When Worlds Collide

This is something I always told myself I wouldn't do. I don't use that cliché lightly, as would many freshmen participating in their inaugural, but inevitable, hook-up. I am on record saying I would never. Never ever. Prior to this fall from grace, I have dismissed blogs as vain, explaining that I wouldn't have the ego and hubris to sustain a self-reverential commentary of any importance, on any subject, for any length of time. I was initially skeptical of this blog, truth be told, and doubted that I could provide any real insight into a social scene that has evaded the understanding of many of the smartest kids in the country for so long. But, just as I was about to retreat into my smug defeatism and let the wave of self-doubt wash over me...The Dartmouth Mirror gave me pause... (Lemuel, how right you were).

Such self calls! By such an astoundingly vapid series of Dartmouth stereotypes! The reverence for one's self and, wayyyyy more importantly, one's status in the Dartmouth cosmology drips off of every pseudo-ironic observation made in the weekly insert. A barrage of articles let me know: 1) how best to be a dude, 2) where best to hook-up off campus, 3) sweet dudicity (part deux), 4) who that one girl's friends are, and where they hang out, 5) and the clothes that the other girl, and the same friends, think are in...So you better not be poor! *ironic titter of glee* Missing are the parts where: a) the guy in indie clothes tells me what the emo/classic/hipster music is and why it's awesome (I'm so sympathetic to this one), b) and the assorted, thinly veiled references to Dartmouth culture that pepper whatever the current issue is (COLLEGE...rotflol!!!11). Lest you think this is just a bitter polemic against a culture that I pretend not to participate in, I am fully complicit in the College and its social trappings. I am awash in the same sea of faux-superiority that allows the thinking student to stay sane at Dartmouth, all the while cultivating friends who wear designer clothes and speak in reverent tones about dudes and their dudish goings on.

The difference between The Mirror and me, I suspect, is that still cling to my powers of introspection. As do, I trust, my co writers on this blog. I hope desperately that my four years at Dartmouth have not bleached them out of my mind. Fitzgerald said, "Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues." Nick Carraway's was honesty. I guess I'd classify mine as giving-a-fuck-and-thinking-about-shit. I am certainly no Fitzgerald, but I think we'd have a great time drinking together, and that's really my point.

The Mirror, in a piss-poor ENGL 5 metaphor, is a truly good title for a publication on Dartmouth culture. Nowhere is it more apparent that the majority of Dartmouth students devote no self-critical thought to the social space that they occupy, except in obvious attempts at irony that are really meant to reinforce their own sweetness to all reading their words (reference me drinking with Fitzgerald, above). I'm not even arguing for a re-evaluation of the social roles at Dartmouth, so much as just some simple recognition that the people are playing them, and maybe some personal introspection sprinkled on top. As it is, I feel confident that little real introspection comes forth in the pages of The Mirror. The mainstream social scene at this College does too good of a job lulling its participants into a deep, deep sleep.

So what started as suspicion of my own hubris in wanting to blog about Dartmouth, ends with a hubristic statement: Whatever I write, I'm pretty damn sure it will be more insightful than The Mirror. Suspicion confirmed. Awesome. With such high aspirations and goals set for myself, I ride off into Winter Carnival until I have something more to say....I guess I need to go find me some smooth brews and dudes to hang with.

Ad Astra, Per Aspera