I was on the local university campus today for a meeting, and as I was going along the walkway above one of the older dormitories, I saw a curious bit of graffiti. Someone had spray painted the word "ennui" in large, green, cursive letters on the side of the building.
Now, my town has it's share of peculiar graffiti, from the pure art that adorns the underside of bridges to the seemingly innocuous and singularly neo-hippie "Yoni" that shows up on the sides of local businesses. But ennui? Doesn't the act of tagging a building run counter to the very nature of ennui? How listless and disinterested can you be if you're willing to engage in that classic act of rebellion? Ennui involves lying a-bed, reading small volumes of poetry and contemplating the meaningless nature of life, not committing misdemeanors.
So I'm left to ponder: was this a particularly clever joke perpetrated by a drunk English major, or a classic case of college emo kids trying to show off a vocabulary that they haven't fully grasped yet? I want to believe it's the former, but my past experiences with the residents of this particular dorm lead me to fear it's the latter.
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