i want your ugly, i want your disease

"when lady gaga says she wants your  disease, she probably doesn't know what she wants, if you look at some of what these sexual dysfunctions are..." - andy, my TA for sex

i don't know about you, but glee's cover of this song was incredibly good.

i'm not going to draw a comparison between me and lady gaga, but i've been thinking lately, i'm like eight different people.

so i have basically 4 sets of friends:

 -there are the ones who check up on me, know when something really big happens and might be there to witness it.

-there are the ones who are always there when i feel lonely to have a long philosophical talk with

-there is the large clique of friends that gets assembled whenever we're on break from school.

-there are the friends that are always doing something fun and i can relax with them with no pressure.

this makes sense because i have an 8 component personality.

obviously the first group sees most of me, the second sees my funny/deep side, the third sees my funny/slightly insane side, and the last have seen me in a few different ways.

this hits me weird because in some groups, i will feel like i'm completely one thing, like i'm the most girly/stupid/smart/reliable/bashful person in the room, but then in another group, i will be the opposite. ah, relativity. but deeper than that, i realize that i fulfill different roles in each of these groups: sometimes i'm the reality check, sometimes i'm the sandman. this leads me to realize the power of the human mind to develop categories to stick people into. these categories are fed by confirmation bias (when you think something already, you continue to find evidence to support it) until one thinks that said person just is a certain way, instead of thinking that they might be able to be something other than what their "type" dictates.
this becomes in a problem because sometimes, i tend to act according to someone's expectations of me.

it's frustrating because i want to be the same person with everyone.  such an idea, however, is self-defeating, because different people bring out different parts of you:

-i have a few friends i could never discuss politics with(and make no mistake, this kind of thing has nothing to do with education level. i have some really well-educated friends), but they build me up and make me laugh when i need a searchlight.

-i have a couple of friends-- who i respect fully for being so keen and clever with their thought processes, with whom i seem to have so much in common... but somehow we are fundamentally different in the way we approach and see and act in the world, like two different sides of the same coin. 

-some friends like me more than they let on.

-i have a friend who seems to love me nearly unconditionally, who supports me in nearly everything i do and remembers most everything i say, who puts up with my crazy on a daily basis and still cares enough about me to call everyone i know to make sure i'm safe.

because everyone is different with me, everyone sees different sides of me. kind of like an experiment where you expose a plant to different conditions. i realize that i might have to come to terms with the disconnect that happens. it seems that some of my friends could never see me being serious about academics, while another might think i'm way too serious, some will see me as brazen and assertive, while some might see someone who simply doesn't have a filter. i have to realize that some of my friends may never see me for more than what i was two years ago... perhaps, back when they really knew me.
where you sit depends on where you stand, according to my professor for international studies 101, Scott Straus, who I think was quoting Fareed Zakaria, who undoubtedly got it from someone else.


all of this doesn't really bug me that much, even though i've rambled on a bit about it.  and forgive me for the rambling, but after all, this is MY blog, this is my place to figure things out without getting too much of a hand cramp from writing this all out in my tiny journal which is currently still packed in with my stuff.

what i guess i want to say is that none of my friends ARE me, and none of them are the perfect friend, but they all care about me, and they all make me more alive in different ways. some, by giving me an okay on being hedonistic; others, by reining me in when i need it; still others for challenging me to be better-- and of course, by making me laugh. i feel incredibly blessed to get to have so many valuable, fascinating people in my life, who still want to see me.

the one thing that really bugs me, however, is when people make an assumption about someone's existence or being, based on something they've heard about them, seen them do once, or any of the like. here is where the confirmation bias comes in full force.
for example, there are the token "smart" people. and i give them credit, they are VERY smart many times, sometimes they do extraordinary things like build robots or take a lot of hard classes and get extremely high grades on tests. but being great at something doesn't make you superhuman.

 i hate it when people:
-compare themselves to these godly smart beings and sell themselves short
-assume that this "smart" person will be great at whatever academic task they have to do ever or will know the answer to any given question
-not give the "smart" person credit for being anything other than what they're assumed to be
-assume that this smart person is the end-all be-all of smart on the subject and everyone else is fighting to keep up.

assumptions, people. they make asses of all of us. by thinking this way, you are being way too simplistic with your logic.
i may have a big mouth, but i try to pay a lot of attention before forming an opinion about someone and their competency at a given skill.
with my mind that is surprisingly capable of symbolic and abstract thinking i recognize that there is not one person who has a monopoly over all of the smarts or skillz. it's just that some people, let's face it, are better at getting things done in the world, and some people stand out more. (also, some people boast.)

i'm not going to lie. i get legitimately offended when someone assumes that someone who is known as smart will do something better than i will without evidence, or generally whenever anyone uses the "that's the way this person is" argument.

excuse me, who are you to say who/what a person is capable of? do you know what i'm capable of?

another one i like is:
"aarushi, why would you do that?"
"why can't i do this? jason did it."
"well jason's really smart."
"well, yeah, and so am i."

there is a very very fine line between cleverness/smarts and determination. i guarantee you the people who win in the world have a little of both. i just really don't like this absolutist way of thinking. people aren't just one thing, and they aren't just the way they are. believing that some person is JUST BETTER than me and you and us is just an excuse to not try to improve.

the root of the problem is the fact that some people are too quick to make "rules" in their heads. they sound like:
someone who is a year ahead in math and getting an A, is probably smart. 
someone who is three years a head in math and is taking 234 at the UW and has a 4.0 is probably REALLY smart. therefore, they must be more apt to solve a problem than the person sitting next to them in 234 who is taking it at a normal time.... or, therefore, they must get everything right all the time and never have to ask questions, or therefore, they're also really good at physics.

it's incredibly stupid, but i swear this is the way a lot of people think. people hold a lot of illusions. it's not that i begrudge the sentiment of people who are impressed by advancement, it's just that in general, it's stupid to be so impressed with someone that you don't realize what they really are. it's how bad leaders get elected.

the same goes for most things : beauty for example.
there is no one standard for beauty, at least according to me. 
i was a little appalled when i found out that in psych studies where attractiveness is a factor the experimenter got to just say someone was attractive and someone else wasn't. that's another thing that is not something you can just be or not be. sometimes, at best, you can know what it's not.

(thinking about this makes me think back to a post jason reminded me of that i wrote back in 2007.... long time ago, which was a bit cheesy, but i think it's still valid. it's called "You are not unbeautiful." i guess it was my 16-year-old self's defiant reaction from various social and perceived pressures.)

i don't necessarily hate the people who do this, as i realize, they're not trying to sell other people short by their blanket assumptions. being both a person who is assumed to do well in something, and a person who is assumed to come out behind someone else, i know that it's easier to live without having to deal with others' expectations of your behavior or others' perceptions of your worth. 
i just know at these times that you've gotta remember that your truth is not what people tell you, but what you expect of yourself, and what you believe you are capable of.