Winner of The Attention Contest

The winner of The Attention Contest is Lukeout. I have edited his piece and republished it below. I gave it a heavy edit, but no more than a magazine editor would do for an unknown writer. I found the piece to be interesting, inspiring, and to the point. That's rare.

You probably wonder why I didn't pick one of the entries that had far more reader votes. I rejected bathroom humor, anything that seemed dated, anything that seemed familiar (derivative), and anything that couldn't be brought ...