February 21, 2005

Sit near Jason in the concourse on a sunny Friday afternoon, your arm resting near his, and wait for him to get deep and philosophical. It shouldn’t take long — he’s a Platonist who’s eager to embrace ideals like Truth and Beauty. You never jerked off to that metaphysical crap.

“We are essentially no different than dogs,” say reassuringly. “We are creatures of appetite conditioned to respond to external and internal stimuli.”

“But we have civilization!” he’ll say. “What do dogs have?”

“What good has your civilization done? We’re just beasts who have perfected more atrocious methods of decimating the earth.”

At this point he’ll get flustered. You’ll have to restrain him when he tries to get up and leave. Pat him warmly on the back and say, “Listen, I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

“I’m not angry. But each time I talk with you I need to go home and take a shower.”

In a few seconds he’ll calm down enough to ask, “What about a soul?”

“A soul?” say, widening your eyes and twitching your eyebrows. “Oh, give me a fucking break! You don’t actually believe that nonsense about an ‘immaterial entity’ projected into eternity…”

“If we have nothing to hang on to, what’s there to live for? Why don’t you just die!”

“Existence is its own reward. Mere behaviour makes me ecstatic. Dumb, animal instinct makes me want to keep living…”

He’ll get up to leave before you finish your thought, and you’ll have to run after him through the hallways trying to cradle him in your arms.

“Fuck you Tudor Costache,” he’ll say even though your name might not be Tudor Costache. And at that moment, you’ll smile at him, delighted to have smashed every single one of his fucking Platonic ideals. If you don’t have any ideals left, why should other people?

You’ll hear him shouting your name from acros the campus. Then he’ll go home to unleash his inner animal-self on the Internet. It’ll be awful watching him crumble like that, but somebody had to do it.