Mac,
I debated starting a new thread for this, but decided to include it here instead. I think your question is a good one because it sort of asks the question, "Why are we here"...literally speaking as it refers to being an active member of this website. In my mind the reality is there is no one right answer and as David says there really is no one-size-fits-all checklist.
Its all about "What blows your hair back" to quote a line from Good Will Hunting....and pursuing whatever it is that really interests you.
But even more, the essence of this site, at least to me is summed up far better than I ever could, which comes from the same movie...which to me its all about getting out there, seeing stuff, taking it all in, processing it and actually interfacing with something or someone new:
Sean McGuire (Robin Williams): You’re just a kid, you don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.
Will: Why thank you.
Sean: It’s all right. You’ve never been out of Boston?
Will: Nope.
Sean: So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo. You know a lot about him; life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Cistine chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up with that beautiful ceiling, seen that.
If I asked you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may even have been laid a few times, but you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
You’re a tough kid. I ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the march, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watch him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help.
I ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable, known someone who could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand ’cause the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms visiting hours don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, ’cause that only occurs when you love something more than yourself. I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.
I look at you, I don’t see an intelligent, confident man, I see a cocky, scared-shitless kid. But you’re a genius, Will, no one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you, but you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine. You ripped my life apart.
You’re an orphan right? Do you think I’d know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don’t give a shit about all that because you know what? I can’t learn anything from you I can’t read in some book unless you want to talk about you, who you are. And I’m fascinated, I’m in. But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. You’re move chief.