A Modified Proust Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one's personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust, who believed that people must know and understand themselves before they could know or understand others. He developed a list of subjective questions that he felt would help reveal to people their true selves and the inner personalities of those around them. A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back page of Vanity Fair magazine, answered by various celebrities.

In what follows I give my own answers. Why don't you try it ?

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Perfection does not exist. In any case, we have happiness when the distance between reality and what we want  is minimized ... this distance is almost never zero.

What is your greatest fear?

Pain of any sort.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Impatience (it eventually "killed" my modest chess ambitions.)

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Religious fanaticism, bad breath and envy.

Which living person do you most admire?

Roger Penrose.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Playing basket ball with friends and surfing the net.

What is your current state of mind?

Excited.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Chastity and modesty.

On what occasion do you lie?

I don't need an occasion.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

Not much. Perhaps my waistline.

Which living person(s) do you most despise?

Priests, politicians and dictators.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Humour and ... balls.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Voluptuousness and ... balls.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"Thanks a lot," "Just in case"and "not exactly rocket science."

Which talent would you most like to have?

The chess talent of Bobby Fischer and to play the alto sax well.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

The size of my ... nose.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Being unique.

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

My blue-eyed, black cat Charlie (he died when I was 31 years old).

What is your most treasured possession?

Μy IQ.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Suffering. And of course, not getting laid when you want it.

What is your favorite occupation?

I would rather be an astronomer.

What is your most marked characteristic?

My charm and curiosity.  Of course, NOT my modesty.

Who are your favorite writers?

Betrand Russel, Boris Vian, Richard Feynman, Roger Penrose, W. S. Maugham, J. Krishnamurti, Karl Popper, Plato and many others.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

The HAL 9000 computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Johanne Kepler (and Icarus in Greek mythology!)

What do you most value in your friends?

Their ability to make me (and others) laugh.

Who are your heroes in real life?

There are no heroes.

What is it that you most dislike?

Religious bullshit. All kinds of -isms.

What is your greatest regret?

That I left my job in Britain and returned to Greece for a 2-year term of obligatory army service.

How would you like to die?

Alone, healthy (lol !!) and laughing.

What is your motto?

Live now, die later.

YΓ:  At your own risk, click the 2 images and the 3 links in the text !


:)