A preface to lunch God - are we alive down here?

Author: James O'Brien

Dear Middlebury College students,

This is God. I've been watching you closely for the past few months and I'd like to tell you what I've observed. Why? Because it ticks me off that people keep asking me irritating questions like, "God, who am I?" First, I'd like to clear up a misconception by stating that I do not exist. And furthermore, I get very frustrated when people like you, people who are trying very hard to exist, keep talking to me about silly things. Please stop. Thank you.

But just this once I'll answer your question. I'll tell you who you are. From what I have observed, you students at Middlebury College spend most of your time doing two things - studying and trying to prove that you exist. You are fairly good at both of these things.

When not studying, most of you will "go out" at least two nights a week in order to get "f---ed up" (Note: My quotations around any words - in this case "go out" and "f---ed up" - invariably makes it seem like I feel superior to the people who use those phrases. This is not true. I am a humble imaginary God, and I like to get "f---ed up" too.) Anyway, on these weekend nights 70 percent of you "go out" - you drink as much as you can stomach without passing out and do as many drugs as you can get your hands on, sometimes without actually leaving your building. You like having other people around when you do this so that, later, you can talk about how drunk you were. These people that you have around, you will call them friends. In reality - or at least my reality - these people you call friends are just other humans who can testify to your existence. They are with you because you are willing to testify to theirs. So you have agreed to do things at the same time in order to recount them later. In my world, we do not have the word "friend." Then again, I do not exist.

I have witnessed most of you saying to a "friend": "Oh my God, how drunk was I last night?"(Note 2: Whenever you say 'Oh my God,' I think you are talking to me. Ninety percent of the time, you're just exercising your voice boxes because you're afraid they might disappear if you say nothing. I can't tell you how much these false alarms piss me off.) Anyway, the drunkenness question is always asked, and it usually leads to an answer like: "You chugged way too many brews. You shaved a penis into MacPherson's head. You beat up some geeks, ate a few steaks and bought a David Ortiz ChiaPet on eBay at 3:00 a.m. You certainly existed last night." This will comfort you for awhile, and then, to show that you two are in this together, you even agree to tell your friend what he or she did while existing: tried to bake pot brownies in an Easy Bake oven, drank 11 Smirnoff Ices and spent the night shouting "Talladega Nights" quotations at the clerk in The Grille.

After hearing this, your friend can rest easier. You both can. Something about the human brain relaxes when you hear that you have done something, when you have a memory. Then it's Sunday and you're forced to go through a whole four or five days of non-existence. You will read books and study facts and learn about people who you will never be. Secretly it scares you - that you know your name will never be in a textbook, and that no one may ever think to write it down. But you read your books, take your tests and write your newspaper articles in hopes that this will somehow get you a job at Goldman Sachs or help you save the world from itself. And all of you pray for the weekend to come faster so you can have that little bit of freedom, the chance to make fuzzy memories, to prove you are alive.

James O'Brien '10 is an English major from Medfield, Mass.