A time to expand your horizons
In my very first semester of college, on the peace-loving Quaker campus of Guilford college, I had a wonderful conversation between myself, my friend Eric Parisi(at the time a Junior) and his assigned roommate for the year - a massive, spindly, red-headed freshmen, a young man less than discrete about his opinion of the modern folly of regular grooming.
I will call him Rolig as I forget his name.
ERIC: *(speaking to Aaron)* That's what I said to him – he was Catholic and I was certain he would appreciate the…
ROLIG: Urrrhh, Catholic. I can't support organized religion.
AARON: Well, this is a Quaker school.
ERIC: It's a kind of self-organization at the very least.
ROLIG: Urrrgh, yeah self-organization. But anything else. *(flips a pair of drumsticks onto his pillow)*
ERIC: You've thought about this!
ROLIG: I'm a nihilist. (*smile*)
ERIC and AARON: You…
ROLIG: I believe in nothing. *(looks down, wiggles his toes)*
ERIC: But that's the thing, Rolig, you've already lost it. Now you believe in something. You're not even a nihilist anymore.
ROLIG: Urrfgh *(scratches beard)* but then, if I'm not a nihilist anymore then I really don't believe anything.
AARON: You've done it! You are a super-nihilist. You don't believe even in nihilism.
ERIC: Then how do you live your life? You must have some kind of principles - Come on, you're not a nihilist…or a super-nihilist.
ROLIG: *(fingertips to eyelids)* Uuurgh, I just think that their should be no laws deciding how we should live.
ERIC: Oh, you mean you're an anarchist?
ROLIG: That too. I decided I was a nihilist in high school.
ERIC: Wow, you believe in nothing!
AARON: The chaos of high school!
ROLIG: *(stretching to touch the ceiling)* I don't eat anything with a limbic system.
