Understanding Nonsense - a Column by Willian Ryan

I don’t know about you, but I constantly sweat the small stuff. It’s probably not healthy and makes me come across as a control freak. If left in my hands, I do my best to be punctual. I get irritated, with physical effects, if I’m late. Sometimes, when life puts…

My two best friends love to wake me up every day around 6 a.m. They’re hungry and a little thirsty from a good night’s sleep. They’ll hang around in the kitchen and wait for me to give them their breakfast, and when they’re done, they both have to go to…

This past March, I found myself in Baltimore to get my nose swabbed. “Isn’t that a little out of the way for a COVID-19 test? You’re from New Jersey. Baltimore is hours away!” Well, I can assure you that it wasn’t a COVID-19 test, nor a regular nose swab. In…

I’m the proud product of a Jesuit education. For eight years, I studied under the tutelage of wise educators who were Jesuits, a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church that was formed by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century. The modern calling card of Jesuit education is…

I’m going to declare my opinion that LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” is the best song of the 2000s. The song, which is only two notes and about seven and a half minutes long, pulls me in and doesn’t let me go. It’s melancholic, nostalgic, and ready for…

There is never an ideal way to encounter survivor’s guilt. It’ll be foisted upon you like a dumpster on your front porch. It’s unnecessary baggage that you didn’t know you’d have to carry, but now it’s here. I think it’s ultimately a selfish feeling, but sometimes we all have selfish…

In a 1993 commercial for Nike, NBA star and 1992 Olympics hero Charles Barkley declared, “I am not a role model.” The commercial was controversial and garnered backlash, but Barkley was right. He wasn’t a role model. Although a lot of the country, myself included, adore Barkley’s ability…

“This can’t be happening right now.” It was freezing outside, and once again I was in a daze, talking to my doctor while planning a trip. It was the second time, albeit for different reasons, that a trip I’d desperately been looking forward to was threatened by medical issues. The…

When I try to understand the complexities of cystic fibrosis (CF), it often feels like trying to get through Newark Liberty International Airport: What am I doing, how did I get here, and which way to the bathroom? Like the thick mucus in a CF patient’s lungs, people in…

Nonsense can be defined as “an instance of absurd action.” That’s kind of how doctors described my cystic fibrosis (CF) mutations. It was as if my mom hit the New York Lottery and my dad hit the New Jersey Lottery on the same day at the same time. My…