Notes of a Crocodile

by Qiu Miaojin

The whole world loves me, but what does it matter since I hate myself?

College—now there’s a system. Though it’s not quite death, it’s a pretty close second.

I felt that.

Like death, college serves as a kind of escape hatch. But while death takes you straight to the morgue, college is a single rope dangling loose from the inescapable net of society.

Legitimately, this is the argument I make with myself every time I think about going back to school. College feels like placing a pause on life and attempting to run from society to something more familiar than life.

Man’s greatest suffering is born of mistreatment by his fellow man.