Are you sure you wanna read this? Are you absolutely sure devoting your undivided attention to these next 2,000 words is worth your precious time? Cause for Christ’s sake, there’s laundry to be done! Assigned readings, hoards of homework to complete and you might work soon, have plans at noon, need to leave in 20 cause you gotta go to the gym, or go meet up with him, her, them, and then, there’s probably a couple hundred other unfinished tasks to still ful- fill in the back of your mind, while time obstinately unwinds as you find yourself slowly itching to close this tab, turn from this page, and now, move on quickly before you miss out! Yeah. We’re all familiar with FOMO, aka the fear of missing out. We tend to associate it with social occasions, seeing it often as the occasional missing out on a party, performance, club, con- cert, family event or function. In reality, however, our feelings of FOMO are much more ingrained, much more deeply felt day-to-day in a collective culture whose base- line behavior operates from fear. We might feel the fear of missing out from missing a single class of a course, missing a single workout during a week, missing a shift of work, a deadline, any and every affair where we feel like our pres- ence is better suited in an other “there” than wherever we are in the moment. Death is at the crux of every fear, rearing its wicked head, lead- ing me to believe that our culture’s falsely construed fixation on the fear of missing out is most closely tied to our intertwining fear(s) of biological and socio-cultural death. Our increasing seculariza- tion has taught us to fear death as a result of our ongoing after-life apathy. Now, every instance of iso- lation is an evanescent eviscera- tion. Paralyzed by the possibility that the world can — no — that the world will go on without us, our egoistic desire to be important impedes the all-encompassing realization of our impermanence. And it is absolutely egoistic, this desire, that damns us to a world of perpetual haste, unrelenting wor- ries about time “wasted,” compul- sively primed social media usage and the constant idea that we should be doing some thing, some where, elsewhere, always. We think, if I don’t do this, how else will people know I exist? How else will they know I mat- ter? And if I don’t matter to oth- ers, do I even matter at all? All our separating, individualizing ego leaves us to do is chase so chroni- cally an everlasting differentiation from others. Earnestly, we draw upon the energy of Else, errone- ously inflating our sense of Self. Without a firm solid grounding in Spirit, we sprint to evaluate our worth via others ofttimes through the nescient, worldly lens of nor- mativity. So similar is the theory of the looking-ass, sorry, looking- glass self in which we tend to base our sense of self on the perception of others. Our current collective spiritual deficiency makes it dif- ficult for us to be alone, to resist the lure of our feeble vices, of our phones and electronic devices, since when left to our own (ana- log) devices, we are, now, ruth- lessly unable to recognize the abundant Source endowed within us by our Creator. Should we tap into our Creative power and opt to operate not from worldly timelines of lack, pain and fear, but instead, from a flowing, ever-presencing meeting of the moment, then we would more keenly know, feel and re-call our divinity on the daily, our arriving towards destiny and the revolving remembrance that every minute is alive with meaning, purpose and prosperity. It is this knowing as feeling through re-calling allowing us to realize that there is, in fact, an abundance of joys to missing out — since in reality, we are never miss- ing out — in the moment. In the moment, at this moment, we are all always arriving at our destina- tion, on the path toward collec- tive liberation, transcendence and oneness. We may take detours as the damning dictates of late-stage capitalism may curtail. Neverthe- less, every single one of us, by vir- tue of being alive, is — more or less — righteously moving along on the way to our final destiny. This is why the fear of miss- Michigan in Color The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com In Solidarity with the Black Student Union: “More Than Four” and the fight for Equity On Tuesday night, posters read- ing “Care about Black students?” were thrown onto the concrete throughout the University of Michi- gan’s Central Campus. Mere hours after an emotionally powerful and unifying gathering of Black U-M students in support of radically chal- lenging the University’s policies and handling of the Black experience, the Black student body is reminded of the University’s true disposition: one of disregard, disrespect and out- right rejection. That an anonymous member of the community felt it an appropriate representation of the campus to vandalize protest mate- rial suggests a campus-wide tacit approval of systemic silencing. On Nov. 1, the Black Student Union at the University of Michi- gan published their list of urgent demands for the University of Mich- igan President and Board of Regents. Titled “More Than Four,” the docu- ment outlines the organization’s current political platform, which is focused on unilaterally improv- ing the status of Black students at the University. The BSU also orga- nized a public address at which the demands were read to the student body on the steps of the Hatcher Graduate Library. The posting of the platform on social media was met with a positive response, and the address drew a crowd of BSU mem- bers and allies alike. “More Than Four” details a four- point platform tasking the Univer- sity and its administration with actionable items to combat issues faced by the Black student body. The platform identifies the following issues for the University to address: 1. Increasing Black Student Enrollment 2. Explicitly Combating Anti- Blackness 3. Rectifying the structural flaws of DEI that systemically neglect Black students 4. The University’s Social Respon- sibility to Invest in the Public Good Through K-12 Education The BSU cites statistics from Uni- versity studies in order to make their case, such as the stagnation of Black enrollment around 4.2% for the last decade (the administration having reneged on their half-century-old promise of 10% enrollment), and that Black students reported hav- ing the worst campus experience among all social identities in 2017. “For me, (the platform) means increasing equity and advancing social causes. Overall what we’re seeking is greater equity, not only within the walls of this institution but outside (as well),” Public Policy senior and BSU Speaker Kayla Tate (she/her) said. “The fourth tenet addresses that, and aims to cultivate a broader talent pool of competitive applicants who can attend this Uni- versity.” Expanding upon that, LSA senior and BSU Programming co-chair Russell McIntosh (he/him) stated that the platform represents “an expectation of the University to confront its complicity in certain systems that have made (education) inequitable for Black students.” The address was prefaced by an hour of community discussion at the Trotter Multicultural Center, where members of the BSU execu- tive board briefed students in atten- dance of the platform and then held an open dialogue. Students men- tioned grievances that resonated with many in the room: the inad- equacy of pre-college programs (Wolverine Pathways, for example) in terms of funding and securing enrollment, the lack of recruitment of diverse students or initiatives that increase the University’s exposure to underserved communities and an erasure of Black culture and activism on campus, to name a few. Students also reflected that Ann Arbor as a whole similarly does not reflect the state of Michi- gan’s racial demographics, further ostracizing Black students and creating additional barriers for them to find community: whereas the state population is 14.1% Black, Ann Arbor is half of that at 7%. The BSU e-board stressed that, while the platform does provide some general recommendations for improving the campus climate, the onus of improvement lies squarely on the University and that it shoul- ders the responsibility of living up to its own expectations and poli- cies. This is far from the first instance of the University being critiqued on its DEI programs and initiatives. After nearly two decades of Supreme Court chal- lenges and a reversal of Michigan’s affirmative action policies, the University continues to struggle in cultivating a diverse campus through race-blind efforts alone. Citing difficulty in increasing the Black student population through metrics such as socioeconomic status, Michigan continues to hide behind the banning of affirmative action as the primary reason for a decrease in minority enrollment. CEDRIC MCCOY MiC Columnist Ankitha Donepudi/MiC G et y ou r t icke ts n o w ! G et y ou r t icke ts n o w ! SPOOKY SHOWINGS at your LOCAL THEATERS! Hocus Pocus October 23 COSTUME CONTEST Wear your costumes and run amok! Dress up as your favorite character for a chance to win prizes at our pre-screening costume contest. (All ages) Prizes Include: Theater Memberships, Movie Tickets, Concession Vouchers, & more! Nosferatu October 30 LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT Stephen Warner plays the historic Barton Organ during the film. Rocky Horror Picture Show October 27 Shadow Cast The Leather Medusas perform a live shadow cast during the film. STATE THEATER OPEN TUES - SUN MICHIGAN THEATER OPEN TUES + THURS - SUN michtheater.org (734) 668-8397 Frankenstein October 31 Direct From London Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. The joys of missing out Wednesday, November 9, 2022 — 7 Read more at MichiganDaily.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com KARIS CLARK MiC Columnist