i walked with you once upon a dream

So Sylvia Plath wrote this poem, and it's one of my favorites and it goes like this:

"A Mad Girl's Love Song"

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)


And yeah, Sylvia Plath is sad, and weird, and has a lot of chutzpah writing books like the Bell Jar that are simultaneously depressing and unprecedented (depressedented?).

Sometimes I think about it, and I wonder, how much of how we feel about other people is a product of just what happens in our heads, rather than the tangible world around? And are our feelings just a product of all of what we've been exposed to? Are our feelings more like dreams-- a mixture of what we've been exposed to getting jumbled up in our heads-- but slightly more refined so as not to seem cognitively unsound? What if our feelings are all we have to go from in face of little empirical evidence?

Just think about how you choose your career. You kind of think about it a bit, weigh the options, think about what you'd most like to study or apply for. And then you stick with it, unless you really hate it. You might love it, and it's right. Or you might love some of it, but not all of it.What says this is right? What if there IS something better out there, that you're best-suited for? How much of our decision-making process can be based on hope for liking things better in the future or finding something better in the future?  You're basing your paths off of a notion that could be wrong. Same with dating. Sometimes I feel like life is a game of guess and check, because people start things and end things on whims and fancy-free, confused notions of what life really is. 

these things may or may not be true

it's not the truth just because everyone thinks it.

our physical conventions are solely important to ourselves and no one else, because the details that are unique to ourselves, like our handwriting and eye color and shoe size, will never truly define who we are as people.

it's usually better just to say/act how you feel when you feel strongly than think about it forever until it stops being relevant.

nothing good happens (between two people) after 2AM. wake up in the morning, and think again.

to survive, all you need is one friend in the universe who believes in you.

you have to know yourself and love yourself before you can love someone else.

just do what you say and say what you mean.

everybody lusts.

everybody hurts.

you can be beautiful and not know it.

you get to decide who you will be, but you can't undo who you were.

no truth is solely objective. but no truth is solely subjective, either.

friendship > flirtation

love > hate > indifference? else, love > indifference > hate (because of the potential for differentiation)

music is language of our hearts

nothing truly great can be achieved without passion

there's really no point in dating someone you don't have chemistry with

sometimes we want things more just because we know we can have them, and sometimes we want things less just because we know we can have them.

clingy = / = sexy when it comes to social behavior

matters of the heart, keep them in the heart only, your eyes say it all

sometimes the storm is better than the still

education is the way out of poverty; education is contagious

freedom of information is essential to freedom of thought

money buys happiness

but not love. 

i've kind of been on a rampage.

things that i bought that i love (that will also probably turn me into more of a pretentious music-snob):

-brand new 160 gig iPod classic 

-replacement (FREE because of warranty) BOSE headphones

-blank CDs (this is more like a present to everyone else)

-the 15-item iPod Bundle for SUPER CHEAP on Amazon

-the indie rock poster book: it's probably a little too indie for me, but it's SO cool. it has rip-out BEATIFUL (and you know, hip) posters, each depicting an artist's rendering of a good song. and apparently all the proceeds go to charity. 

DISCLAIMER: money doesn't buy happiness. music is happiness. and yeah, music has to do with money, but it doesn't count as something greedy-making. i think. also, it's not a bad thing to get happiness from money! none of these expenditures, to me, are frivolous luxuries. they were all things i've kind of needed for a while anyway. so don't playa-hate. 

my dream last night

for some reason, the strokes needed a new singer because julian couldn't sing, and for whatever reason they chose me. they let me record the song "under cover of darkness," but i kept messing up because they started the recording from where i come in instead of at the intro where the guitars do that cool thing, and julian kept on being really condescending and saying, "are you sure you can do this, aarushi? are you sure we shouldn't just get peter griffin to do it?" and i was like, "YEAH I CAN." but then i sang it again, and then i forgot the lyrics, because i don't even know them right now. and then julian printed me the lyrics off the computer, and then it was fine, and then i was the lead singer of the strokes.

cool things i've been gaining more of an appreciation for

-solid foods. since getting wisdom teeth out, i suddenly realize the joy of foods that are solid like bagels and chips and cookies and pastries and anything that you'd put hummus on, chewy candy and granola bars, oh and meat. i love me some solid meat.

-RNA interference. this is quite possibly the most exciting, totally rad burgeoning scientific field that has been picking up my interest lately. imagine being able to knock down any gene you wanted. the implications are crazy. if you care, you should watch this video: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/rnai.html

-CDs in cars. yeah, iPod hookups are sweet and all, but you have to change them if you don't have a good playlist, and i'm sick of all of my playlists. my car is stocked with all these old CDs i've left in there all the summers and breaks previous. it introduces a smaller, less random repertoire into my ears as i cruise in happiness, singing to all of the old favorites i'd forgotten about.

-hanging out with more than three people at a time. something changes in me when there's more than four people in a room. i do like one on one, one on two etc, but something about five people or more makes it into a party. everyone talks together, instead of just to one other person, and it's just chaotic enough to be super fun. it becomes fun as the responsibility is more diffuse, and people are just laughing and having a good time not being too serious.

-accents. they're adorable. :) cheerful southern drawl to matter-of-fact brooklyn to lightly korean to queen's english to canadian french to trinidadian to german to indian (but of course)

i sometimes kind of wish everyone had a blog

Because then I could peer into their thoughts, and maybe be able to match some of what they do to what they choose to share with the world- because I always find, at least with myself, that people can be right obvious if they open up a dialogue with the random strangers who read their blog.

I wonder what the world would be like if everyone were made aware of everyone else's inner dialogue. I think it would create a parallel universe, in which all of our choices differ, in a similar manner to as if we went to that funny parallel universe on that episode of Futurama where every coin toss had the opposite outcome but Earth was otherwise the same, and Leela and Fry were married. Given the fact that we had to face everyone's inner drives in day-to-day conversation, we might be much more straight-forward and less wishy-washy about what we want. We might smell the lust of another and take advantage, or bolt before it became too clear. We might not take a chance because we can see what that person sees in every other person. Maybe we'd be too quick to love or to hate, based on one feeling we see of someone. If we catch someone on a day where everything is going wrong, we might misjudge them to be some kind of crabby, angry pug who thinks thoughts in profanities, and fleeting violent fantasies. Maybe it would all be so much easier because then we wouldn't have to fight, and couples could sense the moment when one partner's resolve is breaking and they just want everything to be better, and cuddling to recommence-- maybe then, things wouldn't go too far. Or maybe it'd be easier to see the reasoning behind someone's argument-- maybe it'd be easier to see that nothing, no amount of cuddling or reassuring could make this better, maybe the message would sink in faster.

Maybe there'd be no time to think at all, because we could never get any head-space. Maybe we'd all just be a collection of drives. Or maybe we'd grow to tune it out with time, and then we wouldn't care about it anymore; we'd grow to not care that even teachers and nurses and parents and presidents have slight impure thoughts on the hour (at least), and that teenage boys and girls alike regularly picture genitalia. Maybe we'd end up being the same, but just a little more jaded or more aware of what everyone feels like. Maybe it would make for an all-around better world! Hell if I know.

All I know is that I would be embarrassed if everyone knew what I was thinking all the time.