Some Carpe Diem Prose
"Over the course of the past few months, this campus has experienced more loss than any of us could have predicted. The names of those who are gone might not take up much space on paper, but what they meant and continue to mean goes far beyond those limits. We have lost friends, teachers, brothers, daughters, sisters, sons. We have lost their smiles, their sympathy, their patient ears and their deepest thoughts.
We fear death, but I doubt sometimes that we respect it. It becomes something we joke about, a flippant alternative to writing a ten-page paper. To the mind of young America, all is satire and sarcasm. Mortality, family, friendship, God: the foundational issues of existence are turned into casual lunchtime witticisms, chewed up and spit back out more thoroughly than the food that fills the space between one-liners. Our worldview is scoffed at while we reserve seriousness for occasions involving money and petty personal issues. Is this just because we take such basic ideas for granted? For when death appears in our midst, we are quick to grieve and quick to comfort. Suddenly the harsh reality we’ve done so much to separate ourselves from isn’t quite so far away. No longer can we hide behind our security fences and heap irreverent slander on the inevitable goodbye that we all must say to this world. The pain begins to wane eventually, though, and we watch those most affected continue their silent mourning from a rediscovered emotional distance. Their approach renders conversation stilted and measured, for we are forced to think before we speak, to choke back the suicide jokes and purposelessly spiteful words that normally flow so freely.
This is no invitation to mourn, not a call to live timidly in the constant expectation of death’s presence. The tragedy in the deaths that have touched this university is the life lost, the years that could have been. But the true insult to those who have passed on would be to neglect our own lives, to disregard the rapid succession of choices and actions that dictate our existence. I stare off into space listening to an album I’ve heard a hundred times before, and an hour is gone. Nights disappear as the credits roll for movies I never even intended to start watching. All the while minutes that we will never see again are slipping away. One more sunrise goes unacknowledged, one more afternoon sacrificed to apathy.
I cannot think life is meant to be used so recklessly, slipped into our pocket next to a cell phone and a credit card as we prepare for another day. Go to bed at 4:30 and sleep away half of the next day if you must, but occupy those wee hours with things you will mean something the next morning. Will our minds recall the nights spent rehashing the easy conversations, repeating the obvious observations? Do we value friendship enough to fight its stagnation, to discuss those things that define us instead of the colors that define our wardrobes?
Death made itself known this winter. May our lives henceforth be lived as a fitting eulogy for the friends that are gone, so that our dying words might resound with thankfulness and not regret."
We fear death, but I doubt sometimes that we respect it. It becomes something we joke about, a flippant alternative to writing a ten-page paper. To the mind of young America, all is satire and sarcasm. Mortality, family, friendship, God: the foundational issues of existence are turned into casual lunchtime witticisms, chewed up and spit back out more thoroughly than the food that fills the space between one-liners. Our worldview is scoffed at while we reserve seriousness for occasions involving money and petty personal issues. Is this just because we take such basic ideas for granted? For when death appears in our midst, we are quick to grieve and quick to comfort. Suddenly the harsh reality we’ve done so much to separate ourselves from isn’t quite so far away. No longer can we hide behind our security fences and heap irreverent slander on the inevitable goodbye that we all must say to this world. The pain begins to wane eventually, though, and we watch those most affected continue their silent mourning from a rediscovered emotional distance. Their approach renders conversation stilted and measured, for we are forced to think before we speak, to choke back the suicide jokes and purposelessly spiteful words that normally flow so freely.
This is no invitation to mourn, not a call to live timidly in the constant expectation of death’s presence. The tragedy in the deaths that have touched this university is the life lost, the years that could have been. But the true insult to those who have passed on would be to neglect our own lives, to disregard the rapid succession of choices and actions that dictate our existence. I stare off into space listening to an album I’ve heard a hundred times before, and an hour is gone. Nights disappear as the credits roll for movies I never even intended to start watching. All the while minutes that we will never see again are slipping away. One more sunrise goes unacknowledged, one more afternoon sacrificed to apathy.
I cannot think life is meant to be used so recklessly, slipped into our pocket next to a cell phone and a credit card as we prepare for another day. Go to bed at 4:30 and sleep away half of the next day if you must, but occupy those wee hours with things you will mean something the next morning. Will our minds recall the nights spent rehashing the easy conversations, repeating the obvious observations? Do we value friendship enough to fight its stagnation, to discuss those things that define us instead of the colors that define our wardrobes?
Death made itself known this winter. May our lives henceforth be lived as a fitting eulogy for the friends that are gone, so that our dying words might resound with thankfulness and not regret."