That 5 Question Meme
Feb. 5th, 2004 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosComes to me as a direct result of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gothic_coop, although I've seen it elsewhere.
The Rules
1 - Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
gothic_coop's questions to me were:
1) Who is the one person that you find yourself thinking of most often when you're alone?
2) What's the most intense experience you've ever had?
3) Would you ever get married again?
4) What is your greatest desire?
5) What is the one thing you will never do (again)?
1. Who is the one person that you find yourself thinking of most often when you're alone?
I don’t think about other people very often when I’m alone.
With that caveat, the (real) person I think of most often is an ex-lover who was the best friend I’ve had in my life. Unfortunately, we had a falling out (very complicated situation) and are on strained terms these days. We were extremely close, on many levels, for a very long time, and I miss that friendship far more than I miss the physical relationship. When I think of him, it’s a combination of remembering the really great times we had together, mourning our estrangement, and trying to figure out a way past the issues that divide us now.
2. What's the most intense experience you've ever had?
There is no one isolated incident or moment that I can label “most intense.” Maybe because there’s been so much of it in my life. (raptures_shadow, is not the only intensity junkie in the family, just the most famous.)
After much pondering, I’ve decided the most intense experience I’ve had was six months living with an emotionally abusive man, just after I got out of college. The experience is best described as The Descent of Inanna crossed with Stockholm Syndrome. I consented again and again to my own diminishment (as Inanna willingly laid aside her clothing and ornaments as she descended through the gates of the underworld). But it wasn’t free consent, because most of it happened after I moved in with him, and was unemployed, isolated, and more and more dependent on him as time went by. Like Inanna, I was eventually rescued by those who loved me. For at least five years after I left him, I thought of him every day with anger, shame, and hatred. He taught me how to hate. It was only after I’d been married several years that he stopped intruding on my mind on a regular basis.
There have been good times of intensity too – but this was an initiation, and mingled intense highs with the lowest moments of my life. It changed me irrevocably.
3. Would you ever get married again?
Probably not. I don’t think I’m suited to it. I like my personal space and my autonomy too much. I don’t like feeling obligated by another person’s needs to the extent that I felt obligated during my marriage.
Which is really rather sad, because there is far more to marriage than “obligation” and personal space. But the only needs I had that were satisfied within marriage were needs that have also been satisfied outside of marriage. And the things I didn’t like about marriage were either unique to marriage (to my experience of it, anyway) or intensified things that would have been problematic even outside of marriage.
So, no. Although I would like to enjoy a passionate connection with a man again someday. (See below.)
4. What is your greatest desire?
At the moment, to feel intense passion and creativity again. I’ve felt gray and burned-out for a couple of years now, and I miss the vividness and joy of intense connection and creation. That burn-out is directly connected to the person referenced in question #1.
I used to write stories all the time, and now I can barely muster the creativity for a really good fantasy day-dream. I used to love passionately, to feel strongly about life in general, experience deep emotions about all kinds of things, and enjoy intense sexual desire. Now that part of me is a dim memory. I have hope that it will awaken again, under the right circumstances, but I miss it.
5. What is the one thing you will never do (again)?
Get physically involved with someone else’s husband.
Anyone else want to be interviewed?
gothic_coop, although I've seen it elsewhere.The Rules
1 - Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
gothic_coop's questions to me were:1) Who is the one person that you find yourself thinking of most often when you're alone?
2) What's the most intense experience you've ever had?
3) Would you ever get married again?
4) What is your greatest desire?
5) What is the one thing you will never do (again)?
1. Who is the one person that you find yourself thinking of most often when you're alone?
I don’t think about other people very often when I’m alone.
With that caveat, the (real) person I think of most often is an ex-lover who was the best friend I’ve had in my life. Unfortunately, we had a falling out (very complicated situation) and are on strained terms these days. We were extremely close, on many levels, for a very long time, and I miss that friendship far more than I miss the physical relationship. When I think of him, it’s a combination of remembering the really great times we had together, mourning our estrangement, and trying to figure out a way past the issues that divide us now.
2. What's the most intense experience you've ever had?
There is no one isolated incident or moment that I can label “most intense.” Maybe because there’s been so much of it in my life. (
raptures_shadow, is not the only intensity junkie in the family, just the most famous.)After much pondering, I’ve decided the most intense experience I’ve had was six months living with an emotionally abusive man, just after I got out of college. The experience is best described as The Descent of Inanna crossed with Stockholm Syndrome. I consented again and again to my own diminishment (as Inanna willingly laid aside her clothing and ornaments as she descended through the gates of the underworld). But it wasn’t free consent, because most of it happened after I moved in with him, and was unemployed, isolated, and more and more dependent on him as time went by. Like Inanna, I was eventually rescued by those who loved me. For at least five years after I left him, I thought of him every day with anger, shame, and hatred. He taught me how to hate. It was only after I’d been married several years that he stopped intruding on my mind on a regular basis.
There have been good times of intensity too – but this was an initiation, and mingled intense highs with the lowest moments of my life. It changed me irrevocably.
3. Would you ever get married again?
Probably not. I don’t think I’m suited to it. I like my personal space and my autonomy too much. I don’t like feeling obligated by another person’s needs to the extent that I felt obligated during my marriage.
Which is really rather sad, because there is far more to marriage than “obligation” and personal space. But the only needs I had that were satisfied within marriage were needs that have also been satisfied outside of marriage. And the things I didn’t like about marriage were either unique to marriage (to my experience of it, anyway) or intensified things that would have been problematic even outside of marriage.
So, no. Although I would like to enjoy a passionate connection with a man again someday. (See below.)
4. What is your greatest desire?
At the moment, to feel intense passion and creativity again. I’ve felt gray and burned-out for a couple of years now, and I miss the vividness and joy of intense connection and creation. That burn-out is directly connected to the person referenced in question #1.
I used to write stories all the time, and now I can barely muster the creativity for a really good fantasy day-dream. I used to love passionately, to feel strongly about life in general, experience deep emotions about all kinds of things, and enjoy intense sexual desire. Now that part of me is a dim memory. I have hope that it will awaken again, under the right circumstances, but I miss it.
5. What is the one thing you will never do (again)?
Get physically involved with someone else’s husband.
Anyone else want to be interviewed?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-05 07:39 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 07:40 am (UTC)1. You have the opportunity to share any myth/sacred story in any form or medium you want for a large audience. What story would you pick and how would you present it (film? drama? ritual? storytelling? mime?)?
2. What aspect of your "talk" is most challenging for you to "walk"?
3. Which of your many achievements are you the most proud of?
4. What would be the first sacred story you would teach your child?
5. You can be anything you want, in any world that has appeared in any story. (Bring your husband and friends if you like!) Where do you go, and who/what do you become?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 09:06 am (UTC)i'll have to give these a good think. :>