As I sit at the Union writing this column, I think back on all the columns I have written. My column topics ranged from political to spiritual aspects of this world. Whether you agreed with what I said isn’t what I write for. I write to challenge you, I write for hope for a better world, but, most of all, I write because it frees my mind and spirit.

I always wonder whether my words have any great meaning for my readers, but I guess I have to leave that for history. Words transcend history. For those of you who read my columns every week, I thank you and I am glad for our friendship united through words. For those of you finding my words for the first time, I hope they entice you.

My name is David Busch. I both do and don’t care what you think about me. This is my last column, and I believe I have something to say. “Speak from the heart,” I tell myself.

When I walk outside I breathe in the cool air of Bowling Green. It is fresh, like biting into a fall apple. I think about how lucky I am to be born in the United States. To be born here is a gift, a gift we are supposed to share with the world, not be spoiled in comfort.

Every morning I like to have a cup of coffee and read The New York Times. I read about the devastation of war in Iraq, the genocide in Darfur, the world’s AIDS crisis and all its hunger and suffering. With globalization comes awareness of everything happening around the world. I always feel overwhelmed and feel the pain of each individual. We live in a dichotomous world. A world in which half of us live in comfort and ease and the other half lives in pain and struggling. We find history repeating itself over and over.

And so this is where the individual comes in. This is where you come in.

Over the years, there has been a revolution waiting to ignite. A revolution of irresistible proportions.

Even though I have my many, many soap boxes with our current state of government here, I am not talking about a revolution of politics. I am talking about a revolution of the mind and spirit. I am talking about a revolution that comes from the inside and enables each one of us understanding of the poor on the street to the extremely rich on Wall Street.

I am talking about a revolution that doesn’t look at the world as separate puzzle pieces but as something completely one. It is a revolution of the senses through how the mind interprets and how the spirit feels. A revolution that brings back the power of imagination.

In this world, in our own society, we tend to forget that we are all one. We are one as we experience suffering: losing a loved one or struggling to put a meal on the table.

As a world community, we all have the same basic emotions. The girl who broke up with her longtime boyfriend in South America goes through the same emotions as the all-American girl from Alabama. Just as the stock broker tries to put in words what love is to his wife, the same struggle happens for the man on welfare. How do you put love in words? Every human, no matter what your status is, struggles with this.

Is my life more deserving than the innocent child making $1 a day? No. The poor children in China have the same passions as a child in America. The child from China has hopes of finding happiness, whether through raising a family or being comfortable just as the American child does. Whether we are rich or we are poor, colored or white, we all still cry, laugh and get angry. As a world community, as a human community, we are all trying to understand what this life is about and we react through our emotions.

We are all connected. We are all one organism, and an organism at war with itself will never win.

Am I asking you to do something? Yes, I am asking you to think, to feel, to live. I am asking you to think about your position in this life.

When you go to class and turn on your iPod, think about shutting it off and enjoying the simple nature outside.

When you put on a shirt made by Nike or a corporate brand, think about the innocent person who had to sweat and bleed to make it. Let that thought come into your mind and your spirit. It is not prayer, it is feeling.

Walking by a bum on the street, typically someone would think, “What a waste.” But we need to understand where this person comes from and what struggles this person has faced before any judgment can be made.

When you walk into your classroom and zone out, instead of watching the clock tick away your life, breathe in, enjoy this moment that you are here and take in the knowledge that you are present. We forget the power of education because we have always been taught that learning is work rather than water for the soul. When you are told something, don’t just accept it, dig for something deeper. Something you believe is the truth. Life is this long struggle to find and understand truth.

Before we can ask for peace in the world, before we can ask for grand change, we have to ask for peace within ourselves. It is up to us to immerse ourselves in knowledge of the truth, human essence and love to become completely aware of this world. Norman Vincent Peale, author and Protestant preacher, once said, “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” It isn’t about changing everything about this world; it is changing the world around you. To shatter and break down the world that each of us inhabits.

I am off to start a new chapter in my life. A chapter that may take me on a journey across this world. I am off to discover what it means to be a worldly citizen. What it means to be part of a community but to still have a burning desire that makes you stand out individually. I am giving my life up now, the comfortable one that I live here in search for truth. I am off to find out what it means to imagine ” imagine a world filled with truth, desire and love. Is this possible? This is my leap of faith. You can call this faith in God, faith in love, faith in people. I believe it is faith in imagination.

And I hope you, my reader, my newfound friend, will wish me luck. I wish you luck as well. I wish you luck as you search for your dreams and desires for your life. I wish you luck as you search for love and a matching soul. I wish you luck as you passionately delve into your spirit to find what it means to be human.

I hope when you walk away from this paper that the sun and blue skies look a little bit brighter, that the birds flying south teach us what freedom is, and that, no matter what you do, no matter what your passion is, that you can make change to this world. Just look inside the mind and spirit to imagine.