Sometimes when I stare at myself for long enough in the mirror, I start feeling a strange, hyper awareness of my body. I start asking questions like "Who am I?" and I keep repeating my name over and over again and I feel super disconnected from my physical body. It's this weird out-of-body experience, and it doesn't usually last for more than half a minute. This has been happening a lot to me of late. And I don't even need a mirror. It happens all the time - when I'm taking a shower, when I'm having a conversation, when I'm in class.
I keep thinking that it all means something; maybe a prelude to something huge. I feel as though this disconnection in addition to a sudden breakdown of all my electronic gadgets and consistent itching in my right arm must SURELY mean something - they are all linked in some way. Maybe this is my great coming-of-age moment. This is the time I'll make a movie about which only my sister and parents will like.
It's in human nature to try to find patterns. When you see a circle with two dots inside and a horizontal line, it is a face; but it actually is just circle with two dots inside and a horizontal line.
It's in human nature to try to find patterns. When you see a circle with two dots inside and a horizontal line, it is a face; but it actually is just circle with two dots inside and a horizontal line.
I'm reading 'You Are Not So Smart' by David McRaney, and one line really jumped out at me:
"You are a story you tell yourself".
Take out the food you eat, take out the music you like, take out how you feel about military intervention in Syria, take out the love you feel. Take all this out, and what do you have? What makes you YOU?
I once had a dream in which there was a copy of one of my best friends, Surya. It's hard to explain - they both were very much her, but one was her when she's being nice and polite (to people whom she doesn't know very well) and the other was her when she's rude and loving to the people she loves, and I knew both of her(s). I told her this, and I said, "What if I get a clone of you and start hanging out with her instead?" She was quite offended by this. "I am the original me!" Well apart form being there first, the clone would not be different in any way - same brain, same memories, same thoughts. Surya got really uncomfortable at this thought. She kept protesting that she was SHE. But what made her more her than the clone? I can understand why the prospect of such a clone is slightly unnerving - it's the worst possible form of identity theft that I can think of. You cling so hard to the idea that you are unique and there is no one else like you in the world. I read that in The Stanford Prison Experiment, prisoners heads were shaved and they were issued uniforms and called by numbers instead of their names to make them feel more anonymous. Imagine how that would affect them psychologically.
Dark City has a very interesting concept. The earth is taken over by some alien creatures who are more advanced than humans (duh), and are curious about what make human beings tick. They inject the human specimens with different memories to see how far people's decisions are affected by their memories. The main character, John, is injected with a murderer's memories; the aliens want to see if this will influence him to kill. Like does someone who is born in say, an abusive family, turn out a certain way and react to some things in a specific way? Or is there something else that shapes our thoughts and decisions, apart from our upbringing and memories?
I finally, FINALLY read 'The Dream Thieves', the sequel to Maggie Stiefvater's 2012 novel 'The Raven Boys'. And wow, it was so good. Or maybe I just wanted to love it so much that I overlooked its flaws. Actually, no, that's not true. I took note of its flaws and loved it anyway, because I love the world that Stiefvater has created, one where you can pull things from your dreams and where there is an Irish king who has been asleep for a hundred years, waiting to be awoken. And I am in love with the characters, each of them so carefully crafted out. I really recommend the series, and I suggest casting aside any judgments you may have about the book seeing as it's by the author of 'Shiver'.
Also, I'm been listening to Arctic Monkeys' latest on repeat. I like it, but not as much as I like their older stuff. One thing that I really like about them is that you know that you're not going to get the same thing on two albums. They're constantly growing, and experimenting with their sound, not being defined by one type. When I heard 'Suck It And See' for the first time, I remember a smile creeping up my face and my heart soaring in the chorus of 'Love Is A Laserquest', and I was just so proud of them (do I have a right to feel proud of something I had absolutely no part in creating? Another question for another rainy day). Of course, Alex Turner is a lyrical genius. I knew this when he sang "I smelt your scent on your seat belt". I don't know why this line got me the way it did all those years ago - maybe because here is something so tiny that is buried so deep beneath all the stuff in my head, and this guy pulls it out like a magician pulling out a rabbit form a top hat and of course! How could I forget about your scent on the seat belt? I don't know if I'm getting it through, but Arctic Monkeys mean a lot to me and to a thousand other people in different ways.
Like Dave Grohl said, "That's the great thing about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 and have them sing it back for 85,000 different reasons"
Dark City has a very interesting concept. The earth is taken over by some alien creatures who are more advanced than humans (duh), and are curious about what make human beings tick. They inject the human specimens with different memories to see how far people's decisions are affected by their memories. The main character, John, is injected with a murderer's memories; the aliens want to see if this will influence him to kill. Like does someone who is born in say, an abusive family, turn out a certain way and react to some things in a specific way? Or is there something else that shapes our thoughts and decisions, apart from our upbringing and memories?
I finally, FINALLY read 'The Dream Thieves', the sequel to Maggie Stiefvater's 2012 novel 'The Raven Boys'. And wow, it was so good. Or maybe I just wanted to love it so much that I overlooked its flaws. Actually, no, that's not true. I took note of its flaws and loved it anyway, because I love the world that Stiefvater has created, one where you can pull things from your dreams and where there is an Irish king who has been asleep for a hundred years, waiting to be awoken. And I am in love with the characters, each of them so carefully crafted out. I really recommend the series, and I suggest casting aside any judgments you may have about the book seeing as it's by the author of 'Shiver'.
Also, I'm been listening to Arctic Monkeys' latest on repeat. I like it, but not as much as I like their older stuff. One thing that I really like about them is that you know that you're not going to get the same thing on two albums. They're constantly growing, and experimenting with their sound, not being defined by one type. When I heard 'Suck It And See' for the first time, I remember a smile creeping up my face and my heart soaring in the chorus of 'Love Is A Laserquest', and I was just so proud of them (do I have a right to feel proud of something I had absolutely no part in creating? Another question for another rainy day). Of course, Alex Turner is a lyrical genius. I knew this when he sang "I smelt your scent on your seat belt". I don't know why this line got me the way it did all those years ago - maybe because here is something so tiny that is buried so deep beneath all the stuff in my head, and this guy pulls it out like a magician pulling out a rabbit form a top hat and of course! How could I forget about your scent on the seat belt? I don't know if I'm getting it through, but Arctic Monkeys mean a lot to me and to a thousand other people in different ways.
Like Dave Grohl said, "That's the great thing about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 and have them sing it back for 85,000 different reasons"
