One love; together for a better future
Shea Pedersen
Issue date: 1/21/09 Section: Forum
It is fortunate that teenagers have started to become politically savvy again. Although we may not know what we are talking about half the time, this shows that we have started turning our views outward instead of focusing on our own instant benefit which is quite an important thing to do in life.
Jared Muscat is honestly one of the most politically concerned citizens one could ever know, and he is actually incredibly informed. When you first meet him, the weather is the last thing conversed. Instead, Jared talks about how hopeful he is of America's future with Obama and how he is slightly ashamed to tell people that he is from California ever since Proposition 8 failed to pass - he even wears a rainbow belt to show his support.
Awareness in the environmental sense is one of the biggest things Jared Muscat strives for, though. He believes that an honest understanding of the harmful effects people are causing is the only way individuals will be influenced enough to change their patterns of life, claiming that the only way to acquire this understanding is through a deeper engagement with the events/happenings which surround us. He has realized that finding a meaningful hobby or a way to immerse ones self in nature will typically cause a person to be willing to do whatever he can to help improve the quality of all life. Just watching An Inconvenient Truth, for example, isn't going to strike a deep enough cord.
"Sadly, a large majority of people view spending time outdoors as playing a game of pick-up football. This is something I used to do every weekend too, until I found myself surfing, and from then on I couldn't detach myself from the ocean or anything else related," Jared says.
And even though living green and becoming one with nature may seem to be the type of thing easier preached than done, it is actually one of the most rewarding things to practice.
At UC San Diego, where Jared currently attends, he works on an urban farm where he gets to meet people from all different backgrounds who are just as passionate as he is about the environment.
Jared Muscat is honestly one of the most politically concerned citizens one could ever know, and he is actually incredibly informed. When you first meet him, the weather is the last thing conversed. Instead, Jared talks about how hopeful he is of America's future with Obama and how he is slightly ashamed to tell people that he is from California ever since Proposition 8 failed to pass - he even wears a rainbow belt to show his support.
Awareness in the environmental sense is one of the biggest things Jared Muscat strives for, though. He believes that an honest understanding of the harmful effects people are causing is the only way individuals will be influenced enough to change their patterns of life, claiming that the only way to acquire this understanding is through a deeper engagement with the events/happenings which surround us. He has realized that finding a meaningful hobby or a way to immerse ones self in nature will typically cause a person to be willing to do whatever he can to help improve the quality of all life. Just watching An Inconvenient Truth, for example, isn't going to strike a deep enough cord.
"Sadly, a large majority of people view spending time outdoors as playing a game of pick-up football. This is something I used to do every weekend too, until I found myself surfing, and from then on I couldn't detach myself from the ocean or anything else related," Jared says.
And even though living green and becoming one with nature may seem to be the type of thing easier preached than done, it is actually one of the most rewarding things to practice.
At UC San Diego, where Jared currently attends, he works on an urban farm where he gets to meet people from all different backgrounds who are just as passionate as he is about the environment.
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