Batchelor: Making the Most of Time
By Jacob Batchelor, Staff Columnist
Published on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A friend of a friend, a girl I never really knew, died in a car accident this past weekend, just days after graduating from Yale University.
No one ever really knows what to say when a tragedy happens because there is nothing to say, not really. It’s fucking horrible. A human has died, and that’s all there is. We can’t understand tragedy beyond that, and we don’t want to — because it reminds us of our own mortality, the losses we’ve endured, the impermanence of everything.
Just a week prior to her death, she wrote a column for the commencement issue of the Yale Daily News about the opposite of loneliness — the feeling of comfort, love and togetherness she found during her undergraduate years. She wrote about regrets and possibility, memories and the future. Of being young and having time, and how a lot of us are lost, but how that’s OK. The piece was really beautiful. And then she was gone.
I can’t write a narrative about a stranger’s death. It seems wrong, and no one can do something like that justice. But please take a moment and read her column. Think of her.
Life is fragile. We don’t think about it when we’re young and healthy and have never experienced someone dying, especially someone young, whose time shouldn’t have come so early. But life can be taken from us at any moment, in a million ways we can neither expect nor plan for. We like to think we’re here with our whole lives in front of us — and we are. But that isn’t something we should take for granted.
When I was 11, my older brother died from a heart condition that I have, too. Mine has never been as severe, but it’s always there. For most of high school and college, I took that fact as a license for escapism. I worked really hard and partied a lot. I thought to myself: I’m here and I’m alive, so I’m going to do everything and try everything. If life could end at any moment, I should just go all in. It was fun, and I didn’t have to think about things too hard.
This past winter, though, I had a problem. My new defibrillator was set wrong after a surgery and ended up shocking me a lot of times, for no real reason. During those shocks, I thought I was going to die — and I might have, I guess, had things gone another way. It scared the shit out of me. When I got back to school, things were different. I had to stop indulging, and, through that necessity, lost my ability to escape. It was really hard. I had a lot of time to think, at a time when the last thing I wanted to do was think. Life slowed down, which doesn’t happen too much here.
Some nights during that time, I concluded that everything is just overwhelmingly depressing and sad. Sometimes that’s true. Things do suck sometimes, and death happens. Tragedy happens, and we could die young and unfulfilled. But it’s in these brushes with death and mortality — when time slows down and we’re forced to confront real life — that we become intensely aware of what it means to be alive. You start to see how every moment is precious and every decision kind of profound. Since this winter, I’ve never felt more appreciative of my friends, or happy with my life, or content with just existing.
You can’t put a silver lining on death. When a life is lost, it is always tragic. But you can learn from close calls. So to my fellow seniors in particular, in your last few weeks here, realize what you have. Slow down. Take a walk outside and look at how pretty everything is. Really appreciate the love you have in your life, and don’t leave any words unsaid. Never try to escape from your life, but always dive into it with passion and feeling. Don’t waste time, unless it’s just to be and to think. Spend time with people you love. Remember those that aren’t with you.
Our whole lives are ahead of us until the moment they aren’t. Thankfully, for now they are. So make the most of it. Good luck.
lovely article, thank you.
By alum on May 30 | 11:57 am
Sure, there are times when using the “F” word in conversation is appropriate. In a column about an accidental death, it is a mistake. It is a verbal assault on what should be a somber and solemn moment.
By Anonymuss on May 30 | 2:55 pm
Anonymuss, I am assuming you are an extremely elderly person, so I can’t fault you for misunderstanding: our generation uses swear words in a different way than your (mostly-dead) one did. For people our age, this usage is not only “appropriate”, it is completely necessary to convey the level of emotion that Mr. Batchelor intends to convey. Please do not judge us, lest you be judged.
By Current Student on May 30 | 7:02 pm
*than yours did
By Grammar Nazi on May 31 | 8:34 am
@Current “Student” I’m assuming that you’re still in diapers and don’t know any better, so I can’t fault you for sticking up for the misuse of language, since you don’t have a clue what’s appropriate and what isn’t, in your (mostly-brain dead) corner of your generation. The word in question is a mostly-dead word and not the least bit descriptive. It is a waste of space in any column at best. The word conveys nothing other than a sewer level affront to the memory of the girl and your equally low level of discourse. “it is completely necessary to convey the level of emotion,” my ass. “Completely necessary” Really? Not just “a little” necessary? How about “mostly” necessary? Why not follow your own “mind” and pre-juvenile bent and write that it is “f-ing necessary”? According to you that would “convey the level of emotion” you’re “feeeeeeeeeling.” A girl dies in an accident and you and the columnist find it “completely necessary” to tell the reader just how tragic an f-ing event that is, since you assume that like you, they are dumb as posts. I can’t wait to read your eulogy of your f-ing dead parents.
By bobo on May 31 | 1:08 pm
To Current Student,
I am a current student as well. Your attack on anonymuss, especially referring to his or her generation as “mostly-dead” is pathetic. Grow up, and have some respect. Whether you disagree or not, show some class.
The comment by anonymuss was simply a critique, and didn’t attack the reader in anyway. Get a grip.
PS-I am part of “your generation”, and using the f-word in any published column is immature and way out of line. That’s why you don’t see any major publication printing those words. Take a look around you.
By Current Student: Part Deux on May 31 | 2:10 pm
To Current Student.
Nonsense. Necessary to convey levels of emotion? One would think a Dartmouth education would have provided you more tools. Why do you think death is easier on a presumed older person than on a presumed younger one? We understand the pain. We don’t understand the lack of class. Gee. I hope you don’t think I just judged you.
By Parent on May 31 | 3:32 pm
“Take a walk outside and look at how pretty everything is. Really appreciate the love you have in your life, and don’t leave any words unsaid. Never try to escape from your life, but always dive into it with passion and feeling. Don’t waste time, unless it’s just to be and to think. Spend time with people you love. Remember those that aren’t with you.”
I’m so sorry that a beautiful young life was lost. Jacob, I appreciate your reminder to make the most of the life we have.
By Anonymous on May 31 | 4:46 pm
Attacking the author for saying that word is ridiculous. Ok, it is not a descriptive word, but there is not much language that can describe his sadness and anger at the situation. I think that gets his emotions across better than the unnecessarily prissy, highfalutin language used in so many columns. And while “Current Student” definitely did not go about his critique in the most tactful way, there definitely is a generation gap in the use of that word. Whether or not you like it, it does convey something to me and, I assume, others—if only that what it conveys is that these feelings are something there is no possible way to convey.
By Current Student Three on Jun 1 | 2:26 am
Strange, after reading this article I got the feeling that life is short, delicate, and that we should enjoy it. The need to bicker over grammar disappeared.
By Anonymous on Jun 2 | 1:27 pm
@Current Student Three That’s nice. F-ing conveys something to me too, funny you didn’t use it in a sentence. I wonder why it isn’t a Spelling Bee word. “Definition?” “Derivation?” Back in the day the left attacked Nixon for using expletives on his personal tapes in the Oval office of the White House. Today it is a word that has to be used by the un-prissy so they can understand tragedy. Because they are too coarse to get the idea any other way. Listen to a Chris Rock comedy routine so you can get how he really feels. Then read the transcript and see how that goes. It’s a lovely f-ing column, Anonymous 1:27.
By Anon on Jun 3 | 5:30 pm
I wonder if Michael Gocksch is concerned about Jacob’s use of “fucking”.
By DartBored on Jun 3 | 9:50 pm
It’s a great column, come on admit it. It’s got f-ck, suck and luck in it. Dartmouth writing at it’s best. 40 murdered over the weekend in Chicago…who cares. Buddhist monks burning themselves to death by the scores in Tibet. So what. Accident with a Yale student dying…now that’s f-ing horrible. Oh I get it, she was an Ivy League writer for the Yale student newspaper…this one hit too close to the Batchelor home to ignore, like a Battleship game near miss.
By Anon on Jun 4 | 3:05 pm
The original column that inspired the article is worth reading, as Mr. Batchelder recommends: http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/ Regardless of one’s word usage preferences, it is humbling to read these words in her final piece: “We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time…”
By alum on Jun 9 | 3:33 am
Beautiful. Thanks for taking the time to write this in your last days at Dartmouth. Good luck Jake. Dartmouth will miss you.
By prof on Jun 11 | 12:12 am