my humble proposal for a dark academic life
warning! consider this satire…
cults, cults, cults,… or shall we call it a secret society?
Discuss the books and poetry you’ve written and review it: you all know you’re the beginning flares of the newest literary movement, although your manifesto still needs work. By studying the greats like Ginsberg, Yeats, Whithman, Plath and Pound you hope to achieve greatness.
You all choose upon yourself to study the great ancient languages, Greek and Latin. Now, when passing each other in the hallways, one simple word in Latin can do the trick.
Select meeting spots across the university town that are given out the night before in written out letters on your doorstep. Will it be the run down pub or the hallways of an art museum?
You worship the moon and celebrate death and renewal. You are creating your own beliefs and your system, and a book to hold on to. A self-liberation. A strict moral code to follow (or a lack thereof).
Clean and clear use of language. Language is art, art should be pure.
Frequent practitioners of transcendental meditation and other methods to unlock parts of your conciousness.
understand life from all different perspectives and aspects. indulge in all it has to offer (visuals, art, music, language, writings, pain, science, philosophy, thoughts and conception, creation)
to avoid useless distractions, overflow and meaningles interactions.
feelings and thoughts aren’t in battle as they are equals.
self comes first, in consideration of others.
everything should be experienced to gain full understanding: but not everything can be understood.
a very essential aspect is to live a double life: why should you be limited to being one person? if you decide to embark on this, it is most essential to seperate your duality from others.
read and create. next to taking in all sorts of art and literature you should make your own. interpret and revolutionize. create art, anything that is meaningful to you and you have created, is art.
criticize and analyze everything and everyone. don’t let anything be at it’s mercy. dissect it, and don’t fear discovery (of others and of self).
take profound interest in a subject. obsess, even to the point of unhealthiness. stay up reading all night, using coffee the next day to keep you half-awake. you don’t need much physical energy anyways. write essays to the point of fainting.
don’t abstain from drugs & alcohol (and the like). smoke in the misty mornings or dark evenings, smoke drunk or sober. go out and indulge, but only while looking complicated enough. fill your room with empty wine bottles from the night before. become an enigma - host martini evenings and drink scotch. if hemingway did it, why shouldn’t you?
a fashion style and sense that can only by your own, carried by uniqueness. become the most eccentric individual you know. scour all the thrift stores and worn-down places to find your garments. but you have to remain in certain class, do not get worn down. wear blazers, turtlenecks, trench coats- you know the drill. expensive jewelry that carries just the right shine.
occassionaly find a way to seperate your mind, think an out-of body experience. lay in the meadows of your college until dawn. this will keep you sane. read biblic prose, just as a way to take you back to earth.
smoke, drink and take in other substances all you want. have that red-wine taste stained into your lips, smoking a cigarette just after class ends. go out at night and end up places you never thought of being, recovering the next day by reading latin prose.
become a local in that one coffee place. black coffee stains the staple of your notebooks, and you only feel alive after drinking three espressos. sit at the bar or at the terrace. forget the gentrified barista-esque joint you learned to hate; think that ancient café that has been there since the 50′s with old tiling lining its walls.
always strive to be the absolute best in everything. competition can turn to blood- and you don’t mind. walk over people that stand in your way, have affairs with your proffesors if that means getting a perfect mark. you know what you want and why want it.
assert youself to adhere to a certain class of people; you are to be placed nowhere, but always associated with the upper ranks. you, after all, are the academic. get invited to places noone gets invited to, talk in complicated manners that places you above the rest. fear averageness.
talk to professors and show them who you are, talk to them about connections you made while reading essays and current events, discuss older theories and the latest academic papers in your subject. become a recognizable face, and begin to use that to your advantage. don’t become the lick-up, become their left-hand man.
you don’t need a large social circle or to be known by your peers; but become a ‘figure’. you are known by folks you’ve never even seen the faces or heard the names of.
have a close knit friend group. but remember: only associate with equals, or people above you. it is not your goal in life to each others. no, it is to learn, it is to climb.
most of all: remember that this probably doesn’t apply to you. such a lifestyle is only fit for such a particular class of individuals. walk along.
