The Proust Survey

What is your dream of happiness?
A tropical farm not far from the ocean where all my friends can come live with me or just visit.
What is your idea of misery?
Having to live a life alone.
Where would you like to live?
CH.
What qualities do you admire most in a man?
Strength and Intelligence
What qualities do you admire most in a woman?
Strength and Intelligence
What is your chief characteristic?
Pessimistic joy mixed with sanguine melancholy
What is your principal fault?
Laziness
What is your greatest extravagance?
Spurious trips home. I’ll spend hundreds of dollars on plane tickets home for 3 days and when I’m there I’ll buy copious amounts of alcohol and food when I’m with my friends.
What faults in others are you most tolerant of?
In people I like: almost all. In people I do not: nothing.
What do you value most about your friends?
The trust they have in me, and the trust I have in them.
What characteristic do you dislike most in others?
Ignorance and Arrogance.
What characteristic do you dislike most in yourself?
Fear and my penchant for manipulating people.
What is your favourite virtue?
Loyalty.
What is your favourite occupation?
My personal favorite is life-guarding, but anything where a person can combine their brain and their physical being is alright with me.
What would you like to be?
Happy with where I am in my life when I’m there, not looking forward or back to find happiness.
What is your favourite colour?
Green, but I would like to go on the record saying that I find the question itself to be in poor taste.
What is your favourite flower?
Roses, by any other name would be just as classy.
What is your favourite bird?
Ravens.
What historical figure do you admire the most?
Socrates for asking the hard questions and going out standing on his feet, and Fidel Castro for his tenacity, forethought and balls.
What character in history do you most dislike?
I have no idea.
Who are your favourite prose authors?
Pullman, Hemingway and others.
Who are your favourite poets?
Shakespeare, he’s wonderfully dirty.
Who are your favourite heroes in fiction?
Nick Adams from Hemingway’s short stories and the narrator from Going After Caccagitio
Who are your heroes in real life?
I don’t believe in heroes.
Who is your favourite painter?
It might be blasphemy but I like Warhol.
Who is your favourite musician?
Bob Dylan
What is your favourite food?
Watermelon when its just right.
What is your favourite drink?
Water and Vodka, together or separate.
What are your favourite names?
None come to mind.
What is it you most dislike?
People.
What natural talent would you most like to possess?
If being bi-lingual counts then that. Otherwise I’d like a super high VO2 max.
How do you want to die?
When I feel I have sucked the marrow out of this life and it has sucked the all marrow out of me I will disappear to somewhere remote where I will not be found, I will put a double-barrel shotgun in my mouth and end my life. I will take as many pains as possible before hand to prevent my body from ever being found or identified and no one will every truly know my fate.
What is your current state of mind?
Concerned about my previous answer and (unrelated) longing.
What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Learning to not being afraid to follow my heart, even when I have no idea where its leading me.
What is your motto?
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.