We are worse than we know. Though our experiences strain our flesh and leave our minds shot through with fear and loathing, at least these corruptions are immediately obvious. Glance at the mildest group of sophomores, and already the angry mark of ruin is upon them. A brief conversation with the most chaste and reverent freshman reeks audibly of vice and undirected, mindless rage. These flaws are terrible, yes, but at least they are easily detected. Not all of our shortcomings are so casually spotted.

This God-forsaken country and this blasted plain oppress us with their rude, untaught idiocy. When we were young, in Spokane, our days were better spent. Even now, through the alcoholic haze, the memories come bounding to me like newborn fawns. When one of our classmates was hit accidentally by a sprinkler’s spray, they had been “zapped,” and no one was allowed to speak to them about anything besides their shameful wetness. In the spring, we shaved our heads and eagerly awaited the news of the almond crop, which would determine how many of our number would survive to the next semester. And, if it was a good year, that summer we would eat pickled almonds while planning a successful campaign for junior postmaster.

How glad were our hearts then! When the nitric fumes that we mistook for the musk of romance hung heavy in the air, we pawed at one another, even if it were a weekday and we were in Rifle Camp. Not even the baleful glares and gleaming aluminum switches of the headmaster could arrest our enthusiastic groping.

Compare this ardor with the average student on campus: instead of eagerly chasing a wild turkey for miles in order to provide their beloved with an honorable Flag Day corsage, many of us cannot even be troubled to redirect our vomit away from their physical person.

Passion, not intellect, is the true student and school of experience. What logic can verify today it can verify a thousand years from now, when all our bones will be sheltered in a million pathetic museums and, hopefully, reliquaries. The heat of our blood alone can testify to the reality of today. If we lose it, then there is no reason to continue in this lunatic charade. Against this terrific destruction, I offer the following suggestions, capable of generating passion in the coldest of breasts.

Are you speaking to someone without actually listening to them? Ordinarily, the mind wanders to questions of buying cheap green tea and other illegal stimulants, but now may be the best time to slap them for no reason. Alternatively, try to embrace them, and when they reject you, sputter (in French) that you “thought that two hearts had finally learned to beat as one.”

Have you just finished writing a worthless analytic or research paper, in which you push around prescribed phrases like so many watermelon seeds on a plastic plate? Does the thought of putting pen to paper disgust you like nothing else? It may be best to put such feelings to use, and write a 10,000-line epic poem in which you attack our spiritually-bankrupt society (here “society” refers to thinly veiled caricatures of your more patient friends and professors). Words are the second-most difficult artistic medium to work with, after Venetian pipe cleaners, and so they will absorb all of your most superficial and trite emotions with ease.

We all sometimes look up at the night sky, awash in starlight, and know that this hand and this eye are insignificant on a cosmic scale. Instead of taking this as a sanction for listlessness and the study of molecular biology, try turning the infinitesimal trifle that is life into a flying scarlet rage. Instead of greeting classmates with a “sup” or a “how’s it going,” try to insult as much of their background as possible with three words. Your infernal vocabulary will surprise you with the depths of its resources. When assigned a set of problems, cover a sheaf of paper with expired brine and lotus petals, and throw it in your professor’s face. Try to fistfight any man or woman willing for the privilege of stealing President Bridges’ bike. Anything to make the blood flow.