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Despite a life spent outwardly feigning cynicism, inwardly, I perpetually idealize and romanticize. Everything.
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Self-awareness. Without it, everything else is uninformed artifice.
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Their endurance and forbearance of my not-insignificant quirks of personality, character, and self.
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Others who know me well will likely have different answers. However, what I find most often trips me up is an habitual lack of faith in my own capabilities. That is, without a certain amount of diligent self-affirmation, I can easily fall into a morass of imposter syndrome. Regardless of context, milieu, or circumstances.
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Consuming escapist media. Whether books, film, music, podcasts, video games, comics and graphic novels, television shows, etc, a day does not go by that I don’t seek solace in some form of fictional retreat.
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Contentment. About a year after I got sober, I experienced a sensation I didn’t recognize which took me about a week to identify. It was contentment. Ever since that day, that’s what I aspire to as a state of being: the satisfaction with where I am, what I have, who I’m with, and what I’m doing.
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I find it (almost) unbearably excruciating to be an unintentional irritant or perceived burden to others — particularly to those I love.
It would be my greatest misfortune to have any or all to finally have had enough of me.
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Independently able to create and consume art with no concern for time or money.
FWIW, I consider art to be anything created well within a given medium and genre: lit, capital-A Art, music, video games, comix, etc. and so on. -
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It’s taken me some time and distance to realize it, but I believe I belong at 47.0379° N, 122.9007° W. (Though a case could be made for both 48.8575° N, 2.3514° E, and 35.6764° N, 139.6500° E. I’ve been fortunate to have lived at the former and to have had an enthralling visit to the latter.)
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Currently, at or near #FFFF00. I’ve always had what I’ve come to understand is atypical color vision (often misidentified as “color blindness”) which I believe has predisposed me to like high chroma, clearly defined colors.
Note: From as early as I can remember until roughly ten years ago (ca. 2014) my favorite color had consistently been a bright orange (#FFA600). I’ve considered that the shift may have been tied to a natural deterioration of vision prompting a brighter color to catch my eye?
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I’m not sure I have a specific favorite but I do know I prefer uncultivated wildflowers — in the wild, or arranged — to the flowers found in more traditional, celebratory bouquets.
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Again, I can’t think of a single favorite but I’ve frequently maintained bird feeders at my homes and enjoy seeing the variety of indigenous species both at the feeders and not.
Now that I’m finally posting this, I think that if I had to choose one bird, it might be the Grackle: dark, sleek, slim, seemingly unperturbed by life as a bird. My problem is that they are considered bird feeder nuisances and bullies. So, I’m conflicted.
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And, again, I’m not sure. Though I’m reasonably certain that, for the most part, they’re primarily loner (or loner-adjacent) anti-heroes.
If you’re wondering about authors I’m fond of, I'll be overly cautious in endorsing any at all. It’s too fraught to revere real humans. See: McCarthy, Gaiman, Frey, Houellebecq, Rowling (if you must).
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An incomplete list in no particular order of artists with deep catalogs of exceptional work in their respective genres: Underworld, Stevie Wonder, Pet Shop Boys, The Roots, The KLF, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Manu Chao, Miike Snow, Hot Chip, The Jam, S+C+A+R+R.