Who are you? This seemingly innocuous question is one that has plagued me (and no doubt countless others, asking this of themselves) to no foreseeable end. After a long bout of mental anguish and intense contemplation regarding myself, my memories, my relationships, and my place in the grand symphony of the universe, I’ve come to the conclusion that the concept of a unified, cohesive self may very well be illusory, and that accepting myself as everchanging and interconnected potential rather than trying to cram the totality of who I amEven this website - its design, its content, my writing style - makes me slightly uncomfortable because of the image of me that it might paint in your mind. The goofier, meme-ier me is cringing at myself for taking things and myself so seriously; the contemplative, solemn me is resisting this ridicule. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? - Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being into a concrete, fixed reality does wonders for my wellbeing.
That being said, the concept of myself still exists, floating around in the ambient space of consciousness. I created this document to capture some of those concepts. I hope that it will lend itself to a picture in your mind of who I am or who I was at some point in time. However, I do have trouble describing myself (see above), so if you really want to get to know me, contact me! ☺
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
Where have I been and what have I done?
Once upon a time; Los Angeles.
Where am I and what am I doing?
For now, New York City!
What do I like?
Dogen-zenji said, “Although everything has Buddha nature, we love flowers, and we do not care for weeds.” This is true of human nature. But that we are attached to some beauty is itself Buddha’s activity. That we do not care for weeds is also Buddha’s activity. We should know that. If you know that, it is all right to attach to something. If it is Buddha’s attachment, that is non-attachment. So in love there should be hate, or non-attachment. And in hate there should be love, or acceptance. Love and hate are one thing.
In short, I like everything. What’s not to love about the miracles of the universe, whether conventionally good or bad? But while I do like everything, I am particularly fond of certain things. Here are some of those things.
Current interests
In light of my aforementioned existential crisis, I’ve awakened a huge appetite within myself for gathering information about the nature of us, consciousness, reality, love, the universe, and other abstract and intangible concepts. One of the realizations to come out of this crisis is the incredible interconnectedness of all things - I now believe that everything is everything else - and as such I’d like to get exposure to all sorts of people, experiences, and ideas.
In general, I’m currently interested in metaphysics, phenomenology, Buddhism, metacognition and learning, meta*A Kleene star, indicating that I'm interested in anything with meta as a prefix (or anything meta-related, really), such as metaphysics, metacognition, metamathematics, metaphor..., hyper*, the brain, the future of artificial intelligence, aesthetics, strange loops, the philosophy of education, patterns and exceptions, imagination and creativity, metaphors and isomorphisms, communication, unconditional love, praxis, radical change.
Current favorites
Media
Books
| GENRE | TITLE | AUTHOR |
|---|---|---|
| American literature | East of Eden | John Steinbeck |
| Nonfiction | Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid | Douglas Hofstader |
Music
| GENRE | TITLE | ARTIST/COMPOSER |
|---|---|---|
| Classical | Années de pèlerinage III, S. 163: No. 4, Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este* | Franz Liszt |
| Hip hop | All Falls Down | Kanye West |
| Jazz | Tezeta (Nostalgia) | Mulatu Astatke |
| Soul | For the Good Times | Al Green |
| Psychedelic rock | Baby | Os Mutantes |
| Music video | Dragonball Durag | Thundercat |
*on LisztFrom the Hollywood Bowl: At the midpoint of Franz Liszt’s Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (The Fountains of the Villa d’Este), as the music modulates into a radiant D major, the composer places in the score the following inscription from the Gospel According to John: Sed aqua quam ego dabo ei, fiet in eo fons aquae salientis in vitam aeternam (But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life)...
While *Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este* is the progenitor of all pianistic water-music to come (Ravel and Debussy lay decades ahead), its intent goes beyond the musical depiction of the rilling and leaping of waters in fountains. It offers water as the symbolic focus of profound contemplation.
**honorable mentionsDurand Jones and the Indications - Can't Keep My Cool (Live); Ms. Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop (That Thing); Dee-Yan Key - Automatic Loving
Movies
| GENRE | TITLE | DIRECTOR |
|---|---|---|
| Animated | Night Is Short, Walk On Girl | Masaaki Yuasa |
| Comedy | Rush Hour 2 | Brett Ratner |
| Psychological horror | The Truman Show | Peter Weir |
Tools
| TYPE | NAME |
|---|---|
| Notebook | N181A Imagination Notebook |
| Pencil | Mitsubishi Hi-Uni |
| Multi-pen | Uni Jetstream 4&1 pen |
| Text editor | Anything with a Vim extension (VSCode, Overleaf, Obsidian) |
Places
New York City
| TYPE | NAME |
|---|---|
| Cafe | the Hungarian Pastry Shop |
Los Angeles
| TYPE | NAME |
|---|---|
| Restaurant | Lucky Number 1 Chinese Restaurant |
| Coffee shop | Coffee Cartel |
| Park | LA State Historic Park |
Other
Farmers’ markets; walking dogs; picnics with friends; scorching hot baths; exploring and relishing in the wonders of nature; spontaneous expressions of love between strangers who will never see each other again; Japanese stationery; hexanal; goofiness and dorkiness and general tomfoolery; animals in the wild; color as a theme; tomatoes in the summer; miniature versions of regular things (such as ice cream sample spoonsI stand by the claim that ice cream tastes far better with a sample spoon than a regular-sized one.);
Major influences
Essays, Books, and Authors
Aesop’s Fables, Heroes & Monsters of Greek Myth; A Wrinkle in Time (and the remainder of the series); The Last Question; East of Eden; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; The Stranger; Shooting an Elephant; The Sun, My Heart;
John Steinbeck; Thich Nhat Hahn;
Songs and Artists
Simon and Garfunkel; Yo-Yo Ma; Ms. Lauryn Hill;
TV Shows, Movies, and Directors
The Truman Show; Howl’s Moving Castle; Totoro; Spirited Away
Websites and Games
Wikipedia; Armor Games/Addicting Games; JiJi and ST Math; PBS Kids’ CyberChase; Neopets; Club Penguin
What am I like?
This is another incredibly difficult question for me to answer. Asking different people at different points in time will invariably produce different results. One person once upon a time called me a “ball of energy,” a description which I particularly enjoy at this moment. I do think that there is something about my being (maybe about every being?) that resists collapse into a singular or definite form. And I tend to have a lot of energy, although at other times you can find me sleeping upwards of 15 hours a day!
Although I am hesitant to prescribe much credence to psychological and personality tests, I do think that they can give some rounded notion of what tendencies a person may have. Here are the percentile results from my IPIP Big Five personality test, taken on 2021-09-19:
- Factor I, Extroversion: 22
- Factor II, Emotional stability: 78
- Factor III, Agreeableness: 95
- Factor IV, Conscientiousness: 41
- Factor V, Intellect/ImaginationAccording to the site, this factor is also called Openness to experience, which I would say is a more accurate term.: 91
Here are some words that I may describe myself with: optimistic; bold-at-times; incredibly-shy-at-others; goofy; awkward; a little cringy; a hopeful romantic; unconditionally accepting; chromatic; oscillating; rippling; ideating; bubbling; paradoxical; dialectical, nonsensical.
Other Sites and Media
- GitHub
- The Story Graph - a non-Jeffy Bezos-owned alternative to Goodreads
- Spotify
Contact
The best way to get in touch with me is to email me at janicel375@gmail.com. If you want to talk to me about anything that you or I may be interested in, or even about nothing in particular, pleaseI am lonely. ☺ reach out. If you want to comment on this website, feel free to open an issue on the Github page!