When it rains it pours. Perhaps a dusty old cliché, but it will be employed here as the only familiar aspect in this dark and uncertain time in campus culture.
Missing persons, death threats, suicides and the Clemson student they pulled from the river on Monday. The news from the past few weeks makes home school seem like the best option.
What can we do? How can we protect ourselves? How can we fix this problem so we feel safe again?
The simple answer is right here conveniently enough: you can do nothing but be grateful.
Today you are alive. Yes, your papers are due. No, your significant other hasn't called. Your mother is manipulative, your cat is on fire and your father is nowhere. You haven’t studied and you can’t find the classroom. Every one of these nightmares can come true and your heart is still beating.
While your mother’s nagging about the starving children in one country or another did not help your lacking appetite for broccoli, we can all agree that the only good result of tragedy is perspective.
We are lucky. Our burdens are those of fortune. My eyes have bags because I’m given the miracle of Netflix to suck me in at night. My stress is due to my amazing opportunity to attend a great university and get bogged down by work. The act of existing is improbable and amazing: blood moving through veins, skin cells regenerating, lungs filling with air and bringing oxygen to cells that each exist individually from one another and miraculously come together in billions to make up the thinking, breathing thing that is you.
Life is fragile. Humans are breakable and small in the context of the world. We small, breakable things must try to withstand many hardships, some much heavier than others, but we must be grateful for our burdens and never forget that even when things seem most dark, we are still so fortunate just to be alive.