Winter virii

I can’t believe how scathing that last (or should I say, first) post was. I hope I haven’t offended anybody. I’ve just got this incredible anger against the world. No, I’m not a psychopath, I just have the flu and you know how illness tends to make you all indignant. One almost hates the world when one is sick, don’t you find? One resents the world for unjustly thrusting fever upon oneself. Sigh, such a shame, I was feeling great on monday, I was really happy to be back. It was great seeing everyone here again, though I missed Angela and apparently not one but TWO of my lectors have died over the holiday. It’s a very cold winter indeed, and I lie sick and destitute, and in my attempt to rid myself of those lingering paroxysms of regret, I have enamored myself with even more, far worse guilt, but I don’t want to talk about it. Plenty of fluids should sort it out, mind, plenty of liquor. I think I’m going to quit drinking for a while, I can never remain in control of my own stupidity when I’m drunk. The other night, and it pains me to confess it, but I went out to Liquid Lounge and almost spent the night with this woman. In my intoxicated state, I thought she looked like Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Seeing her the next day, she was FREAKIN HEINOUS!!! I slammed my keys down on the bar and announced that I wouldn’t be needing them till tomorrow, and my friend just looked at me, looked at her, shook his head, and slapped me. I have never been happier to be slapped, it reminded me what the hell I was doing. Then, now this is truly terrible, I staggered home from King’s Cross Thameslink and into my Hall at about 4am. I was struggling to get some Marlboro out of the stingy vending machine, when a familiar face from my all-male hall offered to help me. As he reached over to get the pack out of the machine… actually, I’m not going to talk about this. Suffice it to say I shall be on my guard about coming home drunk again.

Evil alcohol. That’s what pot exists for. It’s there so you can get high with dignity. I feel quite refined with a reefer, sophisticated with a spliff, dour with a doobie, et cetera et cetera. I’ve reached the point where I no longer know whether I should be in Brunei or London. I like it here, but I feel twinges of longing for that which I have left behind.

I guess it’s the virus. Do you know how a virus works? It invades your cells, tears your chromosomes in half, and, like some sort of microscopic rapist, plunges a shaft of its DNA into your own. Then, when you’re body sends messages to the nucleus (central bit of the cell), instead of producing new proteins, your nucleus starts reproducing the virus, because its DNA is in the way. When your cell is almost dead with exhaustion, and so heavily impregnated with virii that it’s all swollen up, the virus withdraws just before the cell explodes, firing dozens of its bastard children into your other cells. Isn’t that a lot fucking worse than just knowing that they work by heating up your forehead and making your tummy hurt? I think, as Nietzsche might have said, it’s a case of knowledge bringing not greater pleasure, but greater awareness of the inherent baseness of the universe. What do we profit from knowing that the night sky is not a tapestry placed over the earth by god, but is in fact an infinite void sparsely populated with impermanent globes of burning hydrogen? But this is nihilism. A true existentialist would tell you that the essence of their philosophy (there’s a very funny joke about Jean-Paul Sartre there but I’m probably wasting my time including it), is not simply that the universe is bleak and purposeless, but that one must take a Kirkegaardian leap of faith, that is, to live as an act of defiance, to live in spite of life’s meaninglessness. That is also a kind of courage. Existentialism is the philosophy of courage because courage is an act of living in spite of one’s fears and doubts. A man does not have courage if he doesn’t fear something, otherwise it is mere indifference, but it is his triumph over fear that makes him truly courageous. To be an existentialist is to live in fear of the tragedy of the universe, to be ever aware of the horrific emptiness of life, but each day to deliberately overcome it. Not to ignore it, but like Sidartha Gautama; “To face that which hitherto could only be endured by avoidance.”

It’s amazing, isn’t it, like blood from a stone, when something I believe in gives me a reason to be optimistic? Sigh, I’d best get back to bed, all this intellectual effluvium is worsening my condition.

Regards,

Roderick I. Nicol, Esq.

PS Annie, that heinous chick from the LiqLounge had NOTHING on you, I swear, she meant nothing to me! Same goes for the dodgy guy at the vending machine. Oh, and don’t forget to check your email.
PPS Edo, cheer up. You’re gonna be a college guy, just like me. Course, you’ll be a freshman but still…