These past years...

As certain things in my life seem to be coming together at last, I find myself thinking about the tempestuous waves that crashed against the walls of my beliefs, my self-image, and my entire thinking over the past few years. I started this post with many different headings, and then realized they are all equally important in sparking my journey toward who I'm beginning to become (though I'm not even close to getting there...).

The first thing I would like to mention is empowerment. Before I was able to figure anything out about myself, I was given (so, so generously by those close to me) a powerful feeling of "I can do this." I can get to know myself. (Amazing that it takes such a strong will in order to get to know one's self.) This feeling had to be renewed numerous times. I had to be reminded and re-empowered so often, it felt embarrassing. I felt like a horrible student of life, of myself. The patience I was met with and the persistence of people who empowered me was (and is) a tremendous gift. I think I've abused this gift, nearly, or maybe I'm just capable of empowering myself on my own now (even if it's not always easy...) and my friends know it. Either way, I've learned to dig into what's important about me and bring out that powerful feeling on my own. It's not always easy (I'm not always very good at it and still trip over myself doing it) and I don't always like that somewhat lonely feeling of "you're on your own now", but...I can do it.

After I felt empowered enough, I was able to recognize what was great about me, what was not so great, and, most importantly, what was true. This leads me to my next thing. Honesty.

Honesty is probably one of the most important lenses through which to see the world, others, and yourself. If you take only one thing away from reading this blog, please let it be the importance of clearing away everyone else's voices and opinions and what They say (whoever They are) and approaching the world and everything in it with true honesty. I had to work at being honest with myself. I had to word really hard. I'm not even that good at it yet. But I know that it is important, and I'm aware when I'm not being honest, even if there are times when I don't want to be honest and prevent myself from doing so. But I know what I'm doing - and that's an improvement.

Honest extends beyond the self, too. Do you really believe what you say you believe? I don't know everything I believe, but I think I know certain things I don't believe. Or maybe not. I'm not sure. But in any case, I don't like to say or do things just to make a point unless I can really, honestly say I believe in those things. I don't believe in just doing things to make points.

...I guess that's not really beyond the self, is it? But looking at the world honestly is important, too. Ultimately, I suppose it all reflects back on you, and so, in a way, it's all part of you, even as it extends beyond you. (I'm sorry if I've lost all of you in my rambling here...).

The last thing I thought of to mention is improvisation. I don't always know everything I believe, and I'm usually uncomfortable making across-the-board declarations. But as situations come up, I try and understand how I really feel about them, and I base my decisions on that. I remember a time some years ago when I first started dating. A friend of mine asked me a number of questions about my hashkafic beliefs and to each of them I stupidly answered, "I don't know..." To a lot of those questions, I'd still probably fumble around with some sort of incoherent answer, or just say I don't really know, because the truth is, I really don't know. Not hypothetically. But in actual situations, I find myself feeling certain ways, and then I'm not always as ignorant and lost about my beliefs as I am when trying to think about them on a hypothetical plane.

...I don't think what I'm trying to say is actually coming out right. I'm just thinking out loud, really. Most of these ideas are not mine, or not mine originally, but belong to other people who have inspired me. And who knows, maybe those people will say the ideas belong to people who've inspired them, or belong to humanity as a whole. Either way, I believe I'm a better, stronger person because of these (and other) ideas.

In some ways, growth hurts. It's like emotional and spiritual growing pains. It hurts to feel lost and confused and distraught. And, later, it hurts to feel others stepping away, giving you the space you need to pedal forward on your own. But I suppose it's just a change of relationship, really. They're not going away. They're just shifting places. Or maybe you are. Side-by-side instead of one supporting the other. Maybe.

For some people, my thoughts, my ideas, my opinions, the way I am will probably never really be quite good enough. The things I say, the way I think, my relationships, my performance...they're all always going to be...not quite there. Missing something. Needing something more.

I've learned not to care (much) about that. I can't. It only brings me down. Besides, the point isn't to be good enough for someone else. It's to be good enough for myself.

Where am I going with this? Have I confused everyone?

Directions

I forge my way through brambling woods, a path crunching under my footsteps. Each step leaves its own imprint, joining in the trail of footprints behind me. Ahead, there is no path, for I have not yet tread beyond where I stand right now.

To say I don't know where the path leads is a misinterpretation of how I live. In my life, my footsteps create the path, like Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs along their way. I can turn around and look at the road I have paved with each small step I venture toward the unformed future. I can see the way it weaves, sometimes making sharp turns, sometimes going rigidly straight, but never in too predictable of a pattern.

I am my own person and so I make my own choices. I alone am the craftswoman of this path. I am the artist. I decide whether to go right or left, or diagonal, or circular. I make my own wrong turns and I find new ways to reach where I wish to go.

Sometimes I watch other people and their paths, trying to learn and understand which choices have certain results, which direction is rockier, which is smooth, which is an uphill struggle, which will let me slide easily downward. (Of course, perhaps it is better to struggle upward than to slide downward.)

And sometimes my directional choices take me far away from people who once tread nearby. They also bring me closer to others. But it's strange, the way that happens. I am used to certain scenery, certain company, and then gradually - too gradually for me to notice right away - everything changes. I end up somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere wonderful.

But what about those whose paths used to be nearer to mine? What if my path does not naturally head in their direction anymore? Do I just leave them behind? Or do I try to force my feet in directions they do not wish to walk so I may travel closer to those the rest of me wishes to be near? What if that means turning back instead of going forward? Is there a way to turn back while still advancing in my own direction?

Blank Slate

So here I am.

I've stepped precariously from one storybook of life and into the pages of another; pages that are not yet filled in. All around me is blankness that I've somehow got to write, but I don't know where to even begin.

I am a completely blank slate. I have no job. I am unattached to any male person. I am not in school for any further education. I am nowhere. I have the entire world in front of me and I don't know which way to turn. So many paths seem to be entwined in brambles and thorny vines, as if to trip me up or block my way entirely. Is this what it's like on the other side of childhood? Constantly fighting your way to get anywhere?

But I haven't made it anywhere yet. I haven't been on this side of things long enough to have made it anywhere. Because where ought I try to make it into? I've got to decide this before I start off, haven't I? Otherwise I won't know whether to turn east or west or north north east or south west south.

Everything feels so rocky like when you're walking on a dock that sticks out over the water and the waves shove it to and fro in their giddy game of trying to make you lose your balance. But I can't lose my balance here because the things I do actually matter. If I make a mistake, it has more consequences than just retaking a test or apologizing.

Hundreds of people lose their jobs every day - so how is a recent college graduate supposed to find anything when talented professionals are out of work? Nowhere is hiring. What real skills do I have anyway? Would I be happy filing papers for a year or more or would I go out of my mind?

And what about dating when I don't even know any guys?

What about finding a place to live and having to pay rent for the first time ever?

What about deciding what kind of job I really want to have, or if I want to go back to school?

How do I figure these things out?

Who will I become?

Where do I go next?

Answering Questions You Don't Want To Answer

I am a terrible liar. Not because I'm bad at covering up how I feel - I'm actually not if I really want to.

It's because I hate lying. I am so uncomfortable with it that if I feel I have to tell one, I can't help but be extremely obvious about it, as if that somehow makes it less of a deception.

The trick is when people ask you questions you don't want to answer. Do you lie? Do you say, "I'd rather not answer that" even if that makes it sound like you're hiding something when you don't even want them to know that much? What if you try to avoid the question and they keep pressing?

(By the way, nothing is going on of that nature right now, don't worry. I was just wondering about this, stam, based on some random conversations I've had with people.)

The Waiting Room

It's one of the worst places to be. You're in this empty, colorless room with four walls and a ceiling that aren't really there, except they're so tangible it's as if they actually are. And you wait and wait and wait for something to happen because it's either not time yet to proceed in certain directions or you've tried to proceed in others and they haven't worked out and you don't know how to go about trying again. And you feel discouraged from trying again. Except how can you be beaten? You're 22 years old. Are you going to be defeated that easily? You've barely made an impression on life yet and already you feel like you're not going to get anywhere. What happened to being hopeful? What happened to seeing possibilities?

Except it feels like whenever possibilities float up ahead, close enough to see them but too far to touch them, if you try to touch them, they disappear. "Not for you!" they tease as they bounce away. No, not for you.

So then what are you to do? Pick yourself up? But how? Where are you to turn next? You want to get out of this stifling, suffocating waiting room but you just don't know how. You can't stand to wait any longer! You pound on the walls and kick them and beat against them and cry out for someone to show you the way outside, because you've looked but you can't find it. And you sink down in a corner and hide your face, afraid, hiding from the idea that you could be stuck in there forever.

And all along a little voice buzzes in your ear saying, "you have the power to get out, you know." But you swat at it in frustration because you don't know how to have the power to get out. What does that mean? What are you meant to do?

You know that somehow it's your own fault you're stuck there, but you don't know how to fix it. How do you fix it?

Struggle Of The Ages

When you reach a certain age, you are expected to behave a certain way. There's a maturity that is demanded of you as you grow older, and you might also find that you desire it. But, especially when you're still a young adult, the residue of adolescence sometimes gets in the way. It's like there are two forces fiercely twisting and twining around inside for control. One is dark, heavy, and hot, gripping your heart and mind like a thousand sweaty handshakes that never let go. The other is cool, composed, and level-headed, but difficult to reach. You have to climb over the jagged, slippery rock of the first force before you can reach this second one - this more mature one. It's like you have to climb up inside in order to grow up.

Sometimes I don't know what it is to be grown up. Does something happen to your emotions that you are able to remain better in control of them when you grow older? Do you acquire a skill a younger person does not have? And how is this skill acquired? I so wish I didn't feel so strongly about things not worth feeling strongly about. I wish I could be more grown up about that sort of thing. It feels so stupid and immature to feel things when I oughtn't feel them.

Conflicting emotions are so tricky. Because which one do you really feel? I am so shy and a large part of me wishes to remain out of the limelight. But sometimes I do wish I could be told that something I've done is great, or thanked for something, or just shown some recognition that I'm doing the right things, and that's not to say that I've never had that, because I have. But then again, how can I possibly want those things? Because I don't do things in order to get any of that. I do things because I so much want to. I want to do things for people. I want to write. I want to accomplish. I want to be a good person because I believe that is the best way to be. Not because I want anything more than to be happy with myself and to make other people happy. And yet sometimes this conflicts with a secret desire for recognition. But how? How can those two exist simultaneously inside? I'm not an arrogant person or a selfish person. I know I'm not. So why do I sometimes crave these things? And I feel so ashamed when I hear other people say they don't want these things, because I don't want them either, except for that tiny voice inside of me that does.

I wonder if everyone really has that tiny voice inside?

Misrepresented

I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday about geneivas daas. We got to talking about the rather dishonest feeling you can have as a student when you know you didn't complete all the work for a class and yet you still get an A. Now, granted, you don't always know what you're getting an A for - maybe the teacher was grading you more on your paper writing skills than on whether or not you actually completed all the reading for class. Either way, though, it still feels wrong to get a grade you don't think you deserve (although, of course, most students wouldn't go up to a teacher and say, "Um, I actually didn't complete all the work for the class so can you please lower my grade?) - though is that on the student or on the teacher? Teachers claim they aren't stupid - that they're aware of everything that goes on in the classroom.

So what we talked about next was - what if a teacher is a very easy grader? I've gotten A's on essays before where I felt it wasn't deserved. Does that mean I'm a harsher grader than my own teachers? What if I would not have given myself an A? The grade seems cheap, unearned, misrepresentative of my capabilities. It makes me feel like either the teacher has very low expectations or she doesn't think I can do any better but is too nice and wants me to do well in the class. Or perhaps I just have extremely high expectations of myself?

But then that affects my GPA. So now I have A's in classes where I would not necessarily have given myself an A. Sure, I was able to play the system and do the minimal amount of work possible while still doing well. But, deep down, I don't feel I deserved such grades. (By the way, I'm not talking about every class - I'm not that bad a student! Just a few here and there.) So if I apply somewhere and they see a transcript that I don't feel is a fair representation of me...is that geneivas daas on the teacher's part? To raise my overall GPA by giving out easy A's? Some teacher do that for the whole class - they can't bear to give anyone too low of a grade.

I will say this, to all the many teachers out there reading my blog (...joke), you're only hurting your students by giving away A's so freely. In the classes where I know I can get away with doing almost nothing and still do well, I'm not motivated to do very much. It's the tough classes, the ones that really push me, that I actually learn in. Though I suppose that's a different point.

My point is - it's geneivas daas on the student to pretend she did the work when she didn't. But is it geneivas daas on the teacher to give out A's so easily? Isn't that how grade inflation came about, anyway?

How Does My Vote Count?

In light of the Israeli elections, I began thinking about the American ones. And I wondered - how Democratic are American elections, really?

For instance, I'm from New York, right? New York is a liberal state. So if I wanted to vote for McCain this past election, my vote would have hardly counted at all. There would have been no point in it, you see? Because no matter who I voted for, New York as a whole was going to vote for Obama and that was that. Sure, they need my vote to know who one the popular election - but why is the popular vote not the one that counts? Surely that is more representative of what majority of the country wants? Why is the electoral college the system of choice? I'm asking because I'm actually curious. What benefits does it have? How is it really democratic? Why not just count everyone's votes and go with the majority there?

A Preface To Nowhere, A Chapter Of Nothing

Preface

There's this strange dialectic that happens on Fridays, usually right after candle lighting. You suddenly think of something you'd really like to do but can't on Shabbos. This then proceeds to torment you the entire Shabbos until immediately after Havdalah where you rush to whatever it was.

For a writer, this is extremely difficult. The best ideas always come on Shabbos. This makes perfect sense, of course; on Shabbos, the regular distractions from the week are gone and you actually have time and space to think (what a concept). This sort of time and space is not physical. You can't tell me - well, during the random hours of free time you have during the week, you could get the same ideas!

...No. It has to be coupled with a mental relaxation that only comes with the sweeping peace of Shabbos. I suppose that is what I meant a few posts ago when I said I write better when I don't think. It's not that I'm not thinking. It's that I'm mentally relaxed.

Some might say that I can achieve this state of mental (and emotional) relaxation even during the week if I lived out of town. And perhaps that's true - I wouldn't know. But that is beside the point entirely.

The point is - when it comes to creativity, you've got to grab onto it when it comes to you. So how can you do that on Shabbos when you can't write anything down? How can you make sure you don't lose your inspiration without also overfocusing on it on Shabbos?

Chapter One

I was particularly early for the train home today - so early, in fact, that the track had not even been posted yet. Instead of waiting around in the middle of Penn Station, staring up at the information board in perfect unison with everyone else (they all look like a herd of penguins, don't they? Standing in a miscellanious group looking up with the same tilt of the head - same to very angle degree - and the same harried expression on their faces, each one occasionally looking down at a watch and then back up again like they're in a game of wac-a-mole), I decided to hang around in the station book store.

It's a very narrow store, but deep, so I dragged my imbalanced wheelie suitcase (I can't ever let go of it or it tilts forward like it's just been kicked in the back) past the sci-fi, romance, and self-help sections until I reached the set of shelves labeled "Young Readers." I scanned the books, looking for any familiar, nostalgic titles, when I reached a somewhat messy stack at the very bottom. There, the title Johnny Tremain caught my eye. Johnny Tremain! I leaned my suitcase against the shelf and eagerly reached for the book. It was sandwiched tightly in the middle of the stack and I had to squeeze my fingers around the binding so I'd be able to pull it out. That was when I felt the most peculiar sensation.

"Is the cover made of velvet?" I wondered to myself (not out loud - just in my head). I frowned, unsure how that made sense, and gave a final tug, the book finally pulling free.

No. It was not made of velvet. But then why was it so soft?

Slowly, I lifted a hand from the binding and looked at the tips of my fingers. They were covered in layers of thick black dust. I held the book a moment longer, wondering mournfully how long the book had been wedged in that pile, unread, unlooked at, untouched. The idea made me sad. I hurriedly returned the book to the shelf and dragged my suitcase out of the store.

A Thirst Unquenched

Have you ever had it happen to you that you just wished you knew more? That you felt it was futile to express opinions about something because you were so acutely aware of how little you knew and you just weren't in the mood to be shot down by those who knew more than you?

I've always had this insurmountable desire to know everything. I would walk into a library and be overcome by all the books I still haven't read. How could I possibly read anything twice? How was there time when there were so many things I hadn't yet read once? And what about Torah? There is so much I never formally learned in school. There is so much more to know. How can I ever learn it all? How can I ever prioritize what I want to know? I can step inside the Beit Midrash at Stern and feel the weight of all that I don't yet know and ought to know pressing down - so much so that I just don't learn any of it. And Torah, more than literature, is something I feel I must know, and I am so self-conscious of all that I don't.

There was a point in time during my early semesters at Stern where I thought I was going to minor in History. I've always found History fascinating and I immensely enjoy listening to a professor teach it. The problem is that I also never did well in history. I was bad at memorizing all the names and dates, especially so many at once. I'm quite good at remembering history in the context of literature, when you get to really learn and understand a time period, its politics, and the people involved through the telling of a story.* I'm not good at memorizing lists of facts, or events, or people who I don't really get a sense of more than just their names and a resume of their accomplishments.

So after sitting through (and loving but not doing particularly well in) APUS History in 12th grade, and then Western Civ., French Revolution, and some others (I think) at Stern, I ended up smack against a brick wall. I was taking a class on the Middle East. Though I've never felt the same sort of romanticism in Arabic history that I've felt in American or European, I was drawn to the class because of its rather timely subject. I wanted to truly understand the issues in the Middle East. I wanted to be one of those people who could defend Israel properly and intelligently, being well-versed in everything going on in connection with the Arab-Israeli conflict. The same way that I always wanted to be able to participate in a discussion about American politics and actually sound like I know what I'm talking about. But that semester I was taking a bunch of English classes and another History and the work became too much. I couldn't handle two classed that I both loved but couldn't do well in at once, so on the day of our first test, when I'd had way too much other work to properly study, I dropped the class, and along with it, my History minor.

So I did not end up spending a semester studying the history behind the issues in the Middle East. And I do not know enough about American politics to speak in the presence of anyone who knows more than just a little about it. And I have not read some of the major classic works of literature that are out there. And I have not learned many practical halachos inside in order to really understand what I'm doing and why, or to even know what I really should be doing in certain circumstances. And I do not know many random obscure bekius in Tanach. And I do not know about a lot of major Rabbis that people talk about - even ones at YU.

And...there is so much that I don't know. How can I ever learn it all? And when? How can I consider myself an intelligent person when there is so much I feel I don't know? When I am ashamed of what I don't know? When I don't feel comfortable asking sometimes because that means admitting to someone that I just don't know? And, more overarchingly, how can I ever quench this thirst for knowledge? I want to know and understand so much. I just can't imagine how I'll ever be able to.

*I've read a little bit of Historical Fiction, but not a lot of it, but I'm pretty sure I'd love it, so if anyone would like to recommend anything good, please do!

Rather Spiritless

Sometimes I try so hard to think of something to write, that I completely block myself off from writing anything at all. It's weird - I find that writing takes as much not-thinking as it does thinking. You almost have to actively not think about what you're going to write. But when I feel pressure to write - when I'm writing because I ought to, it's harder to slip into that writing state of mind because I'm thinking too much. And then I just get frustrated and want to take a break from my not-writing. But I suppose, during moments like those, what I really wish to take a break from is thinking about writing.* Not the actual writing. I never want to not write.

I guess I just don't always want to think.**

*Perhaps this is why the things I write at the last minute tend to come out better than those that I work on for a while. At the last minute, there isn't time for thinking.
**The question, I suppose, is - how do I get back in the mood for writing?

Disapproval

Sometimes you're faced with a situation where you have two options, one not that great, and another not that great either, and you are forced to choose between the two. For either decision, you can predict the disapproval with which it will be received, but still, you must make a choice. And so you use your best judgment to pick the one that will be least disruptive to anyone else. You make an honest decision. And yet, once you've decided, you still feel that searing disapproval of those whose opinions you care about. But sometimes you really just mess up and there's nothing you can do except pick which unpleasant situation to put yourself in. And maybe you've picked the wrong thing. But it was an honest, sincere choice using what you thought was good judgment. And perhaps you still feel it was good judgment.

When you don't ask for advice and instead try to make the best decisions for yourself, if you choose wrong, how much disapproval from your peers does that warrant?

Not Easy

Robert Frost wrote a poem about two roads diverging in a wood. It's a famous poem. I'm sure you all know it:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sometimes we are faced with choices that are much less clear cut than this. There is no road-less-traveled. There is just you, standing in the center of intersecting paths, neither of them straight, all of them enshrouded in fog. There is no way to tell which is the right path to take, or the most interesting, even as an Easterly wind tugs you one way and a Westerly one shoves you another. A breeze from the North might want to lift you off your feet, but one from the South could be whistling your name. So what on earth are you supposed to do? Where are you to go?

Sometimes I don't think life is like that - the picking of one road over another. Sometimes I think there must be a way to walk on several roads at once, or at least on one road that touches the banks of many different lands. There must be a way to make choices on your terms, musn't there?

And what if there are no winds guiding you in any direction at all? Or it's all one big confusion and you're not sure what is the right thing to do? What if there are sacrifices you're not willing to make, but you're not sure if you still ought to make them?

What if you feel just very lost?

A Request Or Two

Very rarely do I have an actual request for my readers, but now I come to you with two:

1. If one consistently cannot sleep at night due to a cough and cough medicine is not working, what does work? I'm getting somewhat frustrated on having not gotten a real night's sleep for about three or four nights now.

2. Does anyone have any connections or know anything about working in book editing/publishing, specifically children's books (although I'd be happy to hear about other genres, as well)? If you do or know someone who does, would you be able to email me about it? You can get my email from clicking on the link to my profile.

Thanks so much.

P.S. Refuah shelaima to the entire world.

The Question

(Hat tip: Ezzie)

Well...what do YOU want to do with the rest of YOUR life?

Personally, the lighthouse idea sounds kinda cool... :)

*Gasp!* A B-O-Y?!

This is not so much a post as it is a question for whoever is reading. What do you all think about the idea of co-ed camps? I grew up going to a co-ed summer camp and never really thought that much about it until recently. I understand about there being a healthy co-ed environment for kids and I also understand all the concerns that go along with something that is co-ed. Of course, every camp is different and there are different levels of co-ed that go on, but in general, I really want to know how people feel about this issue and why (the why is very important). For those that are against co-ed camps entirely, is there such a thing as a Modern Orthodox not co-ed camp? Because the impression kids have is that the single-sex camps tend to be more to the right. There was once an article in the Jewish Star about this (I would link it but I don't think it's online anymore) - about a girl who wanted to go to an all girls' camp but all the camps like that had a very strict dress code requiring her to wear tights in the summer. She wasn't comfortable with that but she had no choice if she didn't want to go somewhere co-ed. So what would one do about a situation like that?

Feel free to either comment or email me. Thanks!

How?

How do we deal with evil in the world?

What's The Point, Anyway?

There's so much confusion.

Some people tell me - now is the time to do what you really want, to get the education you want, to try for your dreams. And that those things are not impractical because they do something for me.

Some people tell me - be more practical. Doing what you want is nice, but it's a luxury and you should focus more on being able to get a job and really get somewhere in life.

What's the point of it all? Do I take opportunities as they come, even if they're not the most practical, because carpe diem? Because now is my chance?

Do I do what's most practical because it's what's most practical?

Is my end goal to do what I really want or to do what's most practical? Sometimes they're not mutually exclusive, but what if they could be?

What am I trying for here?

The Party With Lots Of Ice Breaking But No Ice Cream

It occurred to me that, this being a public blog, I may have more readers than the four of you who comment, and being a curious person, I'm infinitely interested in finding out more about you! You don't have to participate, but I'd love it if you all would!

And the four of you who I know read this, you can answer, too :)

So, here goes:

1. How did you find my blog?
2. If you could pick your accent, which accent would you pick?
3. If you were a pirate, what would you call yourself?
4. What is the current soundtrack to your life?
5. What would you prefer your soundtrack to be?
6. What is your favorite animal cracker?

Dreams

Okay, what is the deal with dreams? I happen to be very prone to extremely vivid dreams and even kind of scary dreams, so after a few odd ones lately, I started to get a little fed up. Some dreams make sense in their nonsensical dream way, and some are just random and silly, but some are darker and/or scarier and/or more serious and yet totally unconnected to anything I would be thinking, even subconsciously. So why do I (we?) dream things that seem to be so wholly unrelated to anything that would make sense? And what are dreams, anyway? Are they complete nonsense or is there anything, even the smallest bit, to them? I'm not asking this rhetorically - does anyone know? Or does anyone know any way to find out?