My main quarrel with college seems to boil down to an overemphasis on rationality and a deemphasis on developing the self. For instance, writing an essay gives you great argumentative skills. You are forced to take a stand on an issue, logically back it up with evidence, and use effective rhetoric to reinforce your point. A lot can be said for people that have convictions and can back them up with examples and rational thought. They’re called lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, etc.

Logic is a common thread among humans. Most of us can exercise logic and most can recognise logic when another person is using it. If you can appeal to another person’s sense of logic you can get them to agree with you (or at the very least have a common ground for communication). Generally, if you jive with logic there is a very good chance your actions will be justified. A cool, calm and collected use of intellect is the easiest and safest way to interact with the world. Say you are in a band and arguing over how to play a song. The best way to have the situation turn in your favor is to systematically go over the points of why your interpretation of the song is better. The composer intended the song to be played like this, the audience will enjoy this style more, the individual strengths and weaknesses of the band members coincide with my interpretation… Done. Unless the other members had better arguments, you now have the band eating out of your hand.

Another argumentative approach would have been yelling and cursing, which signifies a breakdown in rational thought and would only enrage the rest of the band. Such a violent release of emotion will not convince others of your view one iota, unless they are college freshmen and easily impressed by loud. Logic can be very clever tool for externalizing the human spirit, and can ensure the way you hear the song is your head is how it will sound to the audience. The better you are at making people trust in your judgement, the better chance you have of seeing your ideas come to fruition.

But in the end, logic is nothing, really. It is just an intellectual framework and does not create, nor destroy. Logic just is, and all that matters is how you use it. The talented can apply logic like a poustice to a wound or like a hammer to the forebrain. It can be damningly effective at what it does, but logic hardly deserves the full attention it gets in college. Logic requires ideas, but ideas can only be derrived from knowledge and experience. As a mere framework, logic offers neither.

Argumentation and logic teach me nothing except how to organize my personal thoughts so I can communicate them to others. I feel bad using the word logic, as I don’t think my beef is with logic itself but how college teaches it in a hidden, dry manner that is devoid of the human spirit. If I spend all my time organizing, there is no room for actual growth. There is a difference between exercising the mind and organizing the mind, and so far this semester my mind is developing the most frail, pestilent limbs. My spirit pines away malnourished, and soon there’s nothing left to externalize. Instead of rambling away with the usual free associations, wit and irony, my brain becomes a barren wasteland of theses and antitheses, arguments and examples. All my thought becomes rational and presupposed, and I stop surprising myself with new ideas. Any new thought that comes along is a logical “Oh Duh,” that I take no pleasure in taking credit for. I could clean and organize my room for years, but if I don’t get any new posters, cigar boxes or pictures of fat men riding turtles, it will always look the same as ever.

I feed on randomness, and the only mental exercise college allows in that regard is trying to explain why I like it. As I said a few days ago, the exercises used to be fun, but now I no longer feel the personal benefit in coming up with arbitrary answers to things that need no explanation. Randomness is a troubling pleasure, as it is unjustified in an evidential sense. There is no reasoning at work here; if I think it’s funny, it’s good. Randomness is a core feature of my spirit, and it gets no attention from Academia, which seems to rely on a less is more philosophy. The more you can reflect on one idea in class, the fewer ideas you need to introduce and the easier analysis becomes. Randomness is all about more is more. It requires a saturation of crazy objects and ideas, and is fully actualized in a situation where the mind can’t even comprehend the innate randomity at hand.

You sit at a picnic bench during lunch at work, Hard Core Guy exits the building and balances along the curb in his running uniform and flip-down sunglasses, your friend gets hit in the head with a frisbee, and finally a kid comes riding around the parking lot on a stand-up bicycle. You pause for a moment and say, “This place is so weird,” and you call it the best lunch ever. Explain that in your thesis.

So I like rocks, Cheez-its, plastic rats, Curious George, John Wayne, writing my name in the snow, Ax Man, jam music and Schwan’s ice cream treats. Big friggin’ deal. I want more thoughts and less reflection. Reflection is for losers that don’t have enough thinking to do.

To be a master overachiever at college requires I stifle the murmurs of my soul. Humor, wit and irony are my beer, whisky and wine, but there is no place for mind-altering beverages in class. Often I sit at my desk, trying to wring as much substance as possible out of my academic experience. I feel it is not enough to sit and absorb in class, but to actively engage in the subject. Lately I’ve been wringing but barely a drop has reached the bucket. My classes are boring, and though the professors are putting up a valiant effort, the lack of engagement from other students makes the entire experience as enjoyable as an extended sponge metaphor.

No matter how difficult a class has been, my efforts to attain an excellent grade have never been thwarted. I’ve always cared enough about the subject being presented, or the impact it could have on my future, to always do more than the necessary amount of work. But lately I have found my classes so boring that I no longer find school inspiring. This is a strange feeling for me, as I have always enjoyed school… or at least most facets of school. To suddenly be turned off by the whole thing came as a complete surprise.

I want to be challenged in class. I want to push my mind, but I cannot arbitrarily introduce difficulties to life. I could stick razors under my skin to make walking around challenging, but that wouldn’t accomplish my desires. An action needs meaning behind it, and hardship for hardship’s sake is hardly a convincing argument. I’m tired of working hard at school out of spite. I’ve got my cumulative 3.8, I got my semester 4.0, and I’ve proven to myself what my capabilities are. I am unimpressed by social status and as a result I do not feel driven to prove myself to others. Now that I no longer feel inclined to prove myself to the abstract idea ‘college’, I am without motivation. College feels like I’m constantly slamming my head against the desk. It’s cool to do for awhile, but eventually I forget why I started in the first place. Slamming my head into the desk started as only a means, not an end, and after spending three years of head slamming it is no longer fulfilling.

I want to create, but all I’m learning in college is how to think logically and rationalize. At first it was a fun challenge to see how small I could reduce myself, and see what could be done away with because it was nonsensical. As a watered down Descartes I systematically questioned, rejected and accepted thoughts, eventually reaching the state I’m in today. College has been a breeding ground for internal brooding, and now I’m tired of mulling over my same old ideas. I want new ideas, but instead I get the tired regurgitations of my last three years. I must actively seek new and inspiring ideas outside of school, and that is backwards. School should be inspiring. Activities and fun stuff should supplement the excitement of college learning, not fill a void that school leaves wide open.

Classes are 20th century twelve-tone compositions, and they all draw from the same matrix set. I feel I have seen every retrograde and inversion, and now I thirst for more content. I’ve questioned my perceptions, my convictions, my beliefs, and now I want to leave the questions behind and actually do something. No more of this metaphysical, build-the-individual-from-the-inside-out crap. I’ve been gnawing at the bone for a year, and once again I desire for meat. A 100% pure ground chuck of Twin Peaks, jam bands, camping, web design, photography, good books and good movies. I want to learn about lasers, old newspapers and the history of Prince Albert. Make me a Renaissance man.

I should not be so dismissive of my college experience, however. Being starved from inspiration was an integral part of my mental development. Lacking outside distractions to keep my mind entertained, I was able to go through the intense introspection that resulted in my newfound discontent. My constant drive for overachievement in college requires strict regulation of outside interests. I’m continually balancing fun against work, play against school, and without error I almost always side with school. Success in class will beget success in future, n’est pas?

For example, even writing this entry is a guilty pleasure. I know I should be studying for Media Law instead, or reading Neitzsche for Friday’s philosophy midterm, or maybe practicing sax for Head of the Lakes. What matters more at this point, I ponder. Writing babble in cement or ensuring another healthy GPA? Will a future employer be impressed by this paragraph; by my witty use of alliteration and hyperbole? Probably not impressed by this graph specifically, but Future Editor may enjoy my general command of the English language and ability to express myself in writing. Will this entry be integral in my development as a writer/critic/pundit/roadie/rockstar/woodsman? Probably, but in an intangible way. A rational person would focus his energy on activities that can be carefully categorized and rated, ensuring that his toils are well-documented and result in a just reward. Logic says I should not consider skipping class to write, and with that I must pause for a moment as my brain curdles in the classroom.

But the college-enhanced Sensory Deprivation Tank is a double-edged sword, no doubt. When nothing but your mind is there for you to philosophize about, all you can philosophize about is nothing but your mind. When I saw the world collapse into a stinking pile of dreck, I knew I had tossed out something dear to my soul. It’s impossible that the world would change so suddenly, so the collapse definitely signaled a change in my thought patterns. I stopped seeing irony and humor in all the facets of life, and I was concerned.

I find myself yearning to do meaningful work; chopping wood for instance. You start with a pile of logs, take up an ax, work up a sweat and by the end of the day you’ve got a stack of split firewood. The progress is clearly defined, where you can remember the pile from the morn and you can see the finished stack in the eve. It is an externalization of the soul and free will, and when it happens you and others can stop and admire it. Art externalizes. Music externalizes. Writing does as well (though in journalism your work must be transparent to the reader, which arguably does not do this).

In college the details are not as important as your growth as an individual. As you cram for tests you aren’t really expected to remember what you learn, but to remember how you learned it. College hones your ability to filter and extract information, which is important in this age of information saturation. With any luck you solder that last gap between information and knowledge, and become a bit wiser each day. Your mental development progresses in a series of peaks and plateaus, and when a plateau comes along the result can be devastating. You look back and see no accomplishments, no progress, no stacks of wood. All of your energy was focused within, and you have no record from whence you came.

Then you unintentionally become a wise ass like me, and you want to abandon the entire system. I can follow the restrictions of reason until I feel like my insides have been gutted. Every day becomes boring, logical, predictable. The alarm sounds at 6:50 and I cringe as the day’s dull responsibilities invade my private dreams. Crawling out of bed seems too great a task, yet I always manage to do it. My strive to be a better person starts right then; a weaker mind would stay in bed, I say, and I am unwilling to make that concession. Yet there will be nothing to distinguish this day from the others. I go to class, I take a nap, I go to jazz, I sit in front of my computer for four hours, I go to bed. No room for creative interpretation, as my tasks already have me too exhausted. Apparently the pining away of the individual is considered growth.

My college life lacks zest, a quality I can only explain with that feeling that rouses me from slumber on camping trips. It’s 6:00 in the morning, the air is frozen and my head is stuffed with cotton. Yet I get up anyway, and while stumbling dumbly around camp I feel more alive than ever. It doesn’t matter that I’m sleepy, that my back aches from hiking, that there’s sand in my shorts. Those mornings possess an inexplicable ether that holds my body up and keeps my head from rolling clean off my shoulders. A soft, transcending breath fills my limbs with life. On these mornings I am reborn, and eagerly anticipate the excitement my day will offer.

I will get hit by a tree, I will crush Peter under great stones, I will poop in the woods, I will laugh. Most importantly, I will make others laugh with me.

I will remember it vividly because I will be awake.

Cromlech always risks solidifying thoughts that don’t even have me completely convinced. In that regard, I now begin the first entry in a tasty series about college. You may be surprised by where this goes. I may be as well. Nevertheless, it’s time to wrangle up some stray thoughts and send them back to the corral.

I recall wistfully a time when teachers had to shout at the class to get students to calm down. The more dramatic teachers would even flash the lights on and off really fast, which would normally rile the kids up even more and make teaching impossible for fifteen additional minutes. Students would talk, socialize, dare each other to eat boogers and the action would cause such a raucous din. I was always in the thick of it all, standing on my desk, preaching about Sonic the Hedgehog.

Where have those days gone? No one talks in college, and there’s an unnatural, inhuman feeling about it. Somewhere in the transition from junior high to college (and I don’t remember it being this bad in high school, even) a geist came along and squeezed all the zest for life out of these people. They all get to class on time, sit staring straight ahead, and silently await entry of Lord Professor of Learningness. There’s no passionate conversation, no roughhousing.

Now, when I get to class I wanna fight. I can’t learn unless my blood is up. Falling asleep won’t do. Never will do. Short sentences are. Quite annoying to read. Not fun to. Write either.

The problem is almost nonexistent in classes with music majors (who are such a highly sophisticated class of people that they don’t need to maintain auras of quiet disinterest), but is horrible in journalism classes. The professor could ask the class what color the sky is, and no one would answer until ten seconds after the third repetition of the question. Dead serious. The difficulty of the question has no bearing on whether or not it will be answered quickly. Rapidity of answer is determined by how quickly one student can overcome the logy inertia that the entire class maintains. A break in the clouds drifts over one individual, his dry lips crack open, and a weak “blue,” croaks forth. The rest of the class sighs silently in mutual relief along with the professor, who keeps her relief silent, so as not to taint the only collective thought threading among students.

College is about small victories. These kids aren’t going to become bubbling socialites overnight, regardless of their status in high school enclaves or past winnings in booger-eating contests . The past is no longer with us, and that is what is wonderful about college. It gives a student the opportunity to create his ideal self, which can operate in complete independence of whatever path he took to the University. You can be a silent sophisticate, yes, but more importantly you can be a charlatan. No one will question.

If you want to be boring, college is your place. Sacrifice your history, act like you don’t have any interests. Don’t care about your classes? Good. No one else does either. Just shut your mouth and remember that you’re a better person because of your time spent outside of school. You have college friends, college dates, college keggers; but make sure you keep your life from interfering with learning and college itself. In here, all you have to do is dress right, walk right and say the right things. Since talking is optional, all you need is clothes… and by the looks of current girl fashion (I won’t call them women until they dress like it), even clothing can be left at home.

Oh, you are so clever to mask your personality. I am ever so fooled. I walk in the room asking, “What is everyone’s highest score on Space Cadet Pinball?” and all I receive are cold stares. I quickly realize I slipped up. My facade cracked. We were all issued laptops in this class, and we all have since discovered the pre-installed Windows 2000 games in our free time. Many of you play Solitaire as the prof discusses grammar. You all know about Space Cadet Pinball, but I was the only one jovial enough to suggest a common interest among us. The response was drenched in typical disinterest. School isn’t the place for life, you nugget-head!

But they’d never come up with something like nugget-head. And if they can, prove it.

Tomorrow. Silence breeds seriousness, the bane of the right brain.