If I could use only a few adjectives to describe myself, I would choose these additional words: happy, sensitive, risky, decisive, lonely, concentrated, intense.
- Happy - I am quite joyful most of the time. If I am not in a blissful state, it is usually because of actual difficulties in my life. If those are bad enough, which happened many times, I still cannot stay sad for too long. It feels like I can not allow myself melancholy. Usually, I quickly find ways to force myself out of sadness through action or radical material changes. Luckily for me, I started practicing prolonged meditations (zazen, pranayama, kundalini, etc.) early in my youth and had the time of my life, staring at empty walls. Only war could diminish my joy of life for longer periods.
- Sensitive - in some cases overly so. I used to have extreme color sensitivity, to the point that I could wear only achromatic clothing for some periods of my life, was annoyed by paint on buildings, and so on. Once, I painted my walls black, another time - my blond hair. I had periods of white walls and attire. To this day, you can notice these tendencies in my clothing and minimal home decoration. On top of that, I can be inexplicably sensitive to some words and especially facial expressions.
- Risky - I can handle a lot of risk if I know the reason why, have considered the range of outcomes, and can initiate the action on my own. The problem is that for most of my life, I could tolerate the possibility of very bad results as well. A few times, I lived through the scary consequences of my risk-taking attitude. At the same time, I rarely feel adventurous. Maybe, it is because I am rarely bored. In some areas, I can hardly tolerate any risk at all, for fun, for example. I maintain an emergency fund in three forms at all times because I do not want to lose any dignity or health. I take only a few things for granted because I know I am at risk of losing everything. I can hardly find comfort in dependency, this saved me from addictions and turned me into a difficult girlfriend. I take risks to let precious truth come my way: it decreases my risk of making stupid mistakes or dying largely clueless.
- Decisive - in personal matters, I tend to make up my mind quickly and permanently. I do not look back with doubts. I prevent myself from having regrets by ensuring that my process of making decisions is maximally all-factor-encompassing and minimally instinctual (benefiting the species), and does not contradict my intuition. I stay true to myself because life becomes unbearable if I do not.
- Lonely - somewhat, intellectually. Although I am willing to invest a lot in friendship with the right people, only with a few close friends I can be fully myself, and most of them live far away. In most cases, even among good friends, I need to avoid certain subjects and try to filter my humor. I spend lots of my time in solitude, by choice, but deep human connections are precious to me.
- Concentrated - I can easily focus on something of my choice for hours at a time, or for weeks, disregarding almost everything else. It can be quite unhealthy. When I am distracted and cannot continue for a while, it becomes almost painful to keep in mind all the information needed to restart my projects. In art, it can be very disappointing to forget something important or not to be able to go into the same mindset. I fear interruptions. Since I was about 14, I have been aware of my big flaw: if I see the clear end of a project, I lose interest and move on. In my mind, it is done. Another corresponding flaw I have: it is near impossible for me to do something I do not want unless there is an existential threat of some kind. Concentration helps me overcome these limitations.
- Intense - my brain demands stimulation and transformation. In silent introspection, it is full of visual activity. Even my meditations on nothingness are sometimes singularly intense. In conversations, I can be passionately engaged. I attempt to be sincere, even if only in essence: we always need to filter out irrelevancies. For many years, I practiced full truthfulness, but that turned out to be too dangerous. I still believe that people deserve kind measured honesty, even if it is challenging. Interactions with both smart and kind people energize me more than anything else.
