“I don’t even know why you would release a Legacy Issue in the first place. None of us have a legacy. When you look at the big picture, we are just meaningless specs of the dust in the vastness of a loveless universe,” said Aimee Lest, Class of 2020, while staring unblinkingly into the sunset over Reem Island. She was smoking a cigarette in clear violation of her Housing Agreement, saying, “When nothing matters, ResEd policy matters least of all.”

The sudden change in Lest’s outlook comes as a surprise to many of her family and friends, who describe her as being cheerful and socially engaged in high school, “always looking for a way to help her fellow man.”

“She used to go out and work at soup kitchens on the weekends.” said her mother in a statement to The Gazelle. “Not only did she do it, she always had a little quote about why she did it, like, Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness.”

When asked about this period of her life, Aimee said, “Those were just quotes from Pinterest pages I was following since I was 13. I didn’t know yet that all life was suffering, and that nothing mattered.”

Aimee took a special interest in this week’s Legacy Issue, because she thinks that leaving legacies is at the core of people’s misguided beliefs about meaning. “You know, people think that you might achieve something in life, and then people will remember you, and that’s something to live for, but like, for how long is that going to last? All life on Earth wiĺl eventually die anyway.”

One of Aimee’s freshman year roommates, Sarah Smithers, said that the changes started happening when the two of them started watching Rick and Morty together before going to bed. “This was in the first semester, and then she really got into the show, started watching all these videos that explained the jokes and stuff. Then second semester she enrolled in some philosophy classes that read copious amounts of 19th century nihilism. One day she finally quit her major in Engineering, saying that making a difference won’t help anyone anyway. It was all pretty sad.”

Albert Trivi, another friend of Aimee’s, suspects some worse motives behind her decision. “I just think she was looking for an excuse to [mess] around and not give too much of a [bother] about her homework.”

Trivi remains unconvinced that the views which Aimee professes to hold are grounded in a deep understanding of philosophy. “Look, she took one philosophy class in her freshman year, and now wants to major in that. But I’ll tell you a secret, all those Schopenhauer and Nietzsche quotes she throws around, she still gets them from Pinterest. She just stopped following suburban housewives and started following moody, pseudo-intellectual neckbeards instead.”

A concerned faculty member from the Philosophy department, who asked to remain anonymous, tried to give Aimee some books and papers which tackle the inherent meaninglessness and absurdity of life with more positivity. While initially receptive, she stormed into his office after reading the texts. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy, my [behind]! Are you kidding me? What sort of conclusion is that? Camus is the biggest sellout of the century!”

Mary Jane Hoover, another member of the Philosophy faculty, thinks it is less of a problem. “Well, many of us go through these phases in the first couple years of college, but I’m not too worried about Aimee. She’s studying away in New York next semester, and I think she’ll probably mellow out a little. Living with complete lack of meaning is pretty exhausting, so I expect her to return with some vague type of Buddhist worldview.”

When asked about her expectations for her semester in New York Aimee replied sarcastically, “Oh yeah, I’m just so excited to be looking at that iconic skyline. Lady Liberty, wow! The only time she will really stand for freedom is when the sun finally swallows us all, and frees us from this prison we call existence.”