I attend the 9th best university in the nation, which prides itself on being a haven for intellectuals and those who love to learn. And don't misunderstand, it is. After all, there's some reason that students come here who were offered full rides at state schools and elsewhere - and it sure isn't name recognition (though the sting of this wears off with time). But despite this pervading aura of deep thought, academia, and intellectualism, stupidity remains.

U of C students know what I mean. In every class, there is at least one person doing their part to carry a torch for ignorance, even here. They come in a couple different forms. There is the inane question-asker. Inane question-askers interrupt our prize-winning professors with useless inquiries like "When is the final?" or "What's the reading assignment for next class?"; information that could be learned by even the most perfunctory glance at the syllabus. Or they might ask for information that's totally irrelevant to the class and could easily be learned in one's free time. Hello? Heard of Google? Or InfoPlease? It takes less than 5 seconds, and the littlest activity, to look these things up on your own time. Please, don't use our instructors as bare-effort encyclopedias.

Then there are people that generally pop up in discussion classes, abstract endless-talkers. When these first get going, it seems like a good thing, because the conversation might have begun to lag - or is having a hard time getting started. But as they continue to speak, you realize two things: First, they aren't really saying anything. Or maybe they are, but it's so off-topic that you're wondering where they got the notion it's appropriate to discuss at this particular time. And second, they aren't stopping. You start to think "okay, this is about the time to start wrapping up," yet they continue on. It seems like eons pass. Students in class roll their eyes or fall asleep. Finally, the professor interrupts or class ends, and the atrocity stops. But the fear, the certainty they will begin again, remains.

Yet even these classmates of mine are assuredly brillant in some way, since they're here. And somehow, that makes it worse. On a semi-regular basis, I am being exposed to the stupidity of smart people. Their stupidity broadcasts at a much lower frequency than the stupidity of the general populace and, experienced concurrently with the latter, would go unnoticed. However, I am not in contact with the general populace on a regular basis. I am in contact with University of Chicago students. Any stupidity here, no matter how slight, stands out like a bright neon bulb. It's why we make fun of our friends and get made fun of ourselves, for tiny little stupidity slip-ups.

The problem with this is that our stupidity tolerance is being lowered, while at the same time our standards for intelligence are being raised. I used to jump for joy whenever I encountered anyone who seemed to think about things and attempted to express their thoughts, seeing this act as a sign of intellectual activity. My standards are higher now. Not only do I take it for granted that people think about things, but I expect them to be able to express themselves well too. And as far as stupidity goes, I find myself getting annoyed and frustrated with it more quickly and with more force than ever before, though I am able to mask it better.

In short, there are many different ways to be smart, but also many different ways to be stupid. And I'm finding that the many facets of the latter are becoming less bearable and more noticeable to me - no matter what form they might take.

Talk me down, safe and sound, too strung up to sleep. Wear me out, scream and shout, swear my time's never cheap. I fake my life like I've lived too much, I take whatever you're giving - not enough. Overground, watch this space. I'm open to falling from grace.

- Six Underground, The Sneaker Pimps

I had someone, once, that I looked up to and admired more than anyone else I had ever known. I loved him because he never hurt me, and because he didn't ask too much, and because he gave me more, consistently, than I felt I had any right to expect. He had his fears and his weaknesses, yes, but he was always honest about them and that seemed to fight them off better than anything else could have. He never overstepped his bounds, didn't even give any hint of considering it as an option...
                                                                   ...then he fell.

To act on a change in yourself and by doing so make it affect someone else, that is to fall from grace. If something in the way you look at someone changes, and as a result you ask something of them that you have no right to request, in their eyes you fall.

To question the existence or righteousness of an omnipotent God is to fall. A true believer has no uncertainty on the matter. To declare romantic love for a close friend is to fall. The friendship itself should be enough. Being willing to risk everything you already have in hope of getting something more is always unforgivable.

Once you've fallen, you can never regain that grace. Everyone who has experienced the end of a relationship with someone who was one of their closest friends first knows this. After the breakup, both people realize that their original friendship can never be regained, and consequently, each begins to hate the other for gambling away everything they'd had before. It doesn't matter which one suggested it; they were both willing to seek more and therefore equally responsible for their loss.

Even if the desire for change is only one-sided, both people still fall. The object of increased affection sees the other's willingness to sacrifice the current relationship as a sign of devaluing it. The one who wants more is angry at the other's unwillingness to provide it.

So he fell from grace, and deciding not to take the risk after all was not enough to redeem him. And I fell too, because I was also willing to give up what we already had for something else entirely.

But I don't feel that the sin of the fall is an unworthy one. Rather, I think that done properly - with full knowledge of all you are choosing to give up - it is a sign of strength. The choice says you believe some things are more important than friendship. Honesty with someone else. Being true to yourself. And finally, love itself.

So we let go, or we jump, knowing each time that we are abandoning something in life that makes us happy. And surely enough, the existing interaction with that person is always lost forever. But we should keep risking everything, and keep taking that fall.

If we're truly lucky, maybe one day someone will catch us.

"Falling from heaven is not as painful as surviving the impact."

- Tormented Angel, Magic the Gathering

We'd walked for what seemed like long enough to reach the Indiana border, but he insisted it was only a little while longer and would be worth it. So we kept going, holding hands and talking about everything on the way. The sun was warm overhead, the sky an endless blue that could never be captured in a picture, and squirrels and birds were unhurriedly frolicking around every tree, seemingly revelling in the weather as much as we were.

Finally, we reached the streets shown on the map, and turned into the park itself. Moist patches of crumbled leaves that had fallen during the autumn and winter and only recently been uncovered spotted our path, and we stepped through them gently, appreciating the way they gently yielded to our feet but kept a form of their own. We reached a wide bridge that spanned a fast-flowing inlet of water from the lake. Looking down on the small river, we could see the unmistakeable ripple of fish beneath the water, and ducks swimming and quacking merrily to each other on its surface. Three old black men were fishing on the bank below us. One of them looked up and smiled. We smiled back at him and squeezed each other's hands.

Continuing over and past the bridge, we reached a fork in our path. One way was paved and seemed to go straight ahead, and the other was made of wood chips and curved off to the right. We took that one, and the resilience of the more natural footing seemed to add as much spring to our steps as an expensive pair of running shoes. Pink flowers fell in droves from the trees above, showering us with petals.

Moving on through this seeming wonderland, we found ourselves in front of a wooden fence made of a big grid with open squares half a foot on each side. Looking in, we could see the tea garden. There didn't seem to be an obvious way in, so I started to climb. He pulled me down and we started laughing, the kind that rises from uncomplicated happiness instead of comedy. We walked around the fence instead, and finally found the entryway.

The rocks and trees were arranged around the gazebo in a way that gave the whole garden a sense of harmony and completeness. We sat in it and talked for a while, then stood on the small bridge. The water it overlooked was shallow and clear, and we could see koi swimming below. As we gazed into each other's eyes, everything else fell away. The garden, and the two of us within it, were all there was, or had ever been.

Another couple walked by, shattering our illusion of original perfection. The serenity of the place remained, but the afternoon was fading into darkness and the breezes, though still calm, held the promise of a chilly upcoming night. We turned back, swearing to return at least once more before our inevitable separation.

We didn't, and that was the last time we were really together.

I went back to the park alone today, trying to reclaim some small piece of what I felt that day by experiencing the unchanging beauty of nature.

But I suppose I waited until too late in the season. This time, clouds blocked the sun, the water looked murky and green, the leaves that covered the walkways were simply dead, and the ducks had already flown south. The almost-winter air was all too cold.

A voice begs you to stop over-analyzing everything: really quit worrying about losing what's already there, and abandon your desperate need to make aspects of life adhere to certain guidelines before you accept them. Before you know it, this voice warns, you're going to find yourself bitter and alone, wishing you'd only had the courage to be (what you saw as) weak and do things just a little differently, be just a little more accepting.

Yet you ignore it, or try to anyway, instead proud to say that there's nothing in life you'd not gamble away if the possible payoff was large enough, and that you won't give up on waiting for exactly what it is that your heart desires. Perhaps there is some value in being able to say this, true. But it's also rather sad that you let yourself experience nothing meaningful enough to hold dear above all else.

The arguments for self-interested happiness that you defend so staunchly aren't so present in the way you live your own life. You keep denying yourself the proven happiness right before you, if only you would claim it, for some far-off possibility that is somehow a thousand times different, hopefully better, and God knows what else - but most importantly, inspires some feeling of uncompromised happiness. Ignore the fact that it's only a possibility, and an unlikely one at that.

Keep denying yourself that single real hope for salvation, just because it falls somewhat short of your almighty standards. Encourage others to go on instinct alone, but stifle your own - disbelieve it, misinterpret it, do anything but close your eyes and blindly feel....

But is it really worthwhile: the waiting, the forced apathy, the eternal pain always just beyond the surface that threatens to break through and make you realize the utter futility of it all?

Do your ideals keep you warm at night? Do they protect you from the chill of a meaningless existence when the cover happens to fall away?

Though dreams can be deceiving
like faces are to hearts
they serve for sweet relieving
when fantasy and reality lie too far apart

 -Slow Like Honey, by Fiona Apple

Since the time I was a little girl old enough to have crushes on little boys, I've had dreams starring the ones special enough to be the objects of my affection. These were all wish-fulfillment dreams, of course, and they all involved the unresponsive, hostile, or simply unsuspecting male that I spent most of my time longing for.

As I matured, so did the content present in these dreams. They have accordingly progressed from my best friend telling me he "liked me" and holding my hand during recess in second grade, to content obviously more...explicit in the present-day.

But regardless of variations in intensity, these dreams have always been happy, fulfilling ones - as long as I remained asleep. And in fact, I saw them this way during my waking hours too, for a while. That while lasted until I actually started doing the things I had dreamed about, in real life and with the people I had dreamed about doing them with.

I was sixteen the first time this happened, and amazingly enough, the guy involved actually lived up to my fantasy expectations. It was the first time I'd gotten involved with a guy I was completely infatuated with, and he met, and then surpassed, nearly every aspect of the fantasies I had about him. It was amazing.

That was the only time such a thing occurred. Since then, every male I've dreamed about who's given me a real-life comparison afterward has come up short in a way that's almost painful. It almost makes me wish for a return to the days where I equated dreaming about someone with meaning I'd never date them.

For this reason, when I wake up now after having one of *those* dreams about someone I actually know, I cringe. For once again, my unconscious mind, with no consent of mine, chose to set some poor unsuspecting individual up to a (seemingly) impossible standard. I'd assume that my dream-caused expectations are completely unrealistic and try to take them with a grain of salt, but they were met once. That experience spoiled me for all others, perhaps.

It's with this in mind that I've stopped sleeping to dream when I'm unhappy. It's not worth it anymore. Anything that makes reality seem second-best is just too dangerous.