sail for the horizon. Your opinion matters just as much as anyone else's does. That is, it is just as useful as anyone else's opinion, regardless the topic.

Do not allow yourself to be pigeonholed into one topic or another because of extenuating circumstances.

As for me, I'm going to do my best to eschew the sex, sports, parties and politics. I am an intelligent and curious individual -- just like the rest of you -- and those things become the foundation for whatever it is I call myself.

I'm planting my feet and swinging the sledgehammer.

I suggest you do the same.