Proust Questionnaire

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? When someone is so maddened by grief that he wishes to die, and yet Death would not come.

Where would you like to live? I haven't found a place where my heart really belongs.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be near my loved ones. To always have the company of good literature and great music. To be surrounded by beauty. To be equipped with the capacity to enjoy both the high-brow and low-brow things in life.

Who are your favorite characters in history? All the influential people who have transformed the field in which they laboured - if not the world - for the better in any aspect. Above all I admire Albert Einstein.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life? Women in whom all other women can take pride. Among all successful living females today, I reserve my utmost respect for Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher, Lisa Randall and Condoleezza Rice.

Your favorite virtue? Universal virtues that everyone in the world can identify with - sounds like a Kantian thought, huh?

Your most marked characteristic? Nothing but my genius. Just kidding. My most marked characteristic is that I have no marked characteristic.

The qualities you most like in a man? Charm, intellect, character, melancholy and tenderness, in no particular order.

The qualities you most like in a woman? Confidence, elegance, gentleness, personality and intelligence, in no preferred sequence.

What do you most value in your friends? Frankness, understanding and humour in friendship.

What is your principle defect? Too cynical and self-centered.

What are your favorite occupations? Knowing the price of everything and the value (or the lack thereof) of certain things; learning things that interest me immensely without the burden of having to sit for examinations; reading; dreaming; occasionally, drawing; writing; standing in raptured awe of the magnificent structure of our wondrous universe, with all its infinite grandeur, insofar as my inadequate senses allow me to appreciate its vast celestial beauty; being loved.

What is your dream of happiness? To enjoy the greatest quantity of pleasure and have the least possible amount of responsibility in life. To be unfettered by the shackles that now imprison me; to be unrestrained in everything I do as long as my actions do not infringe on other people's rights. To see the world and have a perfect understanding of the overwhelming attraction embedded in its dazzling diversity. To have sufficient education in all matters that arouse my intellectual curiousity. To have the courage to love and sacrifice. To have the mood to take in all the sights and admire the delightful scenery along my journey in life. And when I am on the verge of Death, to have the wisdom to relish in the reminiscence of my entire life, with all its sorrows and joys. To be closer to truth.

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes? Having to live eternally.

What would you like to be? Happy and rich. Yes, above all things I'd like to be happy and rich.

In what country would you like to live? A country with four distinct seasons. A place that inspires everlasting poetry and philosophy, and epitomises empyreal loveliness, in silence and chaos, in sadness and happiness. Where people get to enjoy freedom of speech, freedom from religious indoctrination and freedom from fear; where there are conscientious efforts to protect animals against blatant cruelty and our nature against excessive harm; where there is complete gender and racial equality; where no one is hindered in any manner in his search for knowledge; where the arts and the sciences prosper alongside each other, with the people gifted with the faculties to fully appreciate their intellectual surroundings - where there is an endless pursuit for scientific truth and artistic beauty.

What is your favorite colour? All colours in harmony are worthy of admiration and praise.

What are your favorite flowers? The tulip. The rose.

What are your favorite birds? The swan. The seagull.

Who are your favorite prose writers? Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jose Saramago and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Who are your favorite poets? Rainer Maria Rilke, Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda.

Who are your favorite composers? Chopin and Bach.

Who are your favorite painters? Dali and Van Gogh.

Who is your personal hero? My mother.

What is it you most dislike? Shamelessness. Illogical arguments. A failure to appreciate darkness. The attempt - so enthusiastic and earnest that it often borders on amusing desperation - to assign meaning to every single thing in life due to failure to accept its inherent emptiness. (I guess this is why some people need God - in theistic terms. I'm not referring to Spinoza's God.)

What natural gift would you most like to possess? To be endowed with an acute sense of poetic musicality that is evident in everything I do.

How would you like to die? A better person than who I am now; to be at peace with myself and with the world around me. To experience a quick transition from the realm of Life to that of Death without painful and prolonged lingering.

What is your present state of mind? Tranquil.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Those that I can relate to, and/or that I recognise as my own.

What is your motto? Other than this motto, always change your other mottos to what facilitate you best in your situation, according to the changes in your life.