I approach life passionately and with enthusiasm, trying to give importance to everything I do, and therefore do everything well for its own sake. I throw myself completely into whatever I may be doing, be it work or play, and try to do it joyfully. However, I can be apathetic and even nasty when I don't feel that what I'm doing or being asked to do is valuable. This is defined, for me, in a variety of ways. I am happiest when I believe I am helping people or sharing, creating, or preserving something beautiful. Beauty is music, love, nature, happiness, and life. And many other things. So from the right perspective, most tasks are beautiful and therefore valuable.
I'm quite introverted, and most of my life have mostly kept to myself, although for the past couple of years I have begun to become more confident in myself and my social skills, discovering, to my great surprise that people actually like me and even think I'm cool. ;) (maybe you will too!) I do still have a strong tendency to sort of hide away and be uncommunicative if I don't know someone, but it is certainly possible to draw me out, possibly getting me going on some long story or tangent. I've probably, not certainly, developed some quirkiness over the years and as a self defense tactic have taken a certain amount of pride in being a bit weird in my own way. I've long hung out with nerds of one kind or another and still prefer the company of intelligent individuals. I'm not sure exactly how I define that anymore though, and I wonder if it's not the word I'm looking for at all.
Much of who I am has to do with my (fairly recent) past. I'm a college sophomore right now, but I had a rather unique high school experience. I went to the main high school in my district, where I played in band and developed my knowledge and love of music, but I also went to a smaller, special, "alternative" high school focused on community and experiential learning where teachers could come up with any class they wanted to teach and do it, decisions were made democratically in town meeting by everyone instead of through student government, and the walls themselves were covered in student artwork. Perhaps, but only perhaps, most importantly, second half of senior year is spent on two internships or independent studies called Walkabouts.
My second Walkabout was spend living in an egalitarian intentional community in Virginia. I had an amazing time and learned all sorts of things and changed a bit. I spent a lot of time out in the garden discovering how very happy I am out in the sun digging in the dirt. :) Many of the things I wrote above are things I discovered over Walkabout. (example: people apparently think I'm cool)
I am crazy, smiley, and musical
