I've Been Pigeon Holed

I was reading about Jung and found out about the personality test which his works inspired called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I decided my personality hadn't been tested for a while so I looked up The Mental Muscle Diagram Indicator.

It turns out I'm an INFP.

It's a bit like reading your astrological personality type - some things hit, some things don't. These descriptions are so vague, you feel they could describe anyone. It says the INFP...

• Makes decisions on the basis of personal values
• Is appreciative and accepting of people - enjoying company and seeking harmony
• Assesses the impact of decisions on others, being sympathetic or compassionate
• Takes a personal approach

I'm trying to think of someone I know who doesn't do all these things. Also...

• develop an inner emotional life that is often unseen to others, but is experienced as intense

True, but as it's unseen, I wouldn't know if anyone else does this.

• retain a strong sense of values, which are often not expressed

Again, true, but as I'm a recluse, I don't often get the chance to express them. However, on the occasion that I am in company, I'm not afraid to express them, often resulting in heated debate.

• emotionally accept or reject various aspects of life - for example, deciding whether praise or criticism received is valid and, at extreme, ignoring whatever is unacceptable

Don't we all?

• feel appreciation towards others, but not express it

Guilty as charged.

My oppostite character type is supposed to be the ESTJ which seems to describe me equally as well, if not better. On reflection, ESTJ seems more accurate.

How can I be both? I decide to investigate further. Perhaps I need to do a better test. So I try this one, which says I'm an INTP. The difference being the T(hought) instead of the F(eeling). This was the hardest decision to make, so I guess I'm on the cusp.

Apparently we're "...armchair detectives, scientists and philosophers, spending most of their time in quiet reflection to ponder truth, and solve mysteries. They may tend to neglect social requirements and responsibilities, finding many relationships to be too superficial to be of much interest."

Looks like I'm an INTP then.

Revelations

You learn interesting life skills when your partner leaves you to practice single-parenthood for two weeks while she does musical things in Iceland.

This morning, I discovered the best way to dry your son's socks (after you've left it to the last minute to wash them the night before).

1. place the hole of one sock over the end of your other half's hairdryer.
2. switch on the hairdryer (on hot)
3. hold for 30 seconds (optional: you can cheer up your grumpy-with-no-dry-socks child by making the inflated sock dance about)
4. turn off hairdryer and remove crispy dry sock, warm as toast to comfort your child's cold toes
5. repeat for the other sock

Choice or Programming?

This is something I posted as a comment on this very good blog, but I thought it worthy of it's own post (even if I do say so myself).

"The choices we make are limited or effected by the "programming" we receive from birth.

For example, when we got a kitten, my son and my girlfriend enjoyed making him chase his tail by waving it in his face. He started chewing the end of it. Now, years later, when he cleans his tail he chews it, making the fir into a spike so he looks like some kind of cat-scorpion.

This got me to thinking - we've managed to program our cat into doing something he wouldn't naturally have done. And even though we no-longer wave his tail in front of his face, he continues with this habit. Perhaps he thinks it's "right" to do it.

Human morals are the same, I believe. I had no morals when I was born. They were programmed into me. If I was brought up to believe (in isolation) killing other humans is a good thing, and I was given a sophisticated enough reasoning behind this, I'm not sure I wouldn't now be a murderer.

This is why people can behave to very different sets of morals, both thinking they are "in the right".

So when you say you choose to remain Jewish (see original comment) that choice is only made under the influence of heavy "programming".

Do I chose not to murder? Or is it that I have been programmed to believe murder is wrong?

Culture is basically programming. And people become very attached to their culture - like my cat is to chewing the end of his tail."

Topsy Turvey

I'm convinved the majority of people will continue to act irrationally; but whether they believe in a god or gods; whether they believe in the Mother Earth, aliens or spirits; whether they believe in Communism or Capitalism, their certainty that their way is the right and only way will inevitably crumble under rational examination.

Look at the major political-theological battle of right vs left and atheist vs Christian.

Christians are, traditionally, more likely to be right-wingers, a brand which supports the capitalist Survival of the Fittest ideal. And yet, they are the likeliest group to have a problem with Darwin; a man you would think they would hail as a hero for showing the world: nature's way is the capitalist's way.

Meanwhile, on the left, the atheists fight for re-distribution of the wealth. Something Jesus started a couple of millenia ago. Allegedly.

Keep Your Filthy Lucre

Jesus said, "It's easier for a fat chick to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich dude to get past security at the Pearly Gates" (or something like that) to this wealthy geezer, and then tells him to sell all his shit and give the cash to the poor. The guy runs off whimpering at the thought of losing all his hard-earned.

Now, unexplored marketing angles for certain online auction sites aside, I think this guy must've inherited all his wealth, 'cos he obviously wasn't smart enough to have earned it himself. If he was, he would've come back with, "Hey, off-spring of the Big Man, if its easier for the poor to get into Heaven, it wouldn't be very nice of me to reduce their chances by making them richer, would it?"

No, the really charitable thing to do, my friends, is keep your cash in your pocket, and be content you are doing your bit to help others make it to the lovely Ever After.