A Note From the Underground

I am underground, right now. I spend my days in my room, sitting before the very computer on which I am writing this column, and I stare. I stare a lot.

Sometimes, though not as much lately, I stop my staring and try to sleep. But then, of course, I dream about staring and after I wake, I must begin staring, again.

I don't really go to class, anymore. Occasionally, I may steal down to the dining hall. There, I eat as fast as I can so that I can hurry back upstairs and start staring, again. I stare all day long. Every once in a while, though, my staring is interrupted and then, in a fit of inspiration, my hands leap to the keyboard, and I type. This lasts for a few minutes. When I'm done, for a moment, there is a feeling. I won't call it satisfaction, but its is something vaguely like that. Then the feeling passes, and I begin staring again.

This is my life. I am a thesis writer, and my thesis is due in a week. So I have been staring a lot, lately.

Sometimes, I stare at things other than my own words. I stare at words people send me, and, sometimes, at words that people sent them. These words are occasionally funny; more often they are not. Sometimes they are not funny but try to be. I am annoyed when I stare at these words.

Sometimes I stare at words that tell me they have been sent around the world several times before they reached me. Now they have reached me, this underground man, and I get the chance to stare at them too. These words say I should feel fortunate to stare at them and promise, if I send them along to several of my closest friends, that they will bring me good luck. If I don't send them, however, terrible things will happen. They promise me this, too.

Of course, I have already been staring at terrible things for the last few weeks, violent things. But these things have been on the other side of the world, far away from me and far away from my thesis. But I have been staring at them, and it seems as though every time I pause from staring at my own words to see if the terrible things have gotten better. They haven't, and I stare at things that seem only to get worse.

It is true. I've stared at terrible things before. I've been here for a while now, and, during that time, there have been plenty of terrible things to stare at. And yet, the terror of those things has always seemed transient, as if I stared at them long enough (or simply turn my gaze), the terrible things would soon pass away. This, however, seems different. It was terrible once, and then it got better. There was hope. But now, well, I have never had to stare at something that seemed so promising but new seems desperate, even hopeless.

Staring at these types of things has done nothing for my thesis. My mother, who shakes her head at how much time I spend staring at my screen for a moment's worth of inspiration tells me that I need to stop staring and get a life, instead. She assures me that, in a month, no one will ever stare at my thesis, again. She calls this encouragement.

My mother, however, has harped on my staring for a long time, now. She says that I stare so much that I miss a lot of things. I tell her that I am staring at what's important right now, and that I'll stare at other things later, when I get the time. She's frustrated by this, but I've just continued to stare at what I want to, and she's just continued to be frustrated.

It is a luxury, this staring. But when things are good, you're able to afford the luxury of staring with nothing to nag your conscience, except, maybe, your mother, and she doesn't really count.

But these things I have been pausing to stare at lately, these terrible things going on half way around the world, well, they just don't belong. They don't seem right. They weren't supposed to happen this way. And they threaten this luxury of mine.

For the next week, of course, I really can't afford to stare at anything other than the blank spaces on my screen where words are supposed to be for the thesis I should be writing. But I've used excuses like that a lot over the past four years, and soon, they won't work anymore. I'll have to account for what I choose to spend my time staring at. And when I see terrible things like the ones halfway across the world, I'll have to stop and think about what I spend my time staring at. Then, I may know the shame of staring too hard, but not staring hard enough.

J.P. Rollert '00-'01 is a social studies concentrator in Mather House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.