While I write this I find myself, as I often do, in the Doldrums. While it may be an old sailing term, I associate the landscape of the Doldrums with its fictional counterpart in the Lands Beyond from Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tollbooth.” It is a place one slips into when they lack direction and thought. A place where nothing happens and nothing ever changes, so killing time is the only thing to do. A place where boredom is all-consuming, and you can only help escape by literally just thinking.
This introduction may seem silly, and it is meant to be. After all, I happen to consider myself an expert on all things ridiculous. I have been a devout member of The Cavalier Daily’s Humor desk — which may be more aptly called a cult — for the past few years, and a proud proponent of slipping squirrel references into articles. But when one finds themselves without words, they must look for odd ways to move past the wall. So, to employ an actual tactic, I return to “The Phantom Tollbooth” and learn once again how to escape the Doldrums. Accordingly, to flee it, I grind the gears in my mind as hard as I can — I spit out the alphabet in reverse, think of insects that have two wings and ones that have four, sound the syllables in each of the continents and list the ingredients used to prepare vanilla flan. Having jump-started my thoughts, the words begin to tumble out and I start to exit the sticky sludge of the Doldrums.
Rewind four years. It is some day in September, and something exciting but terrifying is happening. Applications for The Cavalier Daily fall semester recruitment cycle are due, and six hours before the deadline, I had diddly squat. I had learned about the newspaper during that year’s virtual student activities fair and decided to apply to the Humor desk on an absolute whim. Unlike the other desks, Humor seemed at least somewhat relatable, so I went with it. But, now that the time had come to write, my typing fingers froze, and I unconsciously slipped into the Doldrums. Since all else had failed, I settled on a plan born from Juster’s writing to escape the Doldrums — pull everything around me into my brain. From this simple exercise emerged a sample piece that would later become my first article. I wrote it on the very subject that had been plaguing me — procrastination.
From then on, I fell into the Wonderland-esque rabbit hole that is The Cavalier Daily — a rabbit hole into an expansive world of journalistic independence. In a time where I found myself trapped within the confines of Brown Residential College’s tunnels, The Cavalier Daily provided me a space to challenge the boundaries of my imagination and sharpen my growing wit. And whenever I found myself staring out the window, slipping back into the Doldrums with a deadline on the horizon, I could always find inspiration in the hilarity of everything around me. I constructed insults in floriography, expounded on the universal truth that science is a green color and made lists of conventional writing subjects that I could twist out of proportion.
Roughly two years later, by pure chance after a text message from my editor, I found myself in the running for the Humor editor position. I cited “The Phantom Tollbooth” as my favorite novel in the speech to humanize myself. Somehow, I got the job. I immersed myself into A1 and Junior Board meetings, held desk meetings and edited articles, all the while still confusing the pronunciation of “synonym” with “cinnamon.” Enthusiasm for the job grew, and a dedication to all things humor expanded. I quickly learned the importance of the subjective sections, despite their seemingly small presence amongst other 20-plus desks. Subjective journalism serves as an outlet to speak on complex issues in a way that is anything but simple and connects with readers on a relatable and understandable level. Humor, in particular, has the ability to bring levity to reality through techniques that balance the creativity of rhyme with the rationality of reason. Within humor, the voice of the writer becomes the trunk for a branch of voices.
Along with all of this, I slowly grew out of the easy trappings of the Doldrums. In my own version of the Tollbooth realm, the place of daydreams slowly took up less of the map — replaced by the structure provided by The Cavalier Daily and the passion that grew from it. Slipping into the grip of procrastination became less of an eventuality and more of a choice.
Being a part of the Humor desk brought out my inclination towards creative writing despite my original intentions on being strictly a STEM major. I applied myself to prose writing and found myself keeping one toe in the English major and the other in Environmental Sciences. And while it may not seem so, being a subjective editor and writer has imparted me with more skills than one may realize. I have learned how to manage others, take critiques and deliver them, shape the mundane into the imaginative, crack jokes with ease, sharpen my wit and develop my editing skills from the ground up. But like many things, life is cyclical in nature, and I have often found myself returning to the Doldrums as I am today — killing time and dilly-dallying from dawn to dusk. And sometimes, that is okay. Sometimes.
I found rhyme and reason within The Cavalier Daily. So, as I leave the Doldrums and exit back through the Tollbooth into the real world, I can safely say these past four years with The Cavalier Daily have been spectacular. Over 100 humor pieces edited and 22 of my own published to this date, it has been an absolute pleasure. I have met and worked alongside exceptional people and learned more about the workings of journalism and subjective writing than I had ever thought possible.
To end with dramatics — if you ever find yourself stuck in the Doldrums, know that you are not alone. Look to your surroundings for escape. You will know the way out.
Camila Cohen Suárez was Humor Editor for the 133rd and 134th terms of The Cavalier Daily and a humor columnist during the 132nd and 135th terms.
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