- I don't really believe in savings, and I don't really believe in controlling impulses to spend. I tend to buy what I want as and when I see it. If I don't see it, I won't buy it. I have surprisingly little in the way of expensive-but-useless nick-nacks. I also have some...eccentric habits that focus on me just not going into certain places.
- While an atheist by belief, I have absolutely no regrets about being born and raised Catholic, and if I were to ever have children (signaling the start of a very hypothetical idea) I would raise them the same way. I think that it gives a cultural grounding that it is otherwise nearly impossible to acquire.
- I joke about being reasonably crazy, but I have been officially certified by a psychiatrist as being a person of uncommon mental strength and emotional resilience who has been through a lot and coped well with it. Yeah. For realz.
- I argue fairly regularly, and I argue to win. But I don't really care too much about exactly what I end up espousing, because I am probably wrong. This is not that much of a problem, because I don't need to be correct in order for the other person/people to be wrong, which is usually why I get into arguments.
- Linked to 4. After 5 years of Arts, I am left with a solid appreciation for the beauty of a well-structured system of ideas, and a firm conviction that everything that most people say, think, or write, is crap. Fortunately, it can be plausible, well-formulated, and enjoyable. Being true on top of those is really asking a bit much.
- My achievements have always tended to be in quantity, rather than quality. I have no idea why, and sometimes wish I could change it. I would like to be really, really good at something, rather than being pretty OK at most things. (But I'm afraid I'll never have the force of will necessary to actually to apply myself to a single region)
- I'm better at reading people than I usually let on, and I have a good memory (i.e. there are actual reasons I got into medicine). I have a giant map in my head of people and personal interactions. It can be scary, at times. But I like the comfort of being fairly sure that I know more about everyone around me than they know about me. I think it's partly something I inherited from mum, and partly one of those semi-pathological self-protective things. (I don't open up to people well, and would rather be glib and facile about even the most serious aspects of my self than to treat them with weight and deference).
- I have a deep-seated belief that I am not worth attention or company, and will, where possible, encourage both to be lavished elsewhere, on people I think deserve them more. It means I bow out, rather than compete, in relationships/friendships/etc. But, on the other hand, if I didn't think the happiness of others mattered more than my own, I probably wouldn't be doing medicine, so it's not like it's an unproductive neurosis.
- I like acquiring cultural capital, but I like sharing it with other people even more. If I've never loaded you up with books, or music, or movies, etc. then ask. I have a lot, and I think that, buried in there, there's some you'd like. Or come to like. Frequently the second.
- I'm not a top. No, really.
- I think death is something that people should consider a valid option. I know I think of mine as a valid option for all sorts of contingencies. This screws me over in all kinds of ways, because it's <em>hard</em> to think up a system of ideas whereby thinking death is not a problem doesn't lead to all sorts of (to me) abhorrent solutions to things.
- Until I was about 4, I had white-blonde hair. It darkened to black by the time I was about 14, and now it's gone back to a brown. Soon I think it might lose the brown and go to salt and pepper. I've been thinking for a while about skipping a step and going straight to silver.
- The only people who scare me are people who have an unquestioned belief in things. This is not a screed against religion, this relates to all areas. I have as much distrust of people who believe that the idea that gays and lesbians deserve equal rights is fundamental and obvious as I do of people who think the same people should be burnt at the stake on instruction from God. So too politics: I am quite happy to vote for vicious, amoral and self-serving politicians; they can be reasoned with, they will brook compromises, and they probably ultimately don't care that much about not getting their own way. Politicians with a vision, a purpose, and a belief in it? Terrifying creatures for the most part (and I'm glad Australia doesn't have more than a handful of them).
- When I get angry, I get cold, and incredibly vicious. I can't remember the last time I got genuinely angry at someone or something. I have awesome emotional control.
- Breakfast is easily my favourite meal of the day.
- I go through phases of obsession with things. This includes, but is not limited to, musical genres, authors, ideas, and people. These are periods where I get increasingly fascinated and involved with them. And then the obsession ends. I very seldom stop liking the thing in question, but it ceases pressuring me.
- I use poems for my usernames, and I try and have quite a few different usernames. Currently in use I have: rintrahroars (Blake. "Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air, hungry clouds swag upon the deep"), sunflowersutra (Ginsberg. "We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside"), fivebells (Slessor. "But all I heard was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal of seabirds' voices far away, and bells, five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out."), robotapartments (Ginsberg again. "Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments!"), sincefeelingisfirst (cummings. "Since feeling is first who pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you."), ozymandias (I'm not even going to describe this one), ideaoforderatkeywest (Stevens. "She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice") and, of course, And I Am Marie Of Romania, my MSN nick (Porter. "Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea, and love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania"). I choose them because I like the sound at the time, but most of them have ended up taking on an ironic significance. (And oh, I forgot blueguitar (Stevens again. "So that's life then: things as they are? It picks its way on the blue guitar"))
- I am so unable to function in the heat that it is not funny.
- I choose clothes in such a manner that the clothes themselves look good, but it would be almost impossible to value them without knowing precisely what they are. It gives me an internal boost if I need it, without being obvious about what I'm doing.
- Also inherited from mum: I have grown up surrounded by friends of mum and dad, who I always thought of as just people. Now "friends of mum and dad" is the same kind of category as "former leader of [federal political party]," "head of the High Court," "Minister for
," "Vice-chancellor of
." Consequently, I don't really have any real working conception of celebrity. Celebrities, to me, are the kinds of people who you ring up in order to be furnished with recipes for chocolate cake, or get drunk with and argue Aboriginal policy.
- I always planned to write a book. But I've never had an idea that inspired me to write, that I hadn't already seen done by someone else (with the implied "better than I think I could")
- I used to want to travel, and then about three years ago, I lost all desire to. I'm not sure why. I like to think it's because I realised that the reasons I wanted to were all bad. I'm not sure what the good reasons for travel would be though. So maybe my bad reasons are as good as any.
- I like blaming anything that goes awry in my head on dead philosophers with crazy ideas. The reason for 22 is now Heidegger. For his notions of dwelligness, and the thingness of the thing. Traveling prevents you from thinging thigns thingly. Clearly. The Divine Light assures me it is true.
- I am a moderately untidy person by nature, in that I don't mind clutter, but when I am neat I am neat past the point of insanity. I once spent five days of an exam period writing seven pages of notes. On four topics (out of about...I think NS202 had...100-and-something-odd examinable objectives). I still hold that those notes are among the greatest things I have ever done. I also have a number of bookshelves where I have sorted my books by subject area, size, publisher, and author. But it is other people who are responsible for disturbing my systems, and once they are disturbed, I am generally reluctant to go to the effort of fixing them.
- I'm a child of cities. I am not a fan of getting away to the country. I like the business, the bustle, the quiet and complex codes of privacy in a crowd. I like the people, the opportunities, and the surroundings. I do think this makes me un-Australian in important ways.
feb 14 2009 ∞
feb 14 2009 +