CAMBRIDGE, MA – “Oh fuck, what did I get into last night?” stammered freshman Brayden Colby Lunsford as he woke up next to an unexpected lump under his bedsheets.
Tearing off the covers, Lunsford quickly discovered an unfamiliar stack of books. “Oh no, what did I study last night? I needed a kilo to get me through the semester, not…” he muttered as he examined the cover. “Not Women’s Voices Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings? What? How did this get here?”
Lunsford sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands to mentally retrace his steps. “Ok so I meant to go to the rager at Delta Sig, but the last thing I remember was leaving ECON 201 around 7 p.m. with Trey and then we walked to the…oh my god! We went to the library to study!”
Frantically, Lunsford moved to his desk to open his laptop. “I started a study guide? But it’s still syllabus week. That’s the last time I hang out with Trey, man. I completely spaced on the party.” Lunsford ruffled through his discarded chinos to find a receipt from the campus bookstore, timestamped at 9:52 p.m. “Goddamnit, I needed that money to hook the Delta Sig guys up with some more blow. How am I going to explain to Father I need more money when it’s just the first week of classes?”
Lunsford opened his internet browser to google “ways to make money fast” but instead found himself reading an article on Headspace.com about the benefits of being in a flow state. As he developed a deeper understanding of how being immersed in a challenging task one enjoys can warp one’s perception of time, he wondered aloud, “I still don’t understand what went wrong last night. Better make an appointment with a librarian to find a good book that can help me learn more about this flow state.”
“Oh god – what am I doing? I need to work out, shower, and then go to that dayger with Stacie!” Lunsford exclaimed.
Desperate to feel cooler before getting ready, Lunsford started cutting out the middle of Understanding Our Universe to hide his dwindling drug supply until he accidentally started reading and contemplating his place in the cosmos.
