Splash No. 168 - Interview with Me, #2
Interview with Me, Year #2
Last year, on a day that I couldn’t figure out what to write about, I stumbled upon the Proust questionnaire, a series of questions popularized in the 1880s by esteemed French writer Marcel Proust, who believed it would reveal the true nature of an individual. Instead of a normal essay, I decided to fill out the questionnaire, pretending I was a famous celebrity being interviewed, and return to it every year, to be like Billie Eilish. and here's this year's:
Your idea of happiness
Being at home, curled up with books and snacks. Maybe going for a long walk, having a picnic with friends and family, having time to make something beautiful.
Your idea of misery.
Unending isolation and forever feeling completely alone.
Where would you like to live?
In the past, I said London, but I don’t think it needs to be a specific city. I’d like to live somewhere close to a park with lots of greenery or water, with benches where I can just sit and enjoy the view, however mundane they may be. And wherever this would be, I’d like to find a community of people who made me feel safe.
If not yourself, who would you be?
Lenny Kravitz.
Your favorite color and flower.
Mustard yellow, blue hydrangeas.
Your favorite prose authors.
Jenny Offill wrote my favorite book that I reference in every other newsletter, Dept. of Speculation, Ottessa Moshfegh creates the strangest stories I’ve ever read, and James Baldwin is one of the greatest American writers of all time.
Your favorite poets.
Too many to name! But the first ones that come to mind are Hanif Abdurraqib, Chen Chen, Kaveh Akbar, Ada Limón, and Matthew Olzmann.
Your favorite painters and composers.
Salman Toor, Keith Haring, Kazimir Malevich, JMW Turner and Helen Frankenthaler. Still don’t know a lot of composers but maybe Arooj Aftab counts.
Your favorite virtue
Compassion is divine — the highest form of human nature, where one is able to shed their ego and act in the service of others. I think that much dissatisfaction in people’s lives comes from how we’ve become so individualistic, often enough to miss opportunities to be compassionate to those around us.
Your main fault
I’ve always thought of myself as an ideas guy, which means I often suffer from inaction. Due to laziness or anxiety or fear, I often fail to take action on things important to me, whether it’s creative projects or volunteering to help my community or even just cleaning my room. If my body moved in accordance with all that I held dear, I can’t imagine who I might be.
And let’s do some bonus questions from another version of the questionnaire:
What is your current state of mind?
I’m tired. I spend lots of my time trying to push myself through exercise, until my body feels a satisfying level of sore. When my limbs are less mobile and a dull ache permeates my bones, my mind is tired in a comfortable way. This is the ideal type of tired. Right now, however, I’m tired in the way that old dogs seem to be existentially tired, splayed across the ground in a sunbeam. A tiredness that doesn’t seem to be fixed by sleep. I’m trying to cut back my screen time again though, so maybe that will help.
Which talent would you most like to have?
I would love to play a musical instrument with enough skill to improvise and jam with friends at a moment’s notice. This is probably attainable, but I’ve never set aside the time and energy to focus on learning it.
What are your favorite names?
I love finding NFL player names that sound straight out of the Key and Peele sketches like Equanimeous St. Brown, Chuba Hubbard, Sheldrick Redwine, and of course, Plaxico Burress.
Looking back, I can’t believe that it’s already been over a year since I answered those questions, probably because of the sameness of much of the last twelve months. I hope that the next year will be different, and I’ll find myself with even stranger answers.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - august moonrise - a little post-dubstep playlist I made for getting work done.
ARTICLE - "Eyes Lowered" by Osama Shehzad - this is the piece that introduced me to Salman Toor's incredible paintings.
POEM - "My Kingdom for a Murmur of Fanfare" by Kaveh Akbar - just a great poem by a great poet
With each day, we can move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
Donate to Lebanon Needs Mutual Aid Networks
Anti-racism resources
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Annually,
Nikhil