Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to leave suction cup hickey marks of brilliance on your brain and you’re going to stop me on campus later to thank me for my enthralling messages—or pelt me with rocks because you hated them, but I’d prefer the former.

 
I’ll start my first column by broaching the topic of goldfish.

 
Now, don’t check out on me just yet because this topic has relevance; nothing ever has to be meaningless.

 
Did you know that goldfish can’t close their eyes? They don’t have eyelids, so they literally cannot get any shut-eye sleep. They get open-eye sleep. And while that sounds awful and makes you much more likely to help a fish out by turning off the light to emulate closed eyelids, we have a lot more in common with goldfish than we might think.

 
I don’t know about all of you, but this semester, I’ve found myself wandering through the hours lately like a sleeping goldfish, eyes wide open, but not registering much of anything.

 
I go to class, eat, tutor, do homework, maybe go pee if I remember, rinse-and-repeat (not necessarily in that order). And throughout all of that, I’m asleep.

 
I’m asleep to the fact that one of my friends isn’t acting like himself today, because I’m too focused on those spots on the wall and imagining the patterns they make. I’m asleep to the story my sister is telling me because I’m busy staring unblinkingly at my computer screen, wondering if that’s the same post about Alan Rickman that I looked at ten minutes ago.

 
I’m asleep to the sound of an old buddy calling my name from twenty feet over because I have headphones jammed in my ears, blaring Richard Walters’ “Infinity Street” on repeat. I’m asleep to everything around me because I’m too preoccupied thinking about nothing at all.

 
Zombie goldfish.

 
Sometimes it’s nice to get lost within ourselves for a while and just check out of the Reality Hotel by 11:00 am, thank you, have a nice day.

 
But in getting lost, we run the risk of becoming so wrapped up in ourselves that we fall asleep with our eyes still open, looking out but not seeing anything.

 
A goldfish has an attention span of nine seconds, the average human has a span of about eight. If a fish can focus on something outside itself for at least nine seconds, why can’t we?

 
The problem with constantly floating in limbo on our phones, computers, iPods, gaming consoles and even our own heads, is that we end up missing the other substantial stuff that makes up the world around us.

 
Like that friend who maybe just needs you to check back in and notice that not everything is okay there. Or your sister (or brother, or whomever) who would rather look you in the eye while speaking instead of at your hairline as you’re bowed over your phone.

 
So by all means, be a goldfish. Go through life unblinking. But make sure you’re awake to what’s around you. Make sure that what you’re staring at is worth spending eight seconds of your life staring at.