Yes, I am normally filled with self-loathing, but today I prefer to blame other people for everything bad in the world. For example, global warming is clearly the fault of the Eskimos. Poverty comes from Tibetan monks. And the trade deficit is all due to the Freemasons. With this in mind, I’ve been trying to figure out who’s to blame for grad school.

In the beginning, my considerable pondering on this subject led me nowhere. I paced around for many days trying to figure out who was out to get us all. But to no avail: I was stuck. Until I thought of you.

Yes, it’s your fault. All of you are making me and the rest of us miserable.

(Just to clarify, “you” are the faceless mass that is the undergraduate population of Leland Stanford Junior University. “Us” refers to the charming individuals that make up the various graduate programs.)

Now I realize you might think we’ve been down this road before. After all, columns in this space tend to follow a well-defined cycle: from “grad school is unpleasant” to “undergrads irritate me” to “grad school is unpleasant.” However, think of this piece as bridging the gap — it’s a meta-column explaining why undergraduates are to blame for my personal hell.

Life in your mid-twenties (okay, damn you, late twenties, but let me dream) really shouldn’t be that bad. In fact, most people seem to enjoy it. So what makes our lives so different from theirs?

You. All you young folk with your shiny, taut skin. With your lithe bodies, unravaged by the excesses of age. You, with your youthful exuberance. You fool us into thinking that the path to happiness lies in recapturing our younger days.

The pursuit of days past is both an easy and tempting mistake to make. Undergraduate days are fun. We’re “lucky” enough to find ourselves back in school; surely the obvious way to make the most of it is to run around recapturing the halcyon days of irresponsibility.

The problem is, though, being perpetually young prevents you from growing up. Moreover, trying to be the everlasting undergrad leaves you missing out on those experiences unique to life as a twenty-something.

Growing up and moving on can be an uncomfortable thing. It’s pretty difficult to get through any stage of life without having regrets about missed opportunities, and the second chances grad school seems to offer are hard to ignore. But in life, every opportunity taken is another one lost.

Socializing has never been one of my strong points (I really do dislike other people), but I make occasional exceptions. Last Thursday was one, as I found myself hosting a turducken-based (thank you America, for your great contribution to the pantheon of food) Thanksgiving for a set of assorted friends from school and elsewhere.

While not necessarily an entirely grown-up activity, there was something about the setting and the attendees that felt far removed from school and its concerns. As the evening progressed and the food-induced stupor settled over me, I found myself looking around at my guests and realizing that — without the contamination of youth — life as an adult might not be such a bad thing after all.