Tag: Marcel Proust

1. What is your current state of mind? At peace, but stressed. working on multiple projects and short on time.
2. What is your favorite journey? Inward, always inward.
3. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Silence, solitude, poetry, and wine! Food too.
4. What is your greatest fear? Losing the ones I love.
5. What is your most marked characteristic? Fiery
6. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Impatience and I have OCD tendencies.
7. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Not being authentic. 
8. What is your greatest extravagance? Daydreaming! 
9. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Patience, hence I’m impatient.
10. On what occasion do you lie? When I can’t say no.
11. Dislike most about your appearance? I always wished my skin was darker. 
12. Which living person do you most despise? No one. But I’m indifferent to some people. And if I’m indifferent to someone they wish I despised them. 
13. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “Are you F****** kidding me?”
14. What is your greatest regret? Wasting time not being productive. 
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life? My family.
16. When and where were you happiest? When I didn’t know how ugly this world we live in can be. I can be at my happiest but cannot stop thinking of the less fortunate.
17. Which talent would you most like to have? Writing…
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? To be less fiery. I don’t have a temper. But on the inside, I can go from ice to volcano in a fraction of a  second. 
19. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be? I want them all under one roof again, with me.
20. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Surviving not knowing where my two sons were for almost 10 years. They were with their father, I just didn’t know where exactly. I found them, we were reunited in 2012, and they’ve been with me since then. A happy ending, yes, but sometimes I look back and think, “Did all this really happen?” 
21. What is your most treasured possession? My peace of mind.
22. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? There is no worse misery than losing a child to death.
23. Where would you like to live? In a log cabin in the mountains, far far away, near the edge of the world. Don’t ask me where that is.
24. What is your favorite occupation? The one I’m transitioning into right now; medical interpreting, and translating.
25. What is the quality you most like in a man? Tenderness and integrity.
26. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Tenderness and integrity. I do realize I gave the same answer to both men and women. Both are human first. Gender-specific qualities are for another kind of questionnaire.
27. What do you most value in your friends? I don’t want a friend to ever tell me what I want to hear. I want my friends to say it like it is.
28. Who are your favorite writers? I don’t have a favorite writer, I have favorite pieces of writing.
29. Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Wonder Woman, the new wonder woman.
30. What is it that you most dislike? Those that don’t pay attention to detail.
31. Who are your heroes in real life? In this day and age, my heroes are the ones that care. They always do their part. They don’t do “their best”, they do what it takes.
32. How would you like to die? Very old, in my bed, after I get the chance to say my goodbyes, I wish to be alone, awake and aware when my time comes. 
33. If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? As Myself, again and again, and again.
34. What is your motto? Whatever it is you’re doing always ask yourself, “why am I doing this?” 
35. DK’s Bonus Question: Why do you keep coming back to this Blog? Live and Learn is the only Blog that is a part of my day, every day, most days with my morning coffee. I keep coming back because it is a delightful place to be, where everybody knows your name kind of place, I keep coming back because it is fertile ground for inspiration, and so much more…

Notes:

• Sawsan is an Awesome Friend and faithful follower and kindly agreed to share her responses to the Proust Questionnaire.  Sawsan’s WordPress blog can be found at: Last Tambourine
• The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature.  (Source: Vanity Fair)