Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if it lived up to the reputation that I occasionally pretend my column gives me. Now, that was quite a long sentence, let me repeat it just case you didn’t get it all the first time: Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if it lived up to the reputation that I occasionally pretend my column gives me.

Using the same adjective twice in the same paragraph is a big no-no (as, for that matter, is using the word “no-no” even once) in the world of (barely) post-kindergarten writing that we indulge in here at The Daily. So, doubling up on sentences, well, that’s a serious crime.

I’m going to get away with it, though. This is because I followed my faux pas with an exercise of an even more fundamental rule of columnisting: self-referencing. Well, that’s not really a rule, so much as a tenet. (See what I did there?)

Now, why am I babbling on about the writing of a column, rather than actually writing one? What purpose is served by this drawn out explanation of process? Why is this paragraph filled with rhetorical questions?

The answer to all of these is the same: word limits.

Each week, I have to produce 600-800 words for The Daily. Most weeks I just explain why I hate you, yes, you, all of you. Sometimes, for variety, I explain why I hate myself.

Every now and again, however, I am filled with love for my fellow man and have taken enough of a mental beating from my parents (exercise more, drive safely, eat vegetables, don’t smoke, stop with the cocaine, leave the little girls alone — it never ends) to continue with the self-flagellation.

At times like this, I write solely to generate words.

Ah, words.

I like words.

Words are good.

And, that was eight more without even the slightest effort. Give me a challenge, people.

Columns and their columnists formed a significant part of my weekend — on Saturday night, I was at the inaugural Stanford Daily Columnist Fun Fest. Okay, so I made up the Fun Fest bit, but you get the idea.

Our resident Finn (the incomparably delightful Sini) lured several of us to The Daily office for free beer and a couple of hours of drinking, gossiping and, most importantly, comparing hate mail. (Hey, negroidlatte, if you’re reading this, the guys thought your email was hilarious. You should definitely get in touch again.)

One thing that didn’t come up, rather surprisingly, now that I think about it, is the obvious question of why we bother.

As CV-building goes, it’s probably not that useful, especially when compared with simply joining the newspaper staff. No, column-writing isn’t about the future, it’s about the present.

At some level, I’m sure many of my colleagues care about issues. That Franich kid (lovely chap, btw, great hair) seems to be truly into saving Stanford from itself (or, more precisely, its deans). And Durning is obviously into “the world.” However, I suspect that even for the most earnest of the pack, issues are not the only important thing.

(I, of course, don’t care. In fact, I would goes so far as to say that I hate issues and wish they would stop stealing our jobs and go back to where they came from. Dirty ingrates.)

No, I fear that what we’re after, is what everyone else is after — a little fame.

Not, obviously, much fame, since The Stanford Daily has a circulation of 10,000 (plus about 50,000 unique hits online each week — Vicky made me put this in) and a readership of about nine. (Well, I assume it’s only nine, because otherwise I and my brilliant work would be receiving much more fan mail.)

Fame is relative (I measure mine through Google — four and half pages, baby, four and a half), but ultimately the idea is to be known. Known by people who have never met you. And writing a column is about the cheapest way to do that if you’re lazy and/or a talentless hack (the latter is not true of anyone on The Daily roster apart from me — had to say that so they don’t fire me).

Other than Sudoku success nothing gives me quite the same joy as receiving emails due to slightly illiterate Web crawlers. I rejoice in knowing that somewhere there exist a few lines of code that love me.

It’s not clear why this should be the case. The warm feeling of success is not accompanied by anything tangible. There’s no offer of money. No one has ever tried to seduce me (still a mystery). And the glimmer of recognition will vanish as soon as I move on from the Farm.

The only explanation I can find is that I, like everyone else, value celebrity for its own sake. Whilst I claim only to care about the tangible, about changing the world and all that, really I’m lying. As fickle as it is, all I want is one thing.

Fame. I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna learn how to fly.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. Send me a suitably congratulatory email (navins@stanford.edu) and I’ll put you in my next column so you can have a little of the glory rub off on you. Oh, and apologies for the lame pop culture reference.