Existential Nonchalance

The Willamette Collegian has been a big part of my life lately I guess.  The Op-Ed that was printed the week before mine made me, on a rather fundamental level, very angry.

Here are the important bits typed up from a newspaper clipping.  You may eventually be able to find the whole thing on the Collegian website when it updates, if you feel particularly pessimistic that day.

“College isn’t like real life.  It’s like a Looney Tunes version of real life.  Like practice.  We’re not talking about a game.  We’re talking about practice.  College is the transitional period between childhood and adulthood.  Right now, you are partially digested food.

… Here is what separates me from you, the graduated and the hopefully graduating:

Number One: I don’t have any friends.  I used to have friends.  People liked me.  Now, I’m lonely and sad.  No one lives down the hall; no one wants to hang out a four o’clock in the morning.  Friendship ends the day President Pelton reads your name and shakes your hand.  You might have a couple of friends, but they’re all going their separate ways, trying to blaze their own trails into the great unknown.  Everyone is a hell of a lot more interested in making sure they have a job tomorrow than they are in entertaining your immature whims.

…. Number Two: I don’t have any excuses left.  I ran out.  You know how when you do something dumb (like when you jump out a second story window with nothing but a football helmet on, get so drunk you puke in your roommate’s underwear drawer or steal a canoe from someone’s driveway just because you can) you can always write it off with the one golden little phrase:  “F*** it, I’m in college!”

… Number Three: I’m pathetic and sad, and probably in need of a reality check.  I can’t even hang out with college students any more.  It just makes me feel gross somehow.  In one summer, I’ve gone from King of Willamette (that title might be an exaggeration) to a creeper at Willamette.

…  The point I’m trying to get at here is that you really need to appreciate what you’ve got.  Your life is a ticking time bomb.  Soon enough, everything will be over, literally everything you know will be shattered and lost in a haze of unemployment and binge drinking.

… My life is filled with sadness and yours will be too.  Take this moment to appreciate all of your gifts because no matter what people tell you, I’m going to go ahead and give you permission to start dreading the future. …”

I … will not … become like that.  I have trouble articulating the primal “No!” that is rising out of much of my being.  There is such existential nonchalance here.  There is an ignorance of so much that is good, bright, and worthwhile.   Life may suck sometimes, I won’t deny that, but there is absolutely no reason to conclude that life ends when college does.

If you don’t have any friends, do something about it.  Try living a life without excuses.  If you’re pathetic and sad, try not just drowning your sorrows in a six-pack of beer; get off the couch, and do something meaningful with your life.

If you believe that the best times that you will ever have are in college, then I can see why you might think the good times are over. If you believe that life is about “getting,” not about “being,” then I can see how you could conclude that you aren’t getting enough stuff in the real world.

I can’t help but disagree.  Life is an adventure.  Every single day is epic.  There is a wild and dangerous excitement and purpose to it that, I am afraid, we can so easily miss.  One can miss it, like our Collegian author, in a stereotype-induced fantasy where life is all easy and “fun.”  Still others can miss it, I fear, in the haze of distractions that college has to offer.  Whatever the case, I just want to throw this one out there: there is more to life than college.