A student creature pursuing clinical psych /data analytics.
My 3 main things are:
1) gamedev /games/art-house or indie games
2) music (primarily drum n bass, math rock/djent/melodic metalcore. and jazz/fusion type deals)
3) sequential art/graphic novels

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

1) To befriend and learn from other adventurers/locals. To become more open-minded, flexible, generous, conscientious, self-aware, and trusting of the right people. To consistently sustain my youthful curiosity and eagerness to share and learn.
2) Traveling gives me a temporary illusion of freedom that I love to lose myself in. It puts me into a meditative, focused state of wonder in which I let my primary quest be nothing more than an ambiguously defined sort of exploration built upon self-discovery and identity formation. It’s a feeling that only traveling yields me. It's a mindset I seem to adopt most seamlessly during travel. Maybe it’s an invigorating type of flow that iteratively teaches me how to perceive all the feelings already within that make me feel alive. Maybe it’s a liberating sort of courage that keeps me willing to enthusiastically make a fool out of myself. Whatever it is, it makes me eager to craft new experiences with diverse people who also share a love for travel - hopefully making it easier to bring home some of the courage I found while away.

Interests

• writing
• raves
• jazz
• blues
• tennis
• animation
• psychology
• statistics
• mountain biking
• videogames
• reading books
• film
• funk
• craft beer
• shamanism
• stouts
• vipassana
• graphic novels
• drum and bass
• bluegrass
• ayahuasca
• game development
• journaling
• having a laugh
• jazz music
• bluegrass music
• math rock
• progressive rock
• psychoanalysis
• self-sufficiency
• psychotherapy
• djent
• psychedelia
• beards
• demoscene
• vipassana meditation
• synesthesia
• kambo
• personality theory
• audiovisual art
• sequential art
• musique concrete
• pouet
• audiovisual art installations
• psychology of death and dying
• chromesthesia
• journaling and passing it off as writing
• radical audiovisual experiences
• sours

Music, Movies, and Books

Here are some playlists which contain some of the music I listen to:

https://open.spotify.com/user/danielleamya/playlist/40Uh2kwkFUZdLIvfMIwOWL?si=KrJmvvG2RDeM4T5DGY7iIQ
https://open.spotify.com/user/alexispotato098/playlist/2YhsKngaleUZDICDvO8MOQ?si=TzYaNOJFThCwTQTq4-42fg
https://open.spotify.com/user/alexispotato098/playlist/5G54L6XKtUvLJLvYzBdGHT?si=GXVcYhbpT02hnuiKtKjp4g

General Music Genre's I like:
Jazz fusion, Math Rock/djent, melodic metalcore, Blue Grass, dnb/IDM ( I listen to a lot of hospital records & Blu Mar Ten Records), Indian Classical,

Fav movies/video media:
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Before Midnight
- boogie nights
- all of charlie kaufman's films (esp. anomalisa or Synechdoche: New York)
- the tatami galaxy

Favorite TV shows : Louie (fx show), taxi (1970’s sitcom)

Anime/Animation:
Mushishi, Tatami Galaxy, Gurren Lagan, cowboy bebop,
Anything by Masaaki Yuasa or Satoshi Kon
My vimeo may have some likes/playlists to point towards other cool animations

https://vimeo.com/user61634186/collections

Fav literature/authors:
- Essays in Love by Aain de Botton
- what it means to be a grown up- The complete and definitive answer edited by Joseph fink
- Stendhal’s love
- Arthur rimbaud - " A Season in Hell"
- James baldwin - Go Tell It on The Mountain
- The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
- Some Bukowski - I liked “You Get So Alone Sometimes It Just Makes Sense”
- The Art of Game Design A Book of Lenses 2nd Edition - Jesse Schell
- A Theory of Fun for Game Design - Raph Koster
- Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies by Rick Strassman MD

Fav games (v difficult for me to respond to):
- kentucky route zero
- legend of zelda: breath of the wild
- hotline miami 2
- red dead redemption 2
- 140 by jeppe carlsen
- thumper vr
- gorogoa

Sequential art:
Asterios polyp - David mazzucchelli
Building Stories - Chris Ware
Here - Richard McGuire
anything from study group comics http://studygroupcomics.com/main/nod-away-by-josh-cotter/#new

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spent my 2nd time mountain biking going down Pisgah Forest's Pilot Rock and I only broke one pedal and screamed thrice (supposed to be the hardest trail there).

contributions to this game, along with some funny devlogs you can read on the site: https://keyboardkommander.itch.io/keyboard-kommander-apokeylypse

Hiked 3 mountains in the Adirondacks (Algonquin, Iroquois, and Boundary) in 1 day with no sleep and inappropriate athletic wear, finished with Algonquin and only a 1.5week long limp

I once ripped a piece of yellow wide ruled paper perfectly in half.

I shaved a few days ago and my face and racial appearance (depending on the person) looks strikingly different

Teach, Learn, Share

Share/teach (mostly sharing) I know a good amount of my main 3 thingies, if anyone's interested in knowing more about them, and would love to share more about any of my other hobbies/niche interests (especially concerning psychology, alternative forms of psychotherapy, and audiovisual art/synesthesia)

Dope quotes:

"Maturity is not some revelation, it's an ongoing process - it's gaining layers that strengthen who you already are. no longer choosing to disengage from the world around you even if it can be rough"

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point"

Interesting beliefs of mine:
- I believe certain forms of art cannot be fully experienced without altering one’s state of consciousness, which can be done in a variety of ways including meditation, herbs/essential oils, deep listening, etc...

- Still figuring stuff out, which isn’t for everyone, but you’d be surprised how open people can be when faced with expressive sincerity.

- Some think a passion is a hobby you do on the side or a deep interest. To me, a passion is your reason for living, it’s what you love no matter how much hardship it brings you, it’s what you sacrifice your life for, go homeless for, endure abandonment and disapproval for, risk stability for, strain your health for, what you can’t ever get away from, what keeps you discontent with normalcy. It’s a madness that pushes you to your extremes, one that endows you with a permanent child-like zest for learning, creating, loving, and playing.

http://rajas.tilda.ws/

What I Can Share with Hosts

- currently still a student so I can't offer a place to stay, but I am looking forward to hosting other surfers once I have the means
- food
- help with all sorts of errands/chores/manual labor
- a naive but refreshing openness to experience
- Basic Indian Cooking (if we have a nearby grocery with appropriate ingredients)
- Bizzare/memorable/intimate /therapeutic conversation
- indian heritage
- a basic understanding of the East coast rave, or audiovisual art installation/musique concrete scene (s)
- a slightly-above surface level understanding of most of my other interests I tagged that may be of interest to you/sound interesting if you were to hear me talk about it

I'm good fun. I also enjoy washing dishes and doing certain household chores

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Dominican Republic, India

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States