- Both Biz and AC touched on something but none of us seem to know how to say it exactly right. Basically I think my style on the agreeable/antagonistic stuff so heavily influenced by my beliefs and by my strategic approach to dealing with people that its hard to tell what my natural personality is, so maybe a neutral 3 is most appropriate.
- The Biz said... "First, I think it may be erroneous to categorize one side of each set of traits as desirable. Someone may be so extroverted that they do not listen to others, open to experiences that are clearly detrimental to them or others, agreeable to the point of never voicing a legitimate counterpoint. It works better for some of the traits than others." I agree, and good counterexamples. I was originally going to get into that a lot in my initial post, but then I realized that while there are positives and negatives about both sides of the categories (especially at the extremes), there does seem to be a clearly preferable side. And some of the categories have more clear-cut preferables than others.
- Biz also made a point that when a rare event comes along that does hit me, it seems that it hits me HARD. Everyone gets hit hard sometimes, even the staunchest of the stable. And a natural problem with rarely getting hit is that you don't have experience dealing with it. I can say that my first huge loss prepared me well for dealing with the second. I'll face another hard loss some day, and that will be better than the first 2 I imagine. I don't think stability/neurosis is about how you react to the hard hits, but how you perceive more routine hits. Some people are emotional wrecks from day to day, others rarely seem to react strongly to anything.
Gotta go to a Herbie Hancock concert, should be awesome. I'll fill in some more later.
2/19 (10:48pm) :
The show last night was very very cool. As a former wannabe jazz musician, seeing these legends on stage together was special. Roy Hargrove, Michael Brecker and Herbie Hancock did some very very bad things. Here is the album. Herbie played with Miles and Coltrane back in the day. Silly.
Anyway back to the personality whatnot.
Biz:
Introverted/Extroverted: 4
Neurotic/Stable: 2
Incurious/Open to Experience: 5
Antagonistic/Agreeable: 3
Undirected/Conscientious: 4
Damn, the Biz defies quantification. This was hard.
Tending towards extroversion was pretty easy. While the Biz doesn't have the constant craving for attention of a 5, on any given night he'd rather hang out with people than not. I use willingness to try new foods a bit indicator for openness to experience, and the girth of the Biz alone hints at a 5 here. But beyond cuisine, he is open to trying new music, reading about new ideas, trying new activities. The Biz is down for whatever. These 2 categories were easier.
In the end I decided on a 3 for the A/A category. This was a compromise between memories of both extreme dickery and loving tender kindness. In spite of the insanely wanton cruelty, in the most tender moments, the moments I lived for, when I gazed deeply into his soulful eyes, I could palpably feel his love trying to break free and leap into my waiting arms...
Woah, got a little carried away there. Homoeroticism aside, most of his shenanigans are obviously in good fun, but he seems to enjoy them a bit too much to go beyond a 3.
The toughest were the Neurotic/Stable and Undirected/Conscientious. I haven't been around him for a few years, so I only get certain information these days. Even back in college, the Biz was good at presenting aspects of himself that he wanted to be seen, and concealing other things. We all do that to some extent, but I think he did it more than most.
My first inclination was to lean toward stable and undirected, but the more I've thought about it I'm going to go the opposite direction. Bouncing in and out of school seemed undirected, but I've also known the Biz to focus an incredible amount of energy on things that interest him. His physical manifestation exudes stability - measured movement, calculated appearance. But I think a lot of that is the way he wants to be seen, not the way he is.
My best guess is what at first seemed like lack of direction was actually a manifestation of some degree of neurosis. "Neurosis" sounds so clinical and extreme, which isn't really what I mean. I'm going to interpret the notoriously quick temper of the Biz as evidence that he is a lot more emotional than he might have us believe. Acting on based on emotion rather than rationality is a big part how I interpret the stable/neurotic category, so I think Biz often on the emotional side. So in a bit of an upset, I'm concluding that the Biz is fairly conscientious but somewhat neurotic.
I'll get to Bub's later. I'm going to watch SNL now. I can't decide if host Hillary Swank is really hot or really not hot. Cacocallia?
Bub (2/20/05, 5:30pm):
Introverted/Extroverted: 5
Neurotic/Stable: 3
Incurious/Open to Experience: 2
Antagonistic/Agreeable: 1
Undirected/Conscientious: 2
Bubspar demands an assessment, and for some reason I'm giving her a quick one, despite her offering nothing in return. She's definitely an extrovert, a social butterfly, so most likely a 5. The neurotic/stable category is tough for Bub, since I think women are naturally insane. Since there is no absolute scale, all the ratings are comparative to other people (which means I have to base it on the people I know, and my guesses about how that group fits into the rest of the population). For a 19 year old girl, I think she is extremely stable, which gets her a 3 compared to everyone. Hard for me to size her up on the curiousity issue since most of our time together is with our extremely incurious family. Aside from meeting new people, she doesn't seem to try new things very often - not adventurous with foods, reluctant to branch out to find a new job, etc. So I'm calling her a 2, but I wouldn't be surprised if she expanded out into a 4 over the next few years. She definitely loves to fuck with people and is extremely sarcastic, so I'm giving her a 1 for highly antagonistic. Bub seems all over the place a lot of the time, somewhat undirected. But I wasn't around when she was in high school and I only have certain anectodes about her college experience so far, so I might not have a good picture of this one.
3 comments:
So here's how I would quantify myself:
Introverted/Extroverted: 4Pretty similar to what you said. I like people, I dislike sitting around at home. I especially dislike missing out on some get together that I know about...if for some reason I have to stay at home and do nothing/bullshit when I know there is something else going on within my circle of friends I become very unhappy.
Having said that, I'm not the kind of guy that can just walk up to any person anywhere and start a conversation with them. I'm certainly most comfortable with people I already know.
Incurious/Open: 5This has gotten stronger and stronger within me. At this point, I'll basically try almost anything once. As I alluded to before, I'm not sure this is a good thing, but that's the way it is.
Antagonistic/Agreeable: 1/4I have to split this one. I thought about it for a long time, but I can't be satisfied by a neutral 3. Here's the story: If you are within my circle of "people I don't intensely dislike" then I am pretty willing to accept your opinions and actions. I'll still give you a hard time, which is why I won't rate myself a 5. If I consider you a friend, you are most likely intelligent and capable of supporting whatever poppycock you spout, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Now, on the other end...I have a real problem with people that I view as "stupid." I have no tolerance or patience for the average idiot on the street. Top that off with a nasty tendency towards vitriol, and I can pretty cold to John Doe. Not necessarily something I'm proud of, but that's the way I roll. I might add in here that my "notorious temper" has been in absence since I moved to Boston. I don't really get mad anymore, and I never act like I want to fight someone. Although I'm not entirely sure what the impetus for this change was, I'm happy about it. My anti-socialism has changed to mostly verbal and mental abuse, which I'm going to offer as a higher echelon than swinging my girth about like a "manly man."
Neurotic/Stable: 2Your insight is pretty accurate (and I must admit, a touch surprising). I'm prone to strong emotions, both good and bad. They tend to run hot and fast. In other words, I've never suffered long term depression, but I'm certainly capable of letting a little thing get under my skin for a few days. I don't have much willpower...I've cheated on pretty much everything from tests to girlfriends to diets. This is the area that I a most unhappy with and would most like to see a change in.
Undirected/Conscientious: 3.5ishThis one is really hard for me. I've always had long term goals. Whether they mean anything in the face of great laziness and contempt for "the normal path" is another issue entirely. I think at this point I've shown that I'm not going to be following your average suit & tie/corporate advancement plan anytime soon. I guess I lied earlier when I said that willpower was my biggest weakness. Laziness and a willingness to settle for less than my best is really my kryptonite. I agree 100% with your comments on really putting my back into things that are of great interest to me. What I need to do is focus on putting a similar amount of effort into the less savory (but equally if not more important) tasks along the way to getting somewhere.
Other thoughts:You mentioned that I tend to emphasize aspects of my appearance (both physical and personality) that I want others to perceive. I'm well aware of this, and it's something I've done for as long as I remember. I imagine it stems from being the fat kid in middle school. Once I got to high school and started playing football I realized that I could spin being a big guy into a positive thing, and it didn't take long to realize that the same could be done for being a smart kid. We all want to be liked, and if that means keeping your less pleasant characteristics under wraps while you pimp your good traits, so be it. I'm not sure what to think of your claim that I do this better than others. You seem to have "seen through" my clever ruse. Does that mean that everybody does, and I'm the naked emperor? Or just that after applying some analysis you were able to come to this conclusion. Are you offering me a compliment or a subtle jab? I've had too many Maker's Marks to be sure.
I'd also like to point out that my drunken diction, spelling, and grammar are far superior to yours. I don't know what you were on when you wrote the second half of this post, but it must have been pretty good, as you have totally failed to perform even a cursory proofreading.
Additionally, look at your original assessment of yourself vs your assesment of me. Almost total opposites. Interesting that we should be friends.
Ha, I had indeed sucked down a few pops. I guess its too late to go back and correct my misdeeds.
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