The Opposite of Loneliness

I was in a pretty lousy mood Saturday night / Sunday morning. I couldn't sleep, I was stressing out about the upcoming week, my next apartment, my career, my family, my relationships - no matter how hard I tried I couldn't stay asleep. I tried all my usual distractions: music, fiction, dark chocolate, comedy, porn but nothing was working for me, I couldn't shut my brain off. After hours of alternating 30 minutes of sleep with 30 minutes of drowsy consciousness, I gave up and went to Chipotle for breakfast. While eating my burrito bowl I was browsing some articles on my phone and stumbled on this link titled The Opposite of Loneliness, written by Marina Keegan for Yale's commencement paper. Just days before she died in a car accident. It was one of the most depressing things I'd ever read. Yet somehow it almost instantly made me feel better. In many ways its quintessentially existentialist, like something out of a Camus novel. Its haunting to read some of her last thoughts:

"I plan on having the parties when I'm 30. I plan on having fun when I'm old." 

"We're so young... we have so much time." 

"We can't, we must not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have."

But at the same time, the cure for pride and fear its realizing that our existence is so delicate, so absurd. No amount of stressing out, wishing or praying is going to change the world. We need to get over our pride and our fear and do something about it. In Marina's words "Let's make something happen to this world."

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/