In today’s collegiate world, being “pre-med” can mean several things to the dazed and confused undergraduate. I might be 90% wrong because I like to make radical, offensive generalizations — but here are a few ideas.
Someone has power over you. They have the ability to make you sublimely happy and they can also make you feel super depressed. You lose slight control over your moods. When you enter a relationship, it’s as if you sign a contract that says, “I give you 70% of my feelings. I acknowledge that you can play with them, make them feel good, and I also acknowledge that you can fucking destroy them.”
Arrive alone at a party that you ‘just kind of heard of’ even though no attendee specifically invited you. This way, when people welcoming you make casual conversation to the effect of ‘so who do you know here tonight’ in an attempt to determine their own potential connection to you, you can respond evasively or turn the question back around on the asker.
Get accepted into a “competitive” fellowship or internship or entry level lobbying position, whatever. Think this is it: it’s only a matter of time before you are saving the world (or securing a “real” job). Look on Craigslist for an apartment…see the price of a one bedroom condo by the Capitol is $2700.00. Silently squeal to yourself.
Apparently there’s this part of my brain, lodged uncomfortably somewhere between the temporal lobe and the cerebellum, that drives me against my will to start aimless conversations while drunk. No matter how unengaged the interlocutor, how uncomfortable the scenario, how forced the interaction–I’ll do it.
Sex involving two partners shouldn’t have anything to do with Victoria Secret catalogs, Penelope Cruz, or any TV/movie love/romance/sex scene that once impressed you so deeply that it’s actually become a part of your sexual repertoire. Sex doesn’t have to be loud, it doesn’t have to be graceful, and you don’t have to roll your eyes to the back of your head to show your pleasure.
After college, you’re thrusted into the real world to Find A Job and Be Self Sufficient, and in turn, you become aware that the people in this world think binge drinking after college actually = alcoholism and a potential sign that one doesn’t have her shit together.
On the most basic level, movies simply ask for a type of attentiveness that is hard to muster if you’re depressed. Cerebral films tend to have a lot of silences and moments where the spectator is encouraged to reflect on the images. That’s fine, but when you’re depressed, the only reflecting you’ll be doing is on various sad thoughts and anxieties floating around in your head.