Obies could save a lot of time and trees by not writing papers

I've been dead a long time. At least, I would feel that way if I read all the papers fellow students turned in over the course of last semester. So much rushing about to write so many bad papers. Beginnings and endings with middles of crap, essay sandwiches nobody would want to bite into.

I watch in amazement as students rush over to prisons to do good or talk of the liberty of East Timor when we have such tragedy right here, a tragedy that is uniquely our own.

Some would argue our crisis is primarily an environmental one: all the wasted paper. But the clear cutting of our forests might actually accelerate the end of our own dim existence. Away OPIRG do-gooders, there is no place for you in a thoughtless future.

Students waste thoughts struggling to assemble ideas that will sound and smell almost like something real. 'This sounds good,' they say, 'I'll keep writing like this.' Yet, never a thought to the nothing they are making. Bad papers are written when someone writes to get the paper done and not to think. Bad papers are the give-ups, the wrong turns, the this-didn't-come-out-as-good-as-I thought-it-would. We've all had to turn them in.

Why should Oberlin be a factory for bad papers? Because it can be? I guess so. We shall stand forth to the world as a Beacon; a great Ivory Tower where students turn in bad writing and professors turn back pointless comments. Thoughtless machines humming out mindless products signifying nothing.

What if students, from this point onward, simply refused to turn in a bad paper? Better to turn in no paper at all, they should say. If, on the off chance, a paper came out well then it could be submitted. Victory it would be if a student turned in three really good papers in four years.

Professors could hang little maxims on their doors such as: 'I never liked that paper I didn't read.' Everyone would be happier because we wouldn't be torturing each other. Time might be spent working on meaningful thoughts. Those who wanted to screw around could - let them! Maybe their lives stand for something the rest of us can't grasp. Some students might as well just hand their money over to professors, drink forties and get herpes, instead of making someone read something they didn't want to write.

How silly of us to pretend to pass serious words between each other when they are so common and casual and unconsidered. I would rather cast off my books and run through the library naked. I applaud those students who do. They are somewhat nearer to our true condition. Are we anything more than naked students running through a library of half truths? How much we pretend and pretend and yet the act never gets any better.

I could stop here having made my case, but I will continue. In an Oberlin where only meaningful work is bothered with, every one will assume their proper place. Those students who wish to spend all their time arguing in co-ops and smoking up can, and those who are hungry to learn will follow each other about intent on asking questions. Professors will munch apples and muse meditatively, free from the constriction of pointless paper grading. Gods will be born, townspeople will swoon, the universe will unfold itself.

The registrar could relax as deadlines would slide, no grades would become final until professors had sufficient time to know a student's mind. Students could keep working until their three great papers were written.

In short, the world would be changed for the better because our world would be better. Instead of beating dead horses we could mount up on high and ride off together into some more glorious understanding of the universe. Academic life would be something more than a dog circling back to its own vomit.

(How frightening might the world be if individuals were dedicated to things that had immediate meaning? I should realize it would be better if we all kept our heads down, shuffle along, do just those things we are assigned to do. And we should continue to pretend to fight for causes worthy of our righteousness.)

All our tomorrows continue to be ahead of us. The American Dream lives on, god bless us all if you still believe in god. We have nothing to fear except the torch being passed to a new generation. I still believe in a place called hope. You should too, change the world, keep the world safe for democracy, keep a good man down.

I thank you for reading this far, I congratulate you on your good taste in essays.

-Daniel Bush is a college senior.