Two Questions
This spring, as I embarked in my newly vaccinated, post-pandemic life with friends, family members, and acquaintances alike, I realized I had forgotten what most conversations outside of small-talk used to look like. In its abridged nature, deprived of physical touch, social life at a distance -- masked picnics, family-wide Christmas Zoom calls, bundled-up walks in the snow -- made engaging in longer conversations that scraped beneath the surface difficult.
But with the return of in-person gatherings, I found myself having the same conversations that my loved ones and I used to have every day, centered around the same types of conflicts: new romantic partners that were hard to read, shitty friends who weren’t putting in enough effort, parents that wouldn’t stop calling. As much as I had missed our deep analyses of these relationships, I also found myself reflecting on how much stress focusing on these conflicts brought us. I wondered what would happen if just for a moment, we instead talked about things that brought us joy.
So I started just asking my loved ones a set of questions that directed the conversation toward appreciating. I wanted to know what these people I held so close to me valued most -- about themselves, and about life in general.
Out of all of the questions I asked, here are two of my favorites -- mostly because I don’t think we ever really talk about these.
What is your favorite part about life? About living, about existing on Earth, about life in general, any of those things.
Some people said learning -- about themselves, about others…
Emma: “The learning process throughout life. I think that things that I held to be true when I was younger, some of these things I don't hold to be true anymore. And I know that when I’m older, things that I hold to be true right now won’t be true anymore… I wonder what those things will be.”
Lana: “I love learning more about people I know, and connecting with new people, and hearing their stories. I think it all comes back to stories, and sharing them, and learning them... Because it makes life so much richer, and gives places and inanimate things meaning that they didn’t have before.”
Emeline: “When you have an epiphany -- Learning. Learning is really cool.”
Some people said others.
Ani: “I love the feeling of seeing someone and the feeling of being seen... It’s really cool that there can be an entirely separate individual from myself, but to feel so intertwined and connected with them is awesome. Also, that being in relationships with people means no-one is having the same experience of life as you are, and being able to be let into other people’s experiences of life is really interesting.”
And some people said little moments of joy.
Candelaria: “I think one of my favorite parts of life is laughter, like when you make a stranger laugh, or when you have an encounter with a stranger that’s funny and you both end up smiling, or you smile at a baby. I think there's something really beautiful in seeing people experience happiness... You never know the extreme to which someone has felt sadness in their life, or has gone through experiences of really difficult feelings of despair or loss, so I think when you’re able to share joy with another human, it’s really special. Because you don’t know the opposite of what they felt, but in that exact second, they are experiencing joy and they are choosing to do that with you.”
Isobel: “The feeling of wonder. It can be from a person or a thing. I don’t know if it needs to come from something novel, but where you’re like, wondrous about the world, where you’re like, ‘Wow.’”
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Another concept that I felt like we don’t talk about enough is when we feel most connected to ourselves, our beings. So I asked:
When do you feel most like yourself? Where you’re like, “I feel like [THEIR NAME] right now.”
Molly: “In the ocean. I just feel like I can feel things in the ocean, if that makes sense. I feel very cold, and I feel very in touch with how I’m feeling. That’s why I really like swimming in the cold because I feel very in touch with myself… I think I feel very small in the ocean, and also the ocean symbolizes just like an unknown, and it’s kind of inspiring to go into it without fear, even though I am afraid of sharks.”
Emeline: “Exploring by myself - like when I was in France, and I would get up and be like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna bike ten miles to this beach and just freaking hangout,’ and have this whole agenda for me for the day and just do my little adventure things with myself.”
Ani: “I feel like myself when I’m dancing around…
Also… when I am with people who I feel like we see each other and we don’t expect unrealistic from each other. I feel myself when I can just kind of be with someone, and exist with them and there’s no sort of -- pressure…
Also… when I’m alone driving in the car and singing along listening to music.”
Lana: “My connection with myself is just based on not suppressing what I’m feeling. Sometimes, when I get in routines where I’m around people all the time and I’m not spending much time alone, I feel like I associate crying with something negative, like ‘oh my god, I’m not doing well.’ But recently, it feels good. It feels like another type of release to me and I feel very in tune with myself because I'm just allowing my body to react in a way that feels instinctive for itself.”
Candelaria: “I feel like myself when I’m alone, I feel like myself when I’m with my family, I feel like myself when I’m with my friends. But I think coming to terms with the fact that myself has a lot of facets, and that’s okay. And that’s something that I don’t need to handle, and to freak out and be like, ‘Aaah! That wasn’t like me!’ Because at the end of the day, we all don’t have a static being. I don’t think anyone is one set self. I think we are very malleable to what we are surrounded by.”
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At first, I started this project knowing what my answers were. In creating the questions that I would ask my interviewees, I had to do a decent amount of reflection on my own answers to the questions, too. I thought, I really only feel like myself when I’m alone, in the car, driving. But with each conversation, my answers changed. Maybe I feel like myself in the ocean, too. And when I am having dance parties in my kitchen. And eventually, I realized how unfixed these viewpoints are -- of ourselves, of life in general, our relationships to life -- maybe I really do feel like myself all the time.
This project isn’t over, mostly because I love having these conversations with anyone and everyone. Each person I spot on the street - grabbing my morning coffee, walking down Amsterdam Avenue at 5:37 PM, returning home on the L Train on Saturday night, I wonder what their favorite thing about existing on Earth is. I wonder if they feel more like themselves dancing around their kitchen or outside, hiking a mountain.
Now though, after my friends and I have spent hours rehashing one thirty-minute interaction, we can return to these questions and remind ourselves of the facets of our lives that bring us joy.
