Category Archives: Life

Art Vandelay, Architect

I’m not sure what compelled me to do this now2, but… I figured out my Myers-Briggs personality type. This is the general description of the difference between each of the 4 choices, with my preference in bold:

  • Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).
  • Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).
  • Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).
  • Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).

Based on those either/or choices, I’d be an INTP:

Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

So that sounded about right, but could it be that easy? Don’t people take tests to determine these things? So I found one. And the result was: INTP.

Introvert(67%)  iNtuitive(88%)  Thinking(50%)  Perceiving(11)%

You have distinctive preference of Introversion over Extraversion (67%)

You have strong preference of Intuition over Sensing (88%)

You have moderate preference of Thinking over Feeling (50%)

You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (11%)1

That site also offered this bit of info:

Generally, INTPs build successful careers in areas requiring quite intensive intellectual efforts and calling for creative approach. INTPs are often found in research, development and analytical departments. INTPs often make a very successful career in academia thanks to their strong and versatile way of thinking and originality.

You don’t say! 😉

Of course, me being me, I couldn’t stop there. And also, couldn’t help but question the accuracy of every category (except introvert, obvs.), as well as, you know, whether this was all too much woo-woo to be believed. More after the jump!

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Ignoring

This:

How you can be saying to someone, “You are the most important person in the world to me,” and yet be ignoring the small thing closest to his heart.

—Joy Castro,
quoting from her memoir, The Truth Book

Mini-Vacation

So I said I was going to take a vacation and I did. Last weekend I took the ferry over to Victoria, stayed in fancy-pants hotel, and visited my oldest friend. It was awesome. Alas, a week of fancypantsing was not in the budget, so the rest of the week was a staycation. Sleeping! Reading! Putzing around!  Ok, so that was pretty great, too. I’m all caught up on sleep and ready to tackle my dissertation.

Here are some photos:

Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal

Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay

James Bay - South

Coho

Victoria at Night

Our myth of the soul mate

But perhaps most damaging of all is our myth of the soul mate. We have certain expectations — nothing short of total emotional support from our spouses. We also require rocking sex, a perfect other half of the parenting team, and our go-to playmate. We expect to share everything in our lives with just this one person, and then we wonder where all the magic went. There’s no magic if there’s no mystery, and there’s no mystery if you are sharing space with your significant other every moment of every day. Add to that the instant buffet line of possible replacements that you can find on any dating website, and it’s no wonder people are finding it difficult to commit.

—Jessa Crispin

Photography feels like outward movement

When you’re floundering in grief, photography can get you out of the house, while writing is a key for a different door. I find I do my most coherent writing at home, and create my best photographs when I’m outside. Photography feels like outward movement, reaching out into the world, my eyes open, creating new images. Writing, on the other hand, is an inward retreat, as I sink into myself to find the words, dropping into my body and swimming with the currents of my past, locating memories that hold clues to today.

—Susannah Conway
excerpt from This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart
@ Poppytalk