Everyone has regrets in life. Some regret their last words to a lost loved one. Others regret irrational choices that led to destructive addictions. Me? Well, I regret one thing and one thing only — I regret that I decided to sit inside watching “Boy Meets World” reruns during rush freshman year. That’s right. I said it. I, Benjamin Lawrence Kryder, am a G…D…[gasp]…I!
For those of you unfamiliar with this droll abbreviation, GDI is a term of endearment used by various members of the Greek community to refer to the unfortunate people group who most likely were simply too obtuse or unsightly for initiation into a fraternity — or even more incomprehensible, simply elected not to rush. No, I know — it’s difficult to even grasp the concept of somebody willingly opting into a life of pathetic inferiority. But I did it. I’m guilty, and I’m tired of making excuses for my folly. So now, struck by the sublime reality of my own purposelessness, I bear the burden as mediator.
Take this with a grain of salt, but here’s how I see the genealogy of the present state of affairs concerning the division between Greek and “Geeds.” Upon their conception, Greeks emerged into positions of power, strength and goodness — the nobles of the university, if you will. Consequently, anything Greek was understood as supreme and valuable, while anything unaffiliated surfaced as weak, sickly and pathetic. Out of callow bitterness, the Geeds grew weary of their substandard status and formed an ethos of ressentiment. Suddenly, Geeds, crippled with social insecurities and unwilling to confront the reality of their own lowliness, conveniently began to perceive Greeks as nothing but oppressive tyrants and heartless misanthropes. In a swift and deliberate shift in moral valuation, the Geeds inverted the established social order — the Greeks perceived anything GDI as anemic and anything Greek came to be understood by Geeds as evil. Diametrically opposed weltanschauung — clash is inescapable!
Lacking any sense of unity or appetite for esteem, we Geeds turn to Gamma Ghkkket, God in the Wilderness and PIT performances, desperately thirsting for even a pale reflection of the unalienable bonds of brotherhood found only in that of the Greeks. But I think its time for us Geeds to pick it up — we’ve whined our way through one too many Friday nights, sitting alone in our rooms with a freshly set up Apples to Apples board ready to rock at a moment’s notice. It’s time we admit it. Because we have to face the fact that if we freely chose not to participate in the Greek system, we must live with the gloomy consequences … of being subhuman. While you Greeks primp for your biannual magical night, we just hope the HAWC hasn’t run out of buffalo sauce.
But in all sincerity — the Greek system is a rich resource for honorable values and longstanding community — and I take it that’s about all the proverbial equipment you need to justify the arbitrary, uninformed maltreatment of other human beings, because acting on the irrational aversion to people that you perhaps wrongly perceive to be different than you has certainly never been a hideous flaw of human nature. But don’t get me wrong! This is our just desert — we Geeds got it comin’. And it’s not like, in the course of human events, do we have any precedence of a people group unifying under the guise of power, tradition and community, steeped in ritual and vowed devotion, recognized by particular hand gestures and a unique insignia, exerting their alleged supremacy over another people group.
Alas, it is an unfortunate reality — but the fact remains — rush don’t lie. Because who attended cigar night and beach clean-up day is clearly an airtight way of delineating those who will be your lifelong companions and those who you’ll boorishly call an “effin Geed.”
Sure, if all things were equal, I’d dream of a world in which we could abandon all our unconscionable prejudices and tribal reflexes, but these imperceptible lines will always remain a brute fact — an ineffable mystery of the human condition.
Or maybe people are just too wrapped up in the inflated grandeur of their own metanarrative to clearly perceive just how shitty we all are.
