Vaneigem: Desire everything, expect nothing.

From e-flux & Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Proust Questionnaire, answered by Raoul Vaneigem
What is your main personality trait?
Laziness.

What quality do you appreciate most in a man?
Generosity coupled with human awareness of life.

What quality do you appreciate most in a woman?
Love and love of life.

What is your favorite virtue?
Creativity.

What is your main shortcoming?
My lack of self-confidence.

What is your favorite activity?
Opening myself to life so life can open in me.

What is your dream for happiness?
Realizing my desires by fulfilling those of my loved ones.

What would your greatest misfortune be?
Failing to contribute to the happiness of all.

Who would you have wished to be?
Myself, more and more alive.

Where would you like to live?
Everywhere genuine humanity prevails.

What is your favorite flower?
All of them, with a soft spot for the “rose ancienne.”

What is your favorite bird?
All of them, with a special fondness for the blackbird that sings in the evening.

Who are your favorite writers of prose?
Montaigne, La Boétie, Shakespeare, Diderot, Kafka, Artaud, Benjamin, Orwell, Zweig.

Who are your favorite poets?
Villon, Blake, Hölderlin, Nerval, Fourier.

Who are your male heroes in literature?
Hyperion.

Who are your female heroes in literature?
Little Kaethchen of Heilbronn.

Who are your favorite composers?
Mozart, Boccherini.

Who are your favorite painters?
Giorgione, Turner, Goya, Van Gogh.

Who are your male heroes in history?
Eloi Pruystinck, Sebastian Castellio, Edouard Carouy and André Soudy, Albert Libertad, Flores Magón, Alexandre Marius Jacob, Jan Valtin.

Who are your female heroes in history?
Olympe de Gouges, Claire Démar, Louise Michel, Qurratulain.

What are your favorite names?
Ariane, Chiara, Ariel, Tristan.

What do you hate above all else?
Voluntary servitude.

Which historical figures do you despise the most?
All tyrants, slaughterers of the people, perpetrators of human suffering and those who honor them.

Which military feat do you admire the most?
None.

Which reform do you hold in highest regard?
Those that humanize man.

Which natural talent would you have wished to have?
The ability to better disseminate the human awareness of life.

How would you like to die?
Peacefully, at the hour I choose.

What is your present state of mind?
A precarious balance between what I am and what I wish to be.

Which wrongs do you tolerate the best?
There are no wrongs, just mistakes to rectify.

What is your motto?
Desire everything, expect nothing.