The Flipside has received insider information on ‘This Man,’ the phantasm and amalgamation of a nightmarish communal psychosis which our dear campus has been hearing about for a not-so-insignificant amount of time. What we’ve come to learn is that his altogether egregious, impertinent, implacable, and boisterous behavior was due to the fact that he was, indeed, on ‘Other Shit.’ It seems that we have all misjudged his character. Instead of treating ‘This Man’ with general disdain, perhaps we should have lent him a helping hand. Perhaps we shouldn’t have stigmatized his behavior. Perhaps we should have seen his behavior as a cry for help. Perhaps we should have cared.
As a generalized statement from many of the administrators, it seems that the consensus is that this ‘Other Shit’ is running through our community. Its status as an unctuous, social lubricant has transversed our social morays rampantly, transubstantiated our communication skills, and must be addressed with clinical precision. Persis Drell specified, in a lascivious voice memo to MTL sent on (curiously) my iPhone, “This ‘Other Shit’ must be taken seriously and we must design methods of thinking and being which first investigate why this ‘Other Shit’ paradigm has happened before we can implement wider change. This is thoroughly legacy work.”
Wow, I mouthed into my chai’s steam. What a powerful treatise. Persis had been looking off into the distance ruminatively while she prophetically quipped. I knew then that this ‘Other Shit’ was indeed a vice.
As a personal vignette, I’ve seen the best minds of my generation lost to this ‘Other Shit.’ On many nights, I’ve wept over the soporific homies slumbering comfortably, blissfully unaware of the fact that they are even on ‘Other Shit.’ And ‘Other Shit’ aside, I’m worried for myself. Maybe I’m that guy. It could be you.
When ‘This Man’ tried out ‘Other Shit,’ I don’t think it shocked any of us who truly knew him. It’s a tragedy, yes, a travesty, yes, a disaster, yes, but above all, I think we should take a deep look into ourselves first. We knew he was at risk, but we still did nothing. And I, for one, feel ashamed. When the autopsy report revealed that he was on the ‘Other Shit,’ I had the sinking feeling in my stomach. It was not only guilt, but that thing we call identification. The feeling of resurgence, of knowing that this was going to happen, a detachment, a feeling of overwhelming sadness. And my selfish thoughts that urged me towards the idea that I could have been the one to stop him, well those were quixotic and only served to distance me from my intrepid shame.
From our community to ‘This Man’s’ grieving family, we are sorry we had no idea about the potency of this ‘Other Shit.’ We promise to do better.
