12 Questions
Years ago, half as part of a WordPress blogging course titled “Finding Everyday Inspiration” and half to challenge myself, I tried to come up with the best set of questions to ask someone. In general. To know them, to understand them. These are the questions I’ll ask myself in introspection, for the sake of a most thorough bout of self-examination. These are the questions I’d want to ask a partner, a true companion in business, life, or romance. To me, the specifics of any given answer would matter less than the level of critical engagement with the questions a person chose to give.
I came up with 12 questions. Some of them consist of multiple but related parts. They are broad and all require individualized interpretations. As to myself, I left them unanswered save for as floating phantoms and thought experiments within my mind. They were merely questions. Big ones. Ones whose answers could go on for days.
But now, as another August dawns upon our world and the dog days of a scorching Texas summer near apotheosis, I want to answer such burning questions. For myself. Here, publicly, on my freelance business blog and to no one in particular, I shall reintroduce such questions into the digital consciousness that is the internet and answer them as concisely as I can. I suggest you take them and do the same for yourself or a loved one. Who knows what you may learn?
~ I present 12 questions here, awaiting answers — from you, from me?
Dylan’s 12 Questions:
What is your code?
Where do you meditate and why?
If you wrote a book, what would it be about? If you directed a movie, what would it look like?
What is something about yourself you most hope to change / develop? What is something about yourself you hope will never change?
What would you change about the world?
What is something you didn’t take seriously, until you did?
What are you currently worried about?
What is your dream? How do you strive for it?
What is one thing you do every day to self-improve?
What is the best story you’ve ever experienced? What was its moral?
Which, if any, of your most salient beliefs is one carried since childhood?
How do you want to be remembered?
Dylan’s 12 Answers:
To explore, understand, and connect; to turn my pain into power into love.
In bed, within the shower, on the basketball court, in nature, upon the blank page, inside other authors’ minds. To learn and to breathe in peace.
Book = About myself, through a variety of characters and within a multitude of settings, timelines, and circumstances both glorious and horrifying - all in an absolutely bombastic hyper-phantasy. Me as a hero and a villain, as a swordsman, a killer, a detective, a God, a gunslinger, an outlaw, an archeologist, a monster, the commander of a starship, an alien; me as I am, as a struggler and a writer and human being trying to find meaning in the search for meaning… / Movie = Heat (1995) remake/spiritual successor with Pedro Pascal and Oscar Isaac.
I want to be more confident, I wish my voice was stronger. / My belief in what is ‘good’ and beautiful and true in the world — my belief in what is right and my belief in the power of humanity.
I would change many things about the world - first and foremost I would eliminate the profit motive for all industries that directly deal with people’s ability to survive and thrive in the modern world: food, housing, education, healthcare, even energy production given its prime significance to the state of the world’s climate future. These industries would be nationalized or otherwise collectively and cooperatively institutionalized by the people, with the prime directive becoming to provide resources to the people - and not privatized, rent-seeking, cyclically market-based profiteering. To live up to the ideal of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” - I believe such a baseline material foundation needs to be built from the vast abundance of our society’s global resources. This is the core of my politics and my moral framework for proper governance in the world of today.
The prospect of a lifetime of wage-based labor for corporate bosses and what it would do to my soul. (Luckily, I found my passion in writing and have begun to construct a self-directed career from it.)
The mid-future - both my own (when/if will I be able to afford a house?) and the world’s (are we going to figure this whole society thing out and survive, begin to thrive and even build starships one day…?)
My dream is to write a masterpiece. My dream is to create a family. My dream is to be a part of a movement for positive change in the world. My dream is be a home to someone else. I strive toward such dreams by learning, trying to connect to people, building a conscientious worldview that can sustain me along life’s chaotic journey.
I read.
The best story is Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley and its moral is about the dualistic power and responsibility of creation and the alienation of the modern world.
Arrogance is ugly, humility feels right. If God is real, I’ll be alright. Making people smile is an intrinsic good. Beauty is owed appreciation.
As someone who was right about everything. Lol. Uhhh, I guess I’d want to be remembered as someone who had passion.
