By Miriam Larson

The air here is filled with a heady sense that reason and books hold all the world’s answers and it is enough to produce culture shock after a week of Spring break. This is why my opinions have not succumbed to essay format this week. While I think one of my biggest contributions as a student and a member of the academic community is to explain and offer analysis of this confusing world we live in, leaving Macalester for a week to spend time in my hometown community reminds me of the knowledge and wisdom of communities, life-knowledge not regularly deconstructed or bullet-pointed for lecture format.

My last piece was a critique of volunteerism, which I stand behind and have found useful, but my mother asked of that piece, “Yeah, but where is the peace and love?” Essentially I think her question points to a larger gaping hole in our academic pursuits. As we deconstruct and explain the world, when do we set aside time for reflection, confusion, hope, idealistic dreams and reconstruction? These are fundamentally uncertain and dangerous waters but without entering them we deny ourselves the humility that guards against presumption and arrogance.

Word fights Meaning in coiled jumbles of my brain.

Word has no loyalties, only disdain for whomever he serves.

Word is greedy for trees and covers pages of pulp, pulp, pulp, pulp making the world tangible in symbols secret to modern human eyes born with the destiny to decipher.

Word flirts with brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes but her advances are returned and deals are sealed with certain-seeking eyes.

Word whispers ultimate knowledge, massages the brain into submission, subdues and sedates the body, spits a jar and a gun- BANG! at Meaning who recoils.

Meaning is a ghostlike figure, elusive, changeable, wafting, divine.

Meaning is the size of the universe and the length of all the prairie grasses tied together, but not end to end, more jumbled-like tumbleweed-long.

Meaning has no loyalties either, but is less of a flirt.

Meaning is direct in his advances and dances with different voices, speaks with different movements, embodies without expectation.

Our bodies embodied are shy, though words tumble incessantly from voice

Boxes enclose expensive words disguised as skill compiled for only 39,020

Dollars buy beautiful

Boxes are built with words and numbers and

Dollars buy beguiling

Knowledge for Generation

Why are we so disillusioned?

Unbridled Youthful Passion Lost in Image-obsessed Culture

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA- Lost in its own reflection of itself, Youth ODed on strength, slimness, smooth skin on Thursday. Afraid of stretch marks, of crows feet and of wrinkly mortality, Youth was unwilling to return to its . Afraid of cubicles, of confinement, of class Youth . Afraid of sleep-deprivation . [sic] We hope it comes around soon, crazy as it is. We only mean to put it at ease with these words. Restorative justice is in order.