Recently answered as part of a project by a friend…

1. What is the time of day you feel most comfortable with?

Late night, when most of the rest of the world around me is unconscious. 2 AM – 4 AM.

2. What is your favorite thing in nature. Anything from a certain flower to a rock to a body of water type.

Flame — it falls out of the traditional three elemental states (solid / liquid / gas), somehow embodying bits of all three.

That, and clouds; neither has a shape, yet neither is shapeless.

3. How do you view any type of belief such as religion or otherwise? In other words, what keeps your mind in meditation?

I think that there are neither words nor even ideas to adequately describe or understand the underpinnings of the universe. I think that the seemingly random recurrance of certain numbers and equations throughout observable nature is amazing and awe-inspiring. I think that the average person is incapable of considering the idea of a higher being, because of the need to apply humanistic traits.

Mostly, though, I think that the universe unfolds as it should.

4. What do you think of if you were to summarize your childhood?

I have amazingly (frighteningly?) few memories of my childhood — not much before 12 or 13, in fact. Knee-jerk reaction, though? Loved, contemplative, outcast, formative in all regards.

5. Current life: What is your status in your current life or lifestyle? What is it about your lifestyle that keeps you waking up every day?

That damn alarm clock. Instinct and habit. The pressing need for a cigarette. Kittens with sharp, sharp claws and bad attitudes. All that, and life is pretty good, especially in a forward-thinking sort of way.

6. How do you feel about the condition of the world today?

Oh, we’re fucked. Just waiting on the other shoe to drop — though it won’t be us that drops that shoe. No, we’re still just a speck on the face of this big rock, probably barely noticeable. Mother Nature’s ready for a change, though.

7. What calms you?

Nothing I can think of stresses me. Is that a valid answer?

8. What color would best describe your feeling when you are most centered?

Earthy green-brown.

9. Do you love your current surroundings regarding living conditions? Yes or no, please tell me why.

I should, but I need more space. Vertical and horizontal… I have too much stuff? There’s a front and back side to this mirror, I realize, but rather than getting rid of things that take up space, I’d rather spread myself out a bit (since I’ve worked hard to finally earn all this stuff).

I don’t know that I ever *want* to love my surroundings, though, because I think if I do, I’ll be content, and then I’ll stop striving for forward motion.

10. Greatest joy and greatest hurt.

Greatest joy — recently, it was making my first ever (and damned tasty) pot roast last night. Long term, I guess it would have been either winning the Sidewalk short script competition (the moment of the announcement, specifically), or a certain first kiss that still sticks with me after a trillion years.

Greatest hurt? Thanks to the joys of bipolar disorder and a tendency to over-analyze myself and my internal workings, I’m never sure how much of whatever hurt I feel is legitimate and how much is due to chemical imbalance. So I’ll take a cop-out answer and say that it was a few weeks, about four or five years ago, when I was utterly convinced that I had once and for all lost my way and would never find it again.

Or, to be more philosophical about both answers: my greatest joy came when I realized that the more I learn, the less I really know. My greatest hurt is often the pain of others.