It is said that some men see the world as it is, while others see it as it could be. I believe that those rare individuals who belong to the second category are not so much born or raised, but rather emerge from some societal confluence of autonomy, creativity, and vision. To these individuals, the world is like an incomplete puzzle and while the rest of us see the brilliance and beauty of the picture, they see only the void of the missing piece. It is no statement of hyperbole or exaggeration when I tell you that Conor Lastowka is one of these rare men.

I consider myself part of those teeming masses of college age students. I like drinking. I like laughing at other peoples' misfortunes. I like logging on to websites like CollegeHumor and looking at pictures of horses masturbating or guys who don't grow toenails. And, honest to god, I am not someone who is in the habit of deifying guys I know. The thing about Conor is that he is like me in all of those ways. And if you met him on the street he would probably be too humble to let you know that he was anything more. Just as he was too humble to write this article about himself and wasn't even going to do it until I asked if I could do it in his stead. But Conor is more than that. One day, while drunk on God knows what he had gotten from his Venezuelan friends around the corner, Conor looked at the world that all of us inhabit and told us that there must be a high five-day.

If you have never participated in National High Five Day before, then I think all you need to know about NHFD is that it celebrates the high five. The rest of it, I will explain a bit, but honestly you won't even believe me when I tell you. NHFD is based on the principal belief that the high five is the single greatest form of casual greeting around. Both because the high five is good and because the others are so poor. The handshake is so easily botched and often winds up with someone's hot, chicken grease hand squeezing yours for just a few seconds too long or just a few inches short of full hand on hand action. The fist pound was okay for a while, but has just gotten way out of control. The chest bump is pretty good, but isn't really feasible logistically to ever make it to the mainstream. The one exception usually brought up to this argument by some freshman walking out of Anthropology 101 are those rare types of monkeys called Bonobos who have sex when they greet, have sex to celebrate, have sex to depart and have sex just to say they care. But even then, you can't exactly make a holiday committed only to having sex with strangers because when it comes right down to it, they already have one and its called Spring Break.

I don't know if Conor had been weighing all of these logistical issues or if really was just that preternatural, otherworldly sense of what we all needed, but trust me when I tell you National High Five Day has hit just that exact chord that I don't think anything else could have hit.

So every year on the third Thursday of the April, National High Five Day is celebrated by more and more people who use it as an excuse to throw some fives, throw some parties and generally have a good time. And if that was all there was to it, it would still be damn good work in my book, but not the kind of thing that would vault this guy into the Mr. Miyagi/Yoda/Tyler Durden level of mystic appreciation that everyone comes to view him with. Now I've already waxed poetic about this phenomenon far more than I ever thought I would, so I'm just going to leave NHFD and all its ancillary glory as something for which you must experience yourself.

So if you are like me, if you are the same smart, generally cynical, generally self-righteous type of bastard that I am, go out on Thursday, walk down the street, and throw that hand into the air whenever you see someone walking the other way. They may give you an inquizzical look and keep walking, some do. They may even give you an angry look, and then an angry glance back after you pass- some do. But if some housewife or businessman or whine-o or 6th grader throws that five back on you, slap his five, don't say a word. Keep walking into the sunset and come back and tell me if you don't just find yourself thinking "Wow, I didn't even know that piece was missing." For more info on NHFD, visit NationalHighFiveDay.com.

But first, high five these hotlinks, using your mouse instead of your hand, of course. Or, to play "Send me to a random CH friend site right now, click here. Peace!