DIANA MARIN

Category: personal

  • Misunderstood, Unperturbed Self

    When I find myself in situations where I’m allowed to be myself, I notice how my discourse changes in my writings. My inner life is allowed to breathe, and the landscape of my soul becomes more vivid and expansive. By virtue of this expansion, it becomes more alluring. Strangely, when I’m not concerned with anything besides myself and conveying my inner life unperturbed by others, this allure draws people in my proximity. I then tend to find myself at a crossroads. I have learned not to let anyone cross my borders without a meticulous and often undetectable process of selection. Because of that, I’m sometimes inclined to test people. Yet, I try to do so while keeping every interaction genuine. Although I am a perceiver (INTP), I can’t deny I judge their responses more harshly and quickly than I would ever wish to be judged. In my view, I employ the right system of reference in my judgment. However, I must admit, I hate being analysed, especially in day-to-day interactions; it irks me profoundly.

    When I am given the space to be myself, I have no desire to prove anything—and I mean this in the most positive way, unrelated to lack of productivity, hence everything feels more genuine as the walls of the fortress retreat in the ground. There is still a surrounding portal, veil-like, between my world and everything else, seemingly transparent, but in actuality having a transformative function, of shaping perspective, both ways: Representations of the other gaze in, seeing what they wish; depending on how healed or emotionally aware they are, they might see everything warped by projections or get closer to my meaning. Likewise, I look out, seeing the world through my filter, penetrative or transformative, surface-shattering, depth-piercing, death-defying.

    When I’m in an environment where it’s unclear whether it’s sustainable for my true self, I’m sometimes (not always) ready to show up as myself, even if it means being misunderstood and subsequently irritated. What feels best is being unperturbed by others’ interpretations. My problem is that I can always see the world from a multitude of perspectives, which is both a blessing and a curse. This requires me to make an effort to pick the perspective most aligned with my self-concept and established set of values and beliefs, and then stand by it, regardless of the other perspectives I can give voice to. Life is sometimes about what you choose to pay attention to.

    There have been times in my life when I couldn’t write—not because my inspiration or creativity deserted me, but because they were suppressed, captive, muted, just as I felt suppressed, captive, muted. During these times, a false self replaced me, influenced by external projections, reacting to others’ impulses, stepping into a role that was as distant as possible from the traits embodied by the people I disliked around me. How do I explain this without sounding like I’m drowning in the fluctuations of being? Or without it sounding like I haven’t embraced my shadow self? Can I even claim that, with certainty, to myself?

  • Microaggressions

    How do you deal with microaggressions? I tend to oscillate between two outlooks in this department: on the one hand, I like standing up for myself and not letting anyone cross or undermine me; on the other hand, I’m aware that sometimes maintaining your composure is a sign that you are in control of your emotions and it can also be indicative of your inner strength, so not necessarily a sign of meekness. BK Shivani, a motivational speaker and spiritual mentor, said in one of her lectures that when someone directs negative energy towards you, you have a choice: you can either absorb the energy and internalise it without saying anything, thinking this is aligned with the notion of being a good person. You can throw it back at them, hence reflecting the energy and trying to hurt the other person even more. Or you can transform the energy and the pain and radiate love and respect. The most important thing is to be kind to yourself in how you respond. There’s no single “correct” way to handle these moments — some responses may be wiser or more constructive, but none diminish your worth. Rather than framing it as a matter of “what would be a more dignified response?”, it helps to recognise that microaggressions often stem from the other person’s unresolved insecurities. You have the right to choose your response in a way that feels authentic and safe for you. Removing myself from the situation is often how I deal with it, if that is an option. Remember that those who initiate the microaggressions are often the ones lacking both dignity and a moral compass.

    I have encountered microaggressions in both professional and personal contexts. They often seem rooted in underlying issues such as sexism, misogyny (including internalised misogyny in the case of other women), xenophobia, and mental health stigma, especially during times when I undergo a challenging phase or reveal anything that indicates my mental health isn’t at 100%. This can also lead to gaslighting, as some people might use this aspect as a trump card as a way to deflect responsibility. Over time, I’ve learned to be more cautious about sharing my vulnerabilities. While factors like their jealousy may also play a role, I’ve come to understand that such behaviours often reflect the other person’s own struggles and feelings of self-loathing and disempowerment. I must say, the majority of people I’ve met and interacted with are not like this. I remain grateful for the many supportive and genuine relationships I have cultivated. Most of the time, I’ve been fortunate to be selective in my interactions and friendships.

    This behaviour manifested itself through rather revolting attitudes that appeared to be designed to provoke a reaction from me, especially during moments when it was transparent I was not feeling well. While I tend to respond with empathy when I notice someone is visibly unhappy, either by offering support or giving space, I have noticed that not everyone approaches these situations with the same understanding. I’ve experienced moments when I was ridiculed for expressing emotion, judged for my fluid accent, interrupted mid-sentence, or even had my ability to interpret situations and understand others’ motivations questioned — often accompanied by thinly veiled, undermining remarks.

    I’ve always been viscerally disgusted by this behaviour, yet I didn’t tend to acknowledge it unless it was directly and unambiguously offensive, generally. Why? I suppose out of pride — i.e. not wanting to give satisfaction to anyone engaging in this type of behaviour, since that’s most likely what they were after: a reaction, thus ignoring them tends to work in my favour because it makes them escalate the behaviour to ludicrous levels, and in their desperate hunt for a reaction they end up turning themselves into absolute clowns in my eyes and hopefully in the eyes of any other decent person who witnesses this type of decline. I also strive to maintain my resilience without positioning myself as a victim, especially when the behaviour is subtle or covert. This approach helps me channel my energy into positive interactions and personal growth rather than being drawn into negative dynamics and allowing them to define my sense of self.

    I have learnt to accept that some people simply feel threatened or overshadowed by others’ energy even when others are simply existing; it’s pretty sad to think they feel inclined to act in such ways out of nowhere. When they encounter someone who is creative, intelligent, attractive, talented, or someone who is overall special in some way, the terminally insecure go into attack mode. They often resort to passive-aggressiveness. We have to ignore the obvious or veiled malice of the pathologically jealous, and see them for what they truly are: pitiful; otherwise resentment builds, and you shouldn’t allow insecure people to drop their emotional baggage onto you via insults because one day you might find yourself carrying that extra weight, which could lead to your lashing out and being the one demonised for being too reactive, albeit rightfully so. But that’s what happens when you find yourself in a toxic environment. Dissimulation can only get you so far.

    How do you respond when you are deliberately provoked? What are your reactions and thought processes when faced with such situations? (so when someone triggers you on purpose & with ill intent, not accidentally). For example, do you experience an instinctive fight, flight, or freeze response, and are you able to transition into a more balanced state that helps you regain emotional control? How long do these feelings usually last? Do echoes of such experiences linger in your mind for a long time afterwards? Additionally, do you feel comfortable discussing your emotional triggers with trusted friends or partners, and does sharing this information help you manage your responses more effectively?

  • Aesthetic Sensibility

    The narrative of our relationship with space is shaped and re-shaped by our minds, and not always in predictable ways. Mesmerising and haunting, that is how I would describe the aesthetics of Brutalist architecture now, although it hasn’t always been this way. I’ve mentioned before how impactful the relationship between ontology and aesthetics is to me. The way I relate to new landscapes featuring cold concrete, imposing facades, and the towering silhouettes of brutalism often constitutes an uncanny experience. In England, it happened when I gazed at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, when I first walked the path next to the Roger Stevens Building in Leeds, and when I stepped on the grounds of Barbican in London.

    The cold rawness of the stark, monolithic, slightly dystopian aesthetic carries echoes of the past seeping into the future, haunting my perception of self and place. It helps if the spaces appear desolate, without disruptions. And the atmosphere of a new place feels slightly more otherworldly when the boundary between Brutalist architecture and nature is blurred. Even better if the structure is abandoned and derelict. Although the haunting quality is already inherent in the eerie architecture of Brutalism. Moreover, for me, since I lived in a brutalist-socialist block – a type of structure that was ubiquitous during childhood, when I encounter a different version of the aesthetic of brutalism, in a new environment, the familiar and the unfamiliar collide.

    It’s an uncanny feeling of revisiting a liminal place, the archetypal presence of the homely that is rendered alien, a ghostly intersection of memory and materiality. Being haunted by a double, the self becomes partly ‘other’, being watched by a higher external force whilst existing ‘elsewhere’, until that sense diminishes as the self acclimates to the environment and everything else outside that space actually becomes temporarily otherworldly. Temporary identity and place are interlinked, so whenever I see a new architectural space with Brutalist exterior design, my past selves which visited other Brutalist spaces are having a gathering and collectively pondering how inhabiting such an architectural space both preserves and erodes the past.

    Brutalist design…both intimate and vaguely distant, startling and infused with echoes of sci-fi narratives, comforting yet unsettling. Inspiring a homesickness for a place that never actually existed and will probably never materialise, a chimeric shadow world of inner phantoms, a world that borrows elements from the geography of my childhood as well as from tech-noir films. Such experiences have a destabilising effect – surreal, almost. With their ghostly, whispery grey walls, the buildings seem to be living, breathing things, rather than static. There is an undertone of fear and anxiety, mixed with rapture. As we know, the uncanny can also signify a longing for a return to a state of unity, which may be intertwined with a more sinister primal desire, a pull towards inorganic dissolution. Hunting the familiar image of tech-noir dystopia, both living and dead, can symbolise a repetition compulsion.

    Whilst exploring and intimately absorbing a Brutalist space, I uncover lost poetry and sensory fragments of my inner world, feeling strangely at home even as I find myself in a place of liminality. When I exit a Brutalist Zone (particularly one that I’ve just seen for the first time), everything else feels temporarily alien, unreal (I say a new one because through repetition, the allure is demystified and diminished). It’s a state of mild spiritual dissociation that makes me feel like I can gain essential knowledge about myself, about consciousness and about the universe, whilst acquiring a sense of distance from myself.

  • Self-Portrait

    The spiritual (‘spiritual’ in a secular sense) pride sometimes accompanying the feeling of being attuned to the universe and highly perceptive of shifts in energies, angst, desires, signs of discomfort, motivations, attractions, repulsions, projections, insecurities, prejudice, coping mechanisms, vibrations, the multidimensionality of the human experience, and so on when I walk into a room means that when I am – not by choice – in the disposition that I actually have to go through a break from the reality of existence, I find it hard to open up about my inner experiences even a long time afterwards. Granted, that’s also due to the nature of my experiences, the way they unfold, and the type of real-life material they tend to feed on and feed into. It’s that and the fact that, in my darkest yet lucid hours, my worldview tends to become more assertive, particularly when I feel my boundaries are being crossed, which is what is amplified (and internalised) to surreal levels when I’m thrown into the vortex of my ‘other’ self, which is not something I’d like to consciously/actively even indirectly nurture outside of that.

    Whenever I’ve tried opening up, things have gone chaotically wrong both interpersonally – as once I add that layer it becomes nearly impossible to know others’ angles, and in my subsequent experience of the breaks, which have gone hopelessly meta and more labyrinthine. Things no longer flow naturally in my interactions. And I put a lot of pressure on myself to rewire my thinking patterns in ways that are beneficial to me, but unfortunately, this has come to mean detachment, which implies automatically being less likely to experience positive emotions as well. I have come to accept that only those with a very similar predisposition and psychological history and configuration in addition to moral compass would ever be able to connect with me in any significant way. Perhaps meeting them will give me a feeling of belonging that I’ve not found anywhere, in any context, in my entire life, if I’m totally honest. I mean among those around whom I’ve actually considered (and entertained the thought that) I might belong, as there are many that I’m happy and proud I could never even remotely relate to. I’ve always been pretty individualistic and self-oriented though.

    When I welcomed the possibility of connection, I realised I’m too secular for the spiritual. Too dreamy for the materialistically-inclined. Too pragmatic for the ones who ignore everything worldly. Too realistic and down-to-earth for the self-help community. Too willing to work on myself to be among those with a tendency to neglect and deny all responsibility in a quest for self-preservation. Too pessimistic for the idealistic. Too idealistic for the pessimistic. Too neurotic for the stoic. Too self-contained for the openly and unapologetically neurotic. Too guarded for the emotionally transparent. Too transparency/authenticity-inclined for the ones who repress all ‘negative’ human emotion. This either makes me sound perfectly balanced or dispassionate and insipid. Either way, what I care about is – would I be happy to meet someone ‘like’ me (i.e. alike in significant ways)? Would I be ready? Scared? Threatened due to shadow self denial? Exhilarated? Relieved? Would I even truly see them, and myself in them? I welcome the opportunity to discover, for I usually only feel like I can be myself when I am by myself.

  • Timeless Diary

    Prologue: On Misperceptions as an obstacle to self-expression

    Chapter 1: On Agape Love

    Chapter 2: Self-Empowerment

    Chapter 3: Betrayal

    Chapter 4: Breaking the Veil

    Chapter 5: On Death

    Chapter 6: On Self-Preservation

  • Into the blue

    April 2018 Diary Entry

    Innocence lost, a long time ago. Nostalgia replaced. By curiosity for the unknown. By determination. Out of the cold, out of the black I rise and into the blue I delve with the excitement of a bird piercing through a portal in the sky, seeing the grandeur of another world, realising for the first time she had been flying inside a big cage surrounded by mist until that moment. There is warmth rising from within. I embrace the unknown. The unknown embraces me.

    Photos from 2017-2018:

  • Uncanny encounter

    Lifting the white veil, I open the old, mysterious drawer. Inside, next to a fairy tale-infused wooden music box and some forgotten Christmas and birthday cards that seem to either yearn for my full attention or yearn to be left alone or be destroyed, I see the charming box where the photographs are stored – those prosthetic memories that seem to have developed a life of their own. Where I currently live, few objects that are explicitly mnemonic tend to survive the memorabilia purge I execute regularly sometimes in my attempts at minimalism and sometimes for the sake of symbolically shedding the past and starting afresh – a peculiar habit, perhaps, for someone fascinated with archives and the archival process and antique stores. Any letter or card would have to be extremely emotional, soul-stirring, and potentially heart-wrenching for some reason (for instance reflecting the cavernously deep feelings of the sender) in order to coexist with me for long periods of time. I’d have to feel like throwing it away would be a blasphemous act. Or alternatively, there should be something within that object that propelled my mind to get spiritually irrational and make up a superstition about it, specifically a superstition of what might happen if I got rid of it, so I just let it rest in some corner instead, where it’s cast into oblivion.

    Any physical diaries I have ever had have been burnt – I couldn’t get rid of them in any other way: flames are symbolic. The process is more cathartic than deleting a LiveJournal account, but everything has been digitised and that works for me, despite the supposed deprivation of the haptic pleasure and of the magic of writing with a fountain pen in a beguilingly beautiful notebook. With the amazing texture, designs, and cover art of some notebooks nowadays, I’d probably decay with indecision whilst trying to decide what thoughts were noble enough to be written in such a diary anyway, and if I managed to decide, I’d still curse myself whenever I have to cross out one word and I would embellish the hell out of those noble thoughts to the point where it would be more of an exercise in literary style, imagination, and language rather than one in authenticity, self-awareness, or memory preservation. I suppose I’ll stick to the occasional LiveJournal entries and notes on my phone for that.

    I have also deleted many photographs along the years and there are long chapters in my life that only ever still exist, in some vague, distorted form, in my mind. Rather than doing so out of an impulse or lapse in judgement, it was always planned and I have always been at peace with it, which is even more sacrilegious. Freud would be disappointed – he praised the power of photography to act as a reliable mnemonic device, since physical proof of a memory combats the decay the memory would face if it were only stored in one’s mind – hence liable to distortions over time. In his view, diaries, photographs, cards, are all part of a chain of mnemonic devices which free us, helping us unload the burden that we would have to hold if memories were permanently retained in our minds. They are extensions of identity, of your inner life, aiding our capacity to remember, which in turn allows us to absorb new information and conceive fresh thoughts. Eh, anyway, family photos, in particular, lie by omission – in addition to being an enemy to individuality, which is sacrificed in favour of an unreal collective past. Belonging whilst losing one’s self. Not to mention the notion of counter-memory and how trying to retain the past might only bring about its destruction, ultimately alienating you from your past and from life and making you construct false or weirdly altered memories. Photographic self-obliteration as a form of resurrection or metamorphosis. The intersection between the other and the self, photographic depiction and identity: the end of existence.

    I open the charming, memory-preserving or memory-annihilating box. The photo album has an imposing, magnetic presence. As I turn the pages, I remember most of the photos, so they’re hardly nostalgic artefacts. I’m quite desensitised due to this observation and the fact that nothing seems to elicit an emotional response. But then I reach one portrait that I must have seen before, surely, and yet there’s something I haven’t read on her face before. Am I imagining this? It seems uncanny. The girl in the picture, a defying, atemporal doppleganger, an embodiment of a spectral condition, seems to want to tell me “I refuse to exist as an afterthought in this simulacrum”. She wants to step out of the frame and haunt. “I want to smell like Alien, not naphthalene. And this curse of only seeing the light every few years during the holidays…” She reprimands me for forgetting her, for misunderstanding and misconstructing her, for only reanimating her as a “Screen Memory” on rare occasions. I want to hug her. Tell her she is more myself than I am, in a way. Tell her she wouldn’t like it out here. But I remain silent. My expectation of chasing decaying memory traces has turned into an uncanny Blow-Up moment as I catch a glimpse of resignation and almost grief on her face. As I notice this, the door to the unconscious is slightly open, but not enough for her to escape. I know I was supposed to integrate her. But she will be here until next time, feeling trapped. And I will still feel both protective and afraid of her. Perhaps next Christmas it will be different.

  • Introspection

    How is life? A work in progress. Just like me. I’m constantly growing and learning; acquiring knowledge of what fascinates me is one of my enduring obsessions. There is definitely more that’s unchanging and relentless about me (including, paradoxically, my regenerative strength), but it’s much easier and more palpable to articulate the ways in which I feel I have changed or the areas in which I invite change. In my life I have shifted from cynicism to idealism to optimistic nihilism to a sort of hedonism to aestheticism (I know I’m merging philosophical and artistic concepts here, but I think of them more widely, as approaches to life), and there have been times when I have ricocheted among them. I’ve spent some time in what may be considered an adrift state, but this has often led to acquiring better knowledge of what I see myself doing, what I enjoy and what I’m good at, a realignment with my deep wishes and interests, and attunement with myself, in all my glory and imperfection. On that note, add an increasing willpower to either embrace or change and improve imperfections, case by case, because that approach makes sense the most, a balance between personal development and contentment is key, and both complaining and self-pity are the most useless ways to spend your energy. Unless you write it down on a blog or capitalise on it or use it as fuel to express yourself through other creative outlets, in which case you can be relatable, earn something, or it can be cathartic. With that being said, perfectionism should be kept within limits, otherwise it becomes a sad quest.

    After emerging with more self-knowledge regarding what fulfils me, plans have crystallised, but I need to maintain a healthy self-discipline in areas that are essential to my functioning and leading to a more substantial well-being rather than dopamine rewards. Building self-discipline is a challenge for most, and I’m the type of person who has always been most driven by spontaneous bursts of energy and motivation and outpourings of inspiration more than consistency and routine. I’m naturally inclined towards having a whimsical rather than methodical approach to life, with a lifestyle that may seem chaotic to some, though I can adapt and push myself to add order to chaos. I plan daily routines, but I sometimes end up doing what feels best ultimately, if I can afford to. This has worked for me creatively, in the past, but it’s not a viable or sustainable option as I age and have more responsibilities. I believe personality is a fluid thing, and thus I can adapt to something different and more efficient, but it takes a lot of deliberate effort to change something that has become ingrained in your being. I’m on the right track, though, because I’m getting into the habit of being more productive even when I’m not feeling at my 100 percent.

    I want to put myself in the way of beauty and in the way of inspiration and of good things happening, even when my willpower is somewhat tentative- as opposed to resorting to taking the easy way out, or prioritising self-indulgence in the form of distractions, of whatever nature, and yielding to unproductive mental traps that get me stuck, creatively or otherwise. “Everything in moderation, including moderation” as Wilde said. Also, although focusing on materialising plans is necessary, it should be noted that this will definitely not be achieved by obsessing and thinking about the future, but by living in the now and taking steps towards tangible results- even small steps make a contribution. You’d think this should be obvious, but my brain often begs to differ for some reason. Obsessing over things and slipping into problems with self-discipline used to be my Achilles’ heel, but it’s something that I’ve focused on altering and dedication truly helps you forge new neural pathways. On another note, doing good deeds has a very uplifting power and effect for me. So does inspiring someone, either through my words or activity. I used to receive personal, touching messages online, in which people mentioned how I posted, wrote, or quoted the right things at the right times for them to see or read and how they’ve been inspired or helped by posts and that makes me smile. I like influencing and inspiring people, and this realisation has made me reconsider the appeal of certain paths to me.

    I should probably nurture my dual & complicated relationship with vulnerability. I know better than to associate vulnerability with weakness, I know it can be empowering and unifying and brave, and yet, I find it so unnatural to open up entirely, I always have, partly because I don’t want to put myself in the position of allowing others to have full access to everything I am, partly because I don’t know how to convey things in an ideal way that makes me feel satisfied because I haven’t figured everything out but also partly because I’m at a point where I need to prioritise other things and don’t feel like I need to make many connections in order to be content. I’m also someone who doesn’t need constant contact to validate a friendship and actually in my book giving each other space and allowing yourselves to fall back into place and reach out to each other whenever you both need or feel propelled to is a love language. Also, it’s quite rare for me to fully resonate with another person so whenever it happens, when everything just flows and feels right I often feel this compulsion to protect it, and worry that there will come a moment when I might say or do something that alienates them, which triggers an uncharacteristic fear of abandonment. There are psychological shadows that I still need to integrate. I think it’s not uncommon, I think a lot of people curate their thoughts and feelings to express mostly positive or flattering ones, especially online. Within the context of a relationship, ironically, not wanting to give all of you can be considered a fear in itself, of sacrificing, of being tamed, subdued, sucked into, or simply, too dependent or entangled with someone else. Actually, I used to be quite the opposite in the sense that I felt like sharing many thoughts with others, I poured my mind and heart out. I still kind of do that, yet, on another level, perhaps emotionally, I’ve never fully given myself, in a way. At least I never feel like I do or that it’s beneficial. It’s also partly because we are all made of multitudes. Even though, in theory, I acknowledge that when you connect and give love (platonic, romantic, or of whatever nature), in a way, there is strength in putting yourself on that path, no matter what happens. But what happens if you become so enmeshed that you forget where you stop and the other begins? What happens when someone doesn’t act the way you expect him or her to? What happens when someone changes?

    What else am I still in the process of learning? Learning to let go. Of detrimental or fruitless thought patterns, of the burden of roles other people may cast me in through assumptions or expectations because sometimes I’m not easy to read and other times I’m pretty straightforward and transparent, letting go of my own expectations from everyone in favour of focusing on whomever resonates with me and I resonate with, of unnecessary prohibitions and restraints uttered by a part of my psyche that I keep silencing, instead of reconciling with or making sense of in order to change it.

  • New Year, New Answers to The Proust Questionnaire

    Here I go again, unfolding in Proustian style in my relentless pursuit of self-knowledge and exploration of psychic patterns and cognitive shifts. With an almost masochistic pleasure to dissect the mind, peel off layers that only I’m allowed to touch, and assimilate phantoms, the self gazes into self in a way that no one else can or even dares to do lest they be met with the manufacturing of all sorts of defences. Ok, there is always symbolism and mist (not to be confused with smoke and mirrors), as this is a public virtual space where I can design and master my surroundings for my comfort. I wonder whether there have been any significant changes since the last time I completed this. I will add a link to my answers from a few years ago at the end of this post.

    What is your idea of perfect happiness?
    I can think of endless scenarios, but regardless of the where, the what, and the when, two constant ingredients are inner peace and sanity. Beyond this, imagine shadow integration, ecstasy, bliss, aesthetic pleasures, decadent fancies and desserts, and multi-sensory stimulation. Full immersion in the moment. A less earthly and less hedonistic answer would be merging with my higher self, exploring this vast cosmos and other timelines, transcending space and time, and having an immortal nature- to annihilate my ruminations about ephemerality. Arcadian wilderness inhabited by nymphs, playful spirits, mythological figures, and other supernatural entities coexisting with sci-fi/ futuristic dreamscapes, all drowning in the smell of orange blossom trees, snowdrops, honeysuckle, and all the intoxicating fragrances one can think of. Having occult powers would be pretty entertaining. I could go on, but this answer is already too long!

    What is your greatest fear?
    Losing my mind and ending up in a private hell. Self-obliteration. Death.

    Which historical figure do you most identify with?
    Taking into account women who have had an impact in the history of literature and art, I have to say there are many women in me, even if some personalities exist as representations of thoughts that I’m unlikely to nurture and materialise. Anaïs Nin, Virginia Woolf, Dora Maar, Francesca Woodman. As for mythological characters, Persephone – I like her dual nature, because I, too, thrive in spring and rule over the underworld.

    Which living person do you most admire?
    Hélène Cixous, Irvin D. Yalom, Tilda Swinton, Chelsea Wolfe, David Lynch, Godard, Werner Herzog,…Oh, and Jung, he haunts our psyches, his presence is too relevant to not transcend death.

    What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
    None.

    What is the trait you most deplore in others?
    Malice, duplicity, gossip, hypocrisy, judging others based on a flawed system of reference, & lack of empathy. I also dislike dark triad traits, but I am somewhat fascinated by such pathologies in theory.

    What is your greatest extravagance?
    Niche and designer perfumes

    What is your favourite journey?
    Immersing myself in art is always a beautiful journey. And any other journey that involves a form of transcendence.

    What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
    For women, specifically: being nice and calm at all times, which would imply bypassing certain emotions that are deemed “unpleasant” and that have historically been attributed to “hysteria” in a disguised act of gaslighting, including emotions that are typically associated with masculinity, e.g. anger, aggressiveness. Anger emerges within you when you perceive an injustice, when some of your boundaries have been crossed. It is healthy and needs to be witnessed and integrated, rather than silenced.

    Other overrated virtues are humility / humbleness, moderation, and submissiveness / obedience. Women are especially conditioned to adopt these traits in order to fit into society and not fall out of line. Be disruptive in this respect. You can draw your own lines, teeter on them in high heels, and erase and redraw them whenever you want. If you’re perceptive and self-aware, you’ll be able to tell the difference between self-love and arrogance.

    On what occasion do you lie?
    When I don’t want to risk hurting someone I care about, I might omit a part of the truth as long as I believe the omission wouldn’t ultimately create more distress.

    Which living person do you most despise?
    I don’t think I despise one person in particular. With the risk of stating the obvious and repeating what I’ve mentioned in the previous answer about what I deplore in others, I am repulsed by anyone who lacks empathy and commits acts of (emotional or physical) abuse against others.

    Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
    C’est la vie. That’s a lie, it’s probably something even more cliched than that.

    What is your greatest regret?
    Not exploring more and experimenting and actively pursuing my most ardent dreams earlier.

    What or who is the greatest love of your life?
    Film, most other forms of art, and fragrances.

    When and where were you happiest?
    Probably whenever I experienced “aesthetic chills”! Other than that, it’s been too long since I’ve felt any fluctuations or significant spikes in my emotional state, so – I don’t remember!

    Which talent would you most like to have?
    Excelling in any field I would like to delve into. Erasing certain thoughts before they reach neurotic levels. An impressive vocal range. And the knowledge needed to find a way to prevent senescence forever.

    What is your current state of mind?
    Reflective. Concerned with future endeavours. I feel like I’m in a liminal state, holding onto the hope that the world will shift and feel more real and less dystopian again. At the same time, certain events from 2020/1 that generated temporary glitches ultimately made me feel more appreciative of and grateful for moments of peace.

    If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
    Mastering the art of selective caring. Raising my creative powers to unreal levels and expanding into other fields of creation.

    What do you consider your greatest achievement?
    I feel it hasn’t happened yet; I will achieve grandeur and fulfil my vision in the future.

    If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
    A goddess.

    What is your most treasured possession?
    My perfume collection and technological devices, because I’m constantly fragrant and wired.

    What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
    A descent into sinister madness or suffering.

    Where would you like to live?
    In a place where pandemics don’t happen. Other applicable answers: in a cyberpunk world on a technologically ultra-advanced planet. The places that currently resonate with my personality type and interests, however, are London and probably NYC. (Tokyo and Venice as well, if there were no linguistic barriers or impediments of another nature)

    What is your favourite occupation?
    Immersing myself in art. Daydreaming and deriving vicarious pleasure from the adventures of fictional characters. Sublimating thoughts through poetry. Identifying behavioural and mental patterns. Spotting cognitive biases in others. Appreciating nature and cityscapes.

    What is your most marked characteristic?
    Perceptiveness. Creativity- especially when it comes to creating intricate stories about people I don’t know and being disappointed when their true self doesn’t align with my idealised projection of them. Self-awareness. Intuition. Constantly trying to reconcile the self that wants to connect with the self that wants to detach, conceal, wear disguises, and have privacy. A sense of elusiveness. Having regenerative powers. And an exquisite taste in film and music, if I say so myself.

    What is the quality you most like in a man?
    Intellect, confidence, imagination, empathy, depth, openness, and a willingness to step into my inner world. Inner tranquility & stoicism that are disrupted by moments of fiery passion connected to subjects that genuinely matter to them. Having a superior olfactory sense, but not taking themselves too seriously all the time because of it!

    What is the quality you most like in a woman?
    Same as above.

    What do you most value in your friends?
    A kind and understanding nature. Trust. Depth. Caring about me. Embodying safety.

    Who are your favourite writers?
    Angela Carter, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Anaïs Nin, Anne Sexton, Mary Oliver, Hélène Cixous, Oscar Wilde, Kafka, Nabokov, Mircea Eliade. Freud and Jung. Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman. Sylvia Plath. Virginia Woolf.

    Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
    Jean des Esseintes. Morgan Le Fay, Carmilla, Dorian Gray, The Countess from AHS

    What do you dislike most about your appearance?
    Pass

    Who are your heroes in real life?
    Angels, poets, and people who have not only overcome mental illness, they’ve also channelled it into their creative work

    What are your favourite names?
    Morgana, Dionysus, Osiris, Narcissa, Mnemosyne

    What is it that you most dislike?
    Same answer I gave to the question “What do you deplore the most in others?”. I also dislike unpredictability, unless I’m responsible for it, and unwarranted advice.

    How would you like to die?
    Since I’ve never reconciled myself with our ephemeral nature (and will probably never do so), this question is oxymoronic and dreadful! I want to live forever – I would only ever “like” to die if I believed in the afterlife, and in that case I wouldn’t care how as long as it wasn’t painful.

    What is your favourite motto?
    Your interpretation of me isn’t who I am.
    Underestimate me and perish.
    Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations ever again.

    Other mottos via quotes:

    “Abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones.” — Henry & June (1990)
    “I am rooted, but I flow.” — Virginia Woolf
    “Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you—and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing else does.” ― George Saunders
    “Do I contradict myself?
    Very well then I contradict myself,
    (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” — Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
    “We will become our opposite if we do not learn to accommodate the opposition within us.” — C. G. Jung
    “I believe in deeply ordered chaos.” — Francis Bacon
    “Listen: I always return to myself.” — Vesna Parun, tr. by Vasa D. Mihailovich
    “Nostalgia is a seductive liar.”
    “A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretence and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.” — Maya Angelou
    “I refuse to live in the ordinary world, to enter ordinary relationships. I am a neurotic—in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.” — Anaïs Nin

    Here is the link to my answers from the past.

  • An allegory

    Let your mind paint a rainy cityscape. A girl dressed in black, with a mask and noisy heels steps on the sidewalk. Her tears merge with the raindrops. Each tear encapsulates an entire mini-universe, lingering on her cheeks, like undetectable tokens of fluid vulnerability. A stranger passes her by, closely. His slightly curious, slightly worried gaze briefly meets hers. That’s when she remembers she’s in a public space: Maybe the distress in her eyes was visible, after all. His face doesn’t show pity, which is fortunate, for she hates pity – she’s always been too proud for it. But maybe she misinterpreted his facial expression and it wasn’t really concern. Maybe he misinterpreted her expression as something else too. He reminds her of someone – someone kind, sweet, wise, and very dear to her. Someone who knew how to unleash her vulnerable and dreamy side simply by being himself. The rare realness of this person was always rewarded with the privilege of meeting all the facets of her personality.

    What her expression conveyed was grief. All-consuming grief, manifested as an affliction of the mind and the body. The inner chaos-intense, the body-tense, during the painful procession. Towards the funeral of the distilled dreams of being. Still alive are the hopes to resurrect the dreams the next day. Another dream, of inner peace, is born. She is wondering when it will materialise. Meanwhile, sweet echoes fill the mind as background music, sung by the Light Beings, ‘Talent. Creativity. Intelligence. Beauty. Resilience. Strength. Kindness’ This is not your typical funeral song. This is one of those days when the melodic discourse is played like a mantra to assuage the mind, to overpower the inner wailing from the funeral rite, to self-induce good vibes, in order to help her keep putting one foot in front of the other foot instead of collapsing. Like an incantation, to banish other toxic thoughts. It’s one of those days when other aspects resonate too strongly, sucking the power out of the good ones, and releasing dark energy. These other forces are not as clear. The noise they express themselves in is a sort of gibberish, a chaotic, harmful nonsense, inducing a heaviness of the heart.

    There are rooms she doesn’t unlock in her mind, because she doesn’t want to let the poison out. She wants to stay pure. Untainted. One room contains dusty effigies of blacklisted figures. They’re not distinctive or intelligible, they’re merged into each other, shape-shifting embodiments of damaging thoughts. They are all locked away together in a claustrophobic space, drenched in darkness. Poison drips from their mouth as they breathe in the poisonous atmosphere like zombies. Meanwhile, The Light Beings roam in their perfumed, elegantly decorated chambers inside the mind, as companions and guardians. The Light Beings are personified thoughts, but also real-life people. When she dissociates, it’s probably so as to stay away from the poisonous atmosphere when the forbidden door malfunctions. That poison rarely affects anyone else, besides her self, it is confined within her being.