Overheard at Stanford: “Our worlds are just part of a larger world”
Overheard at Stanford is a biweekly column written by Linden Hansen ’27. Hansen takes notable quotes she hears around campus and develops them further — whether they be insightful, astonishing or humorous! No matter what, they are guaranteed to represent the pulse of the student body.
“Our worlds are just part of a larger world.”
— One late night at Arrillaga Dining
Three a.m. again, in my 14-year-old sister’s room. Scraps of life hang to her walls thumb-tacked with pure reckless abandon. Not even a year ago, they were barren white. A singular landscape hung above the bed where I slept each night for seven years. But it’s not my room anymore. Now scribbled chalk portraits and angsty notes inhabit this space. A place for high school years to come, not mine, which are already deep in the past. I’m home for Christmas. In spite of all her youthful self-involvement, she’s allowed me to bunk with her. In her room. Her domain.
“I see one over there. See it — it’s, like, shining through the grass.” We stare at the glow of my laptop screen. Clickety clacking on the keyboard, left, right, up, down, down, down, down … Deeper into the sea we travel. Scavenging for quartz with which to craft windows for the sea base I’ve been building in Subnautica. It’s an undertaking we’ve only just decided necessary. With a base I’ll build a Vehicle Upgrade Console, and then a Prawn Suit, so I can go deeper. Twelve-hundred meters below, in the Lost River, the Disease Research Center rests, and inside, the information crucial to curing my alien-contact-induced disease rests in wait for retrieval. Together we plot the next plan of execution. Me adding quartz to my inventory, Annika watching on, fueling the mission, a source of absolutely essential moral support. Later, Finnley trundles in and squeezes in bed next to us. Elowyn might join, she might not. She’s on her own schedule.
Now living across the country, I’ve lost grasp on my sisters’ realities. Finnley has grown four inches since last I saw her, Elowyn a massive collection of laundry, and Annika has gone through five boyfriends. But in the wee hours of the night, we all find ourselves cracking open a video game. In Fortnite, Zelda, or recently, Subnautica, we exist in the same realm, building memories cherished dear to the heart.
It feels like coming home when I walk into the living room and an open Nintendo Switch controller lies on the couch. My ego fades and I become nothing more than a Mario Kart competitor, racing Finnley to the finish line while Elowyn hurls harmful tricks of language at my game. She wills me to slip on each banana peel, a glimmer of a giggle in her eye.
We grew up in sacred worlds like these. Always biting at the opportunity for a “Lord of the Rings” marathon or an hour reading “Little Women” before bed. I remember squabbles starting soon after our parents left the room and turned off the light.
“I’m Amy. You’re Jo, and you’re Beth.”
“No! Linden’s Jo. You’re Meg.”
“No one’s Meg! I’m—”
“Anni, you’re literally Meg. Pretty sure we—”
“I want to be Amy!”
“Elowyn, can I be Meg, please?”
And on and on and on. We learned then that our worlds are sacred, and who we let into them can shake their fabric, tear them down or build them up.
The other night I was on a laptop keyboard again, clicking away. But this time, my roommate and I sat at a round table at Arrillaga Late Night, laughing endlessly at the sheer madness populating the screen. We’d discovered an AI photo generator, after which homework flew out the window, and away we went, forcing the computer to paint us a wedding ceremony between a hotdog and a french fry. Though miles away from home, where my sisters go about their days, I think of them at moments like these when I’m reminded our worlds are part of a larger one, where the world-building never stops, and the story goes on.
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