Sometimes, knowing what could hit you can be worse.
My friend and I were driving down 15-501, on our way back from a Flaming Lips concert in Chapel Hill. It had been a pretty surreal night-for those unfamiliar with the band, their concert oeuvre can be almost overwhelming, with showers of confetti, fake blood gimmicks and weird video images. Once a giant bunny rabbit started hopping through the crowd, we gave up trying to comprehend it all until the ride home.
Unfortunately, the ride offered its own mini-adventure.
"What the hell is that?" I asked my friend. Before he could answer, I knew.
A deer, caught in my headlights.
I swerved to the right and arced around it, leaving the poor creature staring stupidly into the night, unaware of how close he came to being an unintended hood ornament.
"I think my heart stopped beating for a second there," my friend said, shaken up. "That was mighty close."
And then I noticed something in myself-I wasn't relieved at all. In fact, I hadn't been scared in the first place. Without a flinch, I dodged a 200-pound mammal that could have, at the least, ruined my day. It never even occurred to me that something awful could have happened to me right there on 15-501.
Maybe my cavalier attitude reflected a reasonable assessment of the situation. But statistics show otherwise. According to the National Safety Council, deer-vehicle collisions account for 100 motorist deaths and about 7,000 injuries annually. The number of such collisions is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.
But these, and many other more serious statistics like them, are things I (and I suspect, others) ignore every day. Inside Duke's walls, most of us don't have many run-ins with reality, outside of pesky job interviews that are surreal themselves. It's a time of beautiful oblivion, rich with youthful immunity to peril, failure, disappointment and death. Inside these walls, recklessness is rarely punished and audacity is often rewarded. Life is smooth, assured, controlled-even our moments of chaos come with pre-ordered fire marshals and riot gear.
Of course, there are things outside our control. From the weather to fatal car accidents, we are not immune to tragedy small or great. Things sometimes happen that force us to reflect on how precarious life is and how lucky we are.
But we shouldn't. I suspect that if I paid attention to how fragile life is or how rife the world is with disappointment, I would never leave the house. I'd never take a drink, never make love, never write another story, poem or column.
There is enough fear out there to crush every last instinct of passion, spontaneity and genius in everyone. For that matter, there seems to be enough to keep students out of downtown Durham. There is enough to keep people indoors, enough to keep churches full, enough to keep do-gooders and micro-managers in charge of everything. (Nothing is more dangerous than a little self-determination, after all). There are a thousand excuses not to try new things, and most of them come from a sobering look at the facts.
Well, perhaps it is best to simply ignore them. We shouldn't all have unprotected sex tomorrow night, or leave all our doors unlocked. But some things are worth worrying about, and many are not. Too often, worrying about inconsequential things can force your focus away from things that are worth your energy, maybe even worth worrying about.
If I had hit the deer in my headlights, the poor thing likely would have come through the windshield and right into my face. I might have died doing something as innocuous as driving back from Chapel Hill. I wasn't even acting crazy or trying to cure cancer at the time.
And if I had, I would have died happy. I wouldn't have been so saddled with worry that I couldn't get up to edit my magazine the next morning, or worn out that I couldn't think of anything to write. I would have died, for the most part, carefree.
I know that one day the real world will strike me, that reality will rain on my parade. There will be disappointments. Soon, I can fret over taxes and home financing. Eventually, it will be time to worry about death. One day I won't be able to live day-to-day, calm before any calamity. One day I'll worry about hitting a deer in my headlights.
But not now.
Jonas Blank is a Trinity senior and editor of Recess.
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