2008 Woodie Awards
Have fun
Eric Hunt
Issue date: 8/25/08 Section: Opinions
Life is supposed to be fun. It is a challenge and it is a pain and it is long and drawn out like a philosopher's sentence but it is meant to be fun. We only know that we get one life (unless we're solipsists who do not know that we actually exist) and so we must have fun with our existence. That's not to say, skip all of your classes for a day to go to a Rage Against the Machine concert and then skip your classes the next to sleep in; and that's not to say, accept C's and no good grades and have no ambition beyond "having fun"; and that's not to say, "live every day as if it were your last," because it is not fun to live a life without senses or with poor senses as the result of no sleep or too much alcohol consumption, and it is not fun to be homeless and unsuccessful. Believe me, I have failed often in my life and I can live with failures (or as Edison put it, "Ways to not [yet] succeed") except for those failures that are my own fault entirely. "Have fun" means that you take courses you will enjoy and you enjoy all the courses that you take. Knowledge is to be enjoyed. Other peoples' thoughts are to be enjoyed and dissected as if it were an eighth-grade frog.
"Have fun" means that you talk to people you have never spoken to before, that you do not hang around old friends from high school or join one single club and only chose that specific and particular club because it is one that you think you will have much in common with. That is the wrong approach to having fun and as a result living life. If you are a jock go to the chess club. If you are a philosopher go play softball. If you have never eaten Indian food do so as soon as possible, preferably with an anthropologist at your side. Don't be one of those people who are "PCP" students, parking lot-class-parking lot, and do not forget that there is a world beyond the exam that is four weeks from now but for some inexplicable reason you are studying for now. Make time to be spontaneous. Allow spontaneity to take your time.
This is the last great opportunity you will have to have fun with a wide array of people. When you graduate you will either go to graduate school and spend your days surrounded by people who think just like you about the sorts of issues that you are already thinking about or you will work professionally with people who are experts in their field as you are or you will be working with people who are low-level people in their field, as you are. The point is that you will live a fairly and relatively homogenous life making it almost impossible to meet new and strange and wonderful people. This is a commuter school but that does not mean that you should leave your sense of fun and curiosity at home in your basement. Make friends at the University and live your life. College is supposed to be fun.
Just don't flunk out.
"Have fun" means that you talk to people you have never spoken to before, that you do not hang around old friends from high school or join one single club and only chose that specific and particular club because it is one that you think you will have much in common with. That is the wrong approach to having fun and as a result living life. If you are a jock go to the chess club. If you are a philosopher go play softball. If you have never eaten Indian food do so as soon as possible, preferably with an anthropologist at your side. Don't be one of those people who are "PCP" students, parking lot-class-parking lot, and do not forget that there is a world beyond the exam that is four weeks from now but for some inexplicable reason you are studying for now. Make time to be spontaneous. Allow spontaneity to take your time.
This is the last great opportunity you will have to have fun with a wide array of people. When you graduate you will either go to graduate school and spend your days surrounded by people who think just like you about the sorts of issues that you are already thinking about or you will work professionally with people who are experts in their field as you are or you will be working with people who are low-level people in their field, as you are. The point is that you will live a fairly and relatively homogenous life making it almost impossible to meet new and strange and wonderful people. This is a commuter school but that does not mean that you should leave your sense of fun and curiosity at home in your basement. Make friends at the University and live your life. College is supposed to be fun.
Just don't flunk out.
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