You know who she is. That girl. The hippie. The activist. The evangelical Christian. The one who always prattles on and on about the deeper meaning of things. We all know someone like her, someone who seems so caught up in her studies and ideas about truth and meaning that she’s forgotten about living life and having fun. You awkwardly nod your head at parties when she nags you about the implications of calling someone “pussy,” while wondering if she’ll buy you alcohol later for listening to her spiel.

Besides being annoying, some of these meaningful nutheads might even be cool people, like those ones who give out free hot dogs as compensation for our putting up with their bullshit. If only they would all just go hide in some hole together and watch “I Heart Huckabees” while feeling good about themselves, we’d be able to get back to copying their notes… and eating their hotdogs.

The question is, why do they care? Can’t they see that we don’t? Why does life have to have meaning? Why does there have to be a point? I can be perfectly happy living my life, enjoying my time without constantly having to wonder why. There is a god, there isn’t a god. When the fuck does that ever come into play? Ignorance is bliss, right? Maybe, if I manage to ignore all that dark shit they’re oh-so concerned about, I won’t end up so goddamned depressed and dreary all the time. I like drinking. I like partying. I like money. I like spending my time wondering whether to buy that jacket or to buy that quarter-pound of good-ole pot (I chose the pot. Fuck being warm when you can be nice and toasty.) You’ve heard of Art for Art’s Sake, now try Happiness for Happiness’ Sake. Let’s all get fucked up!

The real question these meaningful people should be asking is, “How the hell am I gonna get a real job with my humanities degree?” Unlike them, I can spend my entire life after college pondering those “important” questions in my free time while earning $90k a year as an engineer. Then I can have a Porsche and the meaning of life! What’ll you meaningful people have then, huh? Suckers.

True, lots of organizations are eager to employ idealist humanities majors: In-N-Out, McDonald’s, Wendy’s. Or maybe you’ll take that degree and go to law school, that wonderful world brimming with idealists who remain idealists – that is, until they realize they have to pay off their student loans. Oh yeah. That whole money thing again. I know! You could always go into business and try to change the system from within. That’s it! Go apply at Starbucks and change the world with… coffee? Huh?

To all you people going on and on about meaning and why it’s important, go shove off. You can’t change the world any better than I can, so stop worrying about it. This place is just inherently fucked up. And besides, society already has a system in place to provide meaning and to incite change: capitalism. It’s wonderful, it works, it provides jobs and in the end, it’ll make sure everything’s OK. You socialist bastards need to stop worrying about all that crap and get on with your lives.

All that meaning bullshit won’t even matter until later in life when the whole issues of death, personal identity and personal well-being come into play. Those issues aren’t really important, right? I, for one, will certainly do my very best to ignore them for as long as possible. When that doesn’t work, I’ll drown them. Meaning? What meaning? Just pass the bottle, dude.

Brent Robinson is a second-year English major.