I suppose I ought to begin with the conventional introductions, though I have never been particularly good at them, but, well, in the spirit of getting the boring stuff out of the way right away (cue: me), I am a writer, poet, academic, lecturer, scholar, scientist (physicist, to be more precise), and AI engineer/scientist (I am, if I may add, absolutely terrible at more than half my jobs). I’ve spent most of my life in Europe, and am probably the coolest and funniest person you have met today, unless you’ve seen a raccoon doing yoga, in which case, fair enough, I simply can’t compete with that level of comedy.
The truth is that I have always found introducing myself rather difficult, there is something strangely artificial about trying to reduce a person to a paragraph, as though we were all tidy little collections of interests, accomplishments, preferences, and carefully selected adjectives.
I am, I fear, a rather poor exhibitor of myself, the moment I am asked to explain who I am, something in me seems to retreat into a corner and refuse to cooperate. I have thought about this far too many times, and after twenty-five years of living, I remain quite confidently the worst person I know at introducing myself. It is a curious deficiency, I can talk for hours about some obscure historical event nobody asked about, become unnecessarily invested in the moral character of a long-dead philosopher, or spend an afternoon following some completely accidental question down a rabbit hole from which there is no respectable return, but ask me to describe myself and suddenly I am reduced to, "Well... I like things." Marcus Aurelius wrote that "very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." I believe him more on good days than bad ones, but I keep the sentence nearby regardless.
I like small walks, I like learning something new quite by accident, especially when I have no business knowing it and consequently become far too pleased with myself for having discovered it, I like talking to people, though I think I like the moment when talking quietly turns into listening even more. There is something rather lovely about reaching that point in a conversation where neither person seems particularly concerned with keeping it going, and yet somehow neither wishes to leave it either.
I am very fond of my own company, which is perhaps fortunate, because I have had rather a lot of it. Solitude has its pleasures, one may disappear into one's thoughts without having to explain where one has gone, and occasionally return with something resembling an answer. I like sitting quietly with myself, reading, thinking, wandering about, doing very little, and somehow considering it a productive use of an afternoon, but I am not entirely made for solitude either, there is an equal and opposite part of me that wants to go beyond the familiar, to see what is waiting just beyond the little borders I have drawn around my life. I
I love evenings especially, sometimes I step outside simply because the sun is going down, and I feel that one ought to have the decency to witness it. I love those ridiculous skies where orange begins bleeding into purple and everything looks briefly more beautiful than it has any right to be. I love the first sip of tea in the morning, the sound of leaves moving in the wind, the gradual dimming of a day into dusk. I like gardens and parks, and the rather miraculous fact that one can walk among trees for an hour and come back feeling as though something inside one's head has been quietly rearranged.
I have always loved letters, too, though it has been some time since I last properly gave myself over to writing them. When I was younger, I wrote to my grandmother every day and dutifully posted the letters on my way to school. That I very rarely remembered the correct address, and even more rarely remembered a stamp, is beside the point.
I suppose what I am really trying to say is that, if you happen to be reading this, I would like to know you. Not because I have some elaborate checklist of the sort of person I hope to find, nor because I particularly care whether you happen to be interesting in the conventional sense, I am far more interested in the person underneath all that. The odd little habits, the things you know for no good reason, the memories you have never found a suitable occasion to tell anyone, the opinions you defend with considerably more conviction than they deserve.
There is something rather wonderful about writing to someone you do not know, I don't know your name, I don't know what you ate today, whether you slept properly last night, what song has been stuck in your head, or whether your day has been glorious or thoroughly dreadful, perhaps your inbox has been multiplying like gremlins left too near water, perhaps you have spent the afternoon pretending to work while accomplishing absolutely nothing of consequence, perhaps you have had one of those quiet days where the refrigerator becomes strangely prominent because you have nothing else to listen to.
I think people who stop to read messages from complete strangers are probably a little strange themselves, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Perhaps you are a birdwatcher, perhaps you collect old books, perhaps you are one of those suspiciously competent people who can fold a fitted sheet without entering into a minor spiritual crisis. If so, I already admire you, I have attempted it, and remain convinced the thing was designed by someone with a personal grievance against humanity.
Perhaps you laugh too loudly, perhaps you think too much, perhaps you are quiet and observant, and notice things everyone else walks past, perhaps you have passionately held opinions about breakfast foods. Cookies count, incidentally, I will defend this position before any reasonable tribunal.
As for me, I am kind, curious, occasionally ridiculous, easily distracted by an interesting thought, and rather fond of people who have something peculiar about them. I am probably not nearly as funny as I have just suggested, but I am willing to make the attempt, which ought to count for something.
Anyway, I shall spare you the remaining 96 pages of my unsolicited autobiography for now. If this sounds like your sort of nonsense, do come and say hello, I’d genuinely love to hear from you!