Senior Staff Writer Ramisa Murshed has a mouth. Let her scream.

At Sunday’s meeting (come to open meeting every Sunday at 9 pm in Lerner 510!), a fellow Bwogger pitched the idea of Primal Scream, but for midterms. Another Bwogger brought up the point that if we had Primal Scream for midterms, Primal Scream would be every day.

But then, I thought, why do we have to have designated days to scream? Why does social convention tell us that we must keep our screams bottled up inside of us until Primal Scream? When some of us miss Primal Scream, we get disappointed that we weren’t able to let our screams out. “I guess I just have to wait until next semester,” we say.

We don’t have to, though. We only think that because society has told us that it’s not socially acceptable to scream. But it should be. We should be allowed to scream whenever we want. It doesn’t have to be Primal Scream. Sometimes, you’re stressed because you have a billion midterms that seem like they might never end. Or you’re fed up with the fact that you can never find an empty green chair at Milstein. Or you’re tired of reading about white men complaining in your CC readings. Or you’re frustrated that your code won’t compile after hours of not being able to figure out what’s wrong with it. Or you’re upset that you got ghosted on Tinder. Or you’re ticked that you missed the avocado toast bar at Ferris. Or you’re annoyed because someone in your housing group decided to flake at the last minute because they had plans different from the ones you and the rest of your group had already established.

There are so many reasons one might want to scream that are completely unrelated to finals, and the idea that Primal Scream only happens once a semester around finals time undermines the concerns that we have as Columbia students. I’d say that it even perpetuates stress culture.

So let yourself scream. Don’t force yourself to wait until Primal Scream. Do it now. It doesn’t matter where you are. If you want to scream, do it. In your room? Scream. Off campus? Scream. On the subway? Scream. In a library? Scream. In class? Scream. It doesn’t matter where you are, if you need to scream, then don’t be afraid to. Just scream.

Image via Pixabay