You need a certain tone to talk about this. Sit on a desk if you have to, in front of an imaginary sea of students, your feet swinging like those of a child licking a lollipop. You are the professor, that means you know things, you’ve spent more than fifteen hours a day reading stuff and trying to write about them, make them understandable for the unripe minds of future generations. Emphatically, you’ll raise your voice and say that empires do fall, oh, they do, oh, a most unfortunate condition for any type of societal construct, actually, a most unfortunate condition for any type of pride there is. At this point, please notice that your students stand frozen looking at you, wondering whether you’ve gone mad or it is only a transitory moment of rebellion against everything, the state especially, politics and morality, and all those boring things that make a life complicated. Some of them will rejoice because, at last, they found a leader for their youthful hipsterism. Why do they fall, professor, why do empires fall? Because some of us get creative, you’ll say after a dramatic pause, and while waiting for your students to write down this immense idea. There are norms, you’ll say, norms to which some of us won’t comply, or can’t comply. Roles that some of us shall refuse to perform. Oh, how grand you’ll sound, but only in your mind. Your students will laugh, though not in your presence, only then, when they’ll see your humble figure haunting the dark corners of an obscure public library. Later, they’ll say it was an attack against same-sex marriages that lead the world to infertility and empty wombs. Oh, look how the empire is crumbling! You’ll die in the meantime, professor, and your students will never know what you meant. What a pity, and a most unfortunate condition that is…