This is a tribute to my friend Ollie. Now, most of you are wondering, great, another boring article about something pointless. Whereas this may be true, ask yourself, when have you read anything worthwhile in the past two weeks? It certainly hasn’t been in that “Text Wrestling” book of yours. So let’s get started.

First off, the reason behind this article is that Ollie is one of the most interesting, preposterous, borderline insane people I know. His collegiate wisdom, philosophies, and insight in the human experience and moral standards are enough to be the foundation of his own religion: Ollieism.

Now besides his forthrightness and saturated self-confidence, Ollie makes sure that his presence is known. Not simply by walking up to a stranger at a party with extended hand and greeting smile, but by carrying around a legal pad and writing personalized notes to the person he is meeting. “To Katie, I’m Ollie. Love Ollie,” read one of these letters that he used to seal a lasting impression on an unsuspecting freshman.

For his friends, a more sincere and kind voice is ascribed in his notes. “Glenn, you are an attractive collegiate male that has the world in his hands. Choose. Choose wisely.”

This gets into one of his main creeds – the aspect of “choosing” – basically, the belief that one can simply choose their path in life and any detail within that path. For instance, you can choose to feel sick, or not. You can choose to ask that cute person across the bar on a date, or slip them a 20 and hope they go with you anyway.

It’s a watered down version of a black or white principle that makes Ollie happy to know he can choose his own destiny and control anything that crosses his path. This may sound obsessive, but it simply means taking things as they come, a quality in life that most people could abide by since it helps the more controlling to let go and relax, even though one can say that some situations get so completely out of control that merely choosing one option to another is ludicrous. However, you can break that situation into smaller more manageable parts to choose your way to a positive remedy.

Ollie enjoys life, and living it as well. Ask his friends about his personality, and all you will hear is praise for his positive, comical, devil-may-care attitude. Wherever he goes, it’s always with a Cheshire grin plastered on his face. His loud, audacious voice can be heard echoing off the Franklin DC’s walls or bellowing through the concourse of the Campus Center.

He is an unselfish person in a selfish world, always going out of his way to greet all his friends and make sure their day is going as well as his. With a hearty handshake and a drink extended to you, Ollie knows a good time.

Delve deeper into the Zen of Ollie, and you will find a sense of humor unrivaled by many. For example, Ollie’s dorm number is similar to the Domino’s Pizza number. So when careless students neglect to press nine before dialing Domino’s number, they happen upon Ollie’s phone. Instead of Ollie explaining their error, he takes the order pretending to be the pizza establishment’s delivery person. When the student calls back wondering where their pizza is, Ollie continues with the ruse assuring them that it is on the way. Now this may seem cruel, but understand that anyone’s patience would be wearing thin after the 30th late night pizza order, so you need to entertain yourself somehow.

For those of you who have read this and don’t know Ollie, I’d like to apologize for the absurdity of this article. It’s one giant inside joke and most likely left people confused and feeling like someone just punched them in the face. But consider the humor in the fact that I just wrote an article on one of my friends amidst the ones about war, politics, and other observations.

What does this matter, you may be wondering. Well, in explaining my man Ollie to you, hopefully you’ve wondered what aspects of Ollie do you exhibit as well. Or maybe you’ve learned something about yourself. So when confronted by those hard to answer questions, just ask yourself: “What would Ollie do?”

Ben Feder is a Collegian columnist.