The many selves of one
In this entry I recount a recent online
experience with a personality testing site. The tests are easy to take and, if
done correctly, will provide a reasonable look back at the test taker. By done
correctly, that means being honest and forthright. I discuss some findings I
made which actually confirm earlier discoveries about myself. I'm a sucker for
this type of analysis and describe how these kinds of tests have occurred
periodically throughout my life and the impact they've had on me. I tell the
tale of a "lab rat" in college.
One of the things I wasted time doing recently
was browsing a website purporting to contain a large number of reasonably
accurate and well-documented personality tests. These are the things which tell
you whether you're "intuitive" or "judgmental" or "supportive," in short, what
your brand of human contains. Like I said, I wasted a few hours at <http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html>,
mostly because I followed their advice, gave honest answers, and took the same
or derivative tests over and over to determine variability. I was impressed.
I've participated in at least a dozen quality-circle, or workspace environment
enhancement, or team-flow and quality assurance workshops, retreats or special
courses. One of the fundamental features of these kinds of "worker enhancement"
activities is knowing who you are. So, there are lots of hours or even days
spent psyching each other out, taking test after test and discussing the
results, some of the retreats I attended involved practices which were just this
side of "close your eyes" and wait for the
tomatoes.
I did learn one fundamental thing about myself sometime in the mid-80's. That's when I took a week-long, all-day, retreat held at a small, fancy hotel near the US Capitol - perfect setting and ideal lobby. This particular special enhancement workshop was focusing on how could managers get two things better: a view into what their troops were saying to them directly and behind their back; and a reduction in the effort and time it took to truly transmit a complicated set of instructions down a command chain. There were a lot of senior NASA types here, the group was about 35 and we sub-split into five groups of about seven each. There were a lot of the senior types who knew me personally and a lot who knew "of" me.
I'd always been sort of the odd man out at NASA anyway. A liberal arts degree, Eastern effete snob type deep inside a technical and para-military mission-oriented organization. Most of my peers were engineers or scientists with tons of technical savvy and lots of logical and repeatable methods for everything. A lot of what I did which put me in the company of these folks was more from insight or "vision" than any technical or logical "method." But, I always had a hard time proving my point before being allowed to begin a project - even if I knew for certain that the project would succeed and bring rabid praise upon all.
What I learned at that retreat was that I was one of probably less than five percent of the agency employee base who based the bulk of their decisions solely on "intuition" and that in trying to explain myself to these logic-driven and data-demanding peers I was failing to translate my "intuitive" vision and grasp into the logical and determinable elements that these kinds of thinkers understood. They "believed" me, but were hard put to prove why. So, I learned that in explaining things to most other folks that I should not rely on my intuition in "selling" the idea, even though that's how it came to me in the first place. I should use the logic and data components and let the logic and order of the idea sell itself - which it always would because the intuitive grasp also included a view into these elements. I score very strongly in all areas of the personality profile tests but bank my "personal" (or "career personal") decisions on the intuitive input - even if I have full command of and knowledge of the data and logic and inter-related other components of the "project." I guess I didn't realize that I was seeing all the logical points and going beyond them and thinking that everyone else would be able to see the same logical points too. What I was instructed by pretty much everyone in that session to do was to mask my "leap of faith" and simply discuss the fundamentals and logic of what I was going for. Some would get the "vision" without me telling them and to the others it wouldn't matter.
That completely changed my approach to project management. From then onward till my retirement I presented the best briefing books, with the most data and widest set of alternate scenarios possible. My projects were incredibly well-documented and nearly always came in on time and under budget - which was less important than "did they get good press" and good Congressional attention and good reviews from sister technical agencies. Which they did also.
What I'm saying is that knowing a little bit about what makes one tick can provide a great benefit in dealing with others. This is so logical it's unbelievable we don't all go into self-psycho-analysis. The test which intrigued me the most was the right-brain - left-brain determinant test. There are several choices of test here and I took them all and more than twice each - again to remove any variability. What didn't surprise me was that both my right and left brain hemispheres seem to be cooperating. I'm "almost" a right-dominant personality type but in repeated tests my left-brain quotient was consistent at 52, while my right-brain quotient varied from 56 to 58 to 60. A ten-point difference between the two is considered enough to make the person left or right dominant. Less than five is considered to be mutually-collaborative hemispheres.
I suppose this is good. The right brain is the spatial and intuitive locus, the left brain is the linear and logical locus. Both are clearly required in this world. A longer time ago than the mid-80's retreat I mentioned was another experiment in right-brain - left-brain determinism which I did. In the early '70's I was just making my way with my first couple of jobs, was fresh and young and pretty naive. I was also painting and drawing still, something I had started when I was in grade school and never quite got out of my system. I'd always return to drawing or painting or building little things like mobiles when all my other interests seem to wind down or go on hiatus. This time I had decided that I wasn't using my left hand enough. I had already discovered a right-hand - left-hand personality problem from working on mechanical and electrical projects all the way through high school and college. My right hand would hold the tool and my left hand would hold the object being worked on - which made my left hand the anvil. My right hand was always using strength and not necessarily aplomb or acumen to work on some of these mechanical and electrical gadgets. My right hand, then, often inflicted some blood-letting wound on my left hand. One instance was the complete cut-through to the bone of my left index finger at the first joint by an Xacto knife blade being wielded by my right hand. Earlier, as a child, my right hand was turning a can opener while my left hand held the can and the lid sliced through the skin between my forefinger and thumb, revealing to me for the first time, the complicated and disgusting nature of sinew and cartilage and connective tissue. On another instance, many years later, my left hand instinctively was up and shielding my face from the muzzle of a gun being aimed point-blank at me by a bad person in a Houston park. That hand took a bullet for me - which because of the closeness to the gun - blasted its way through my hand sideways with the force of the blast pushing the hand sideways just as the bullet entered my palm. The exit wound is on the pinky finger side which meant the bullet ripped its way through all the sinew and cartilage and connective tissue of my left hand. It works fine, now, btw, but that included six months of squeezing a rubber ball hand therapy. I still have lots of ghost pain in that hand from all these various wounds. A constant reminder, if you will, of the years of abuse my left hand has taken.
So, this one afternoon in the '70's I was thinking about my two hands and my two brains. I decided to draw my left hand with my right hand and to draw my right hand with my left hand. Both were really neat hand drawings. The one by my right hand was technically much better and actually looked like my left hand, not just "any" left hand. The one by my left hand, though, had much, much more character. That hand looked like it was real, not just a good technical representation of the hand but a hand which could move off the paper. That impressed me. I'd never drawn with my left hand before and always knew that there were things inside of me I should explore because there had to be some other hidden talent or capability which I was otherwise missing. I've tried diligently to include my left hand's perspective in things I might be doing with my right hand which could hurt my left hand. I have gotten pretty good and rarely injure my anvil hand anymore, and, more often than not these days it's my left hand which uses the screwdriver. Plus, I've gotten expert at putting the screwdriver, regular size or miniature, into the right slot even when using only feel to work something on the back side of a panel. As with so many things, it's really just a matter of putting your mind to it. I mean, if my right hand can control and use a screwdriver and mate the screwdriver head to the slot in a screw, then surely my left hand can do the same. Just add this to the bag of tricks I've compiled. Part of this is a true desire to use more of my body interchangeably. I wear my shoes pretty much evenly these days after an initial start of wearing out the right outside heel area. I've corrected my stance. I've recently corrected my posture so that I now stand more erect. I figured it would be easier to prevent a curved spine now than it would once the condition began to onset. Minor corrective measures. I'm constantly searching for something new to learn or try or test - even about myself. Which makes me a real sucker for these sorts of online tests. I'd probably be much worse if there were home blood chemistry and endocrine tests; I'd probably have vials of my blood set up on laboratory racks in my studio.
I think I've mentioned previously but if not I'll do so here - in college I spent years as a lab rat - literally. The Penn State psych department had a great stipend scheme for volunteers for their various experiments. They were investigating psycho-acoustic phenomena, psycho-visual phenomena, para-psychological phenomena ("guess the next card" tricks and "turn the lights on in sequence" tricks); and memory inhibitors/enhancers (the methods, not the drugs, alas!). I kept myself amused and got paid modestly for these hours and hours each week. The tests ran in sequence with the terms so I learned to ask ahead what the next tests might be next term so I could plan my courses with enough free evening time to participate in these weird experiments. It helped that they were being done in the psych labs which were housed in old, stone block and brick, "farmers" buildings on campus. These were some of the oldest buildings and were originally the dairy and insemination labs for cattle and livestock. It did lend a certain "Frankenstein" look and feel to the experiments. You think I'm weird. I know I'm weird. Funny thing, though, is that I learned an incredible amount of things about how the body and mind works by taking these experiments. Of course all this was happening amidst the backdrop of the sixties with the drugs, sex and politics of that time. It's almost phenomenal to me how much has transpired in not just my lifetime, but just sections of my life. It's as if my life has these definitive chapters which could as easily have been spun off into their own series or novels. I'd love to take the modern theoretical physicists up on their notions and spin myself off into about two dozen different lifelines in about two dozen different alternate universes.
Otherwise things have been busy and going well. I've finished a number of art works, have finished a mobile on which I wanted to mount electroluminescent wire only to discover that the wire and the mobile I made are somewhat incompatible causing me to now come up with another mobile. That thought process is underway. My recording efforts are still in the experimental phase as I try and get clean audio captured in noisy diesel-engine bus environments. Exploration wise I've recently made some new outreaches and hit up Sand Point, a promontory on the northeast side of the city which juts out into Lake Washington. I've caught a number of art walks and lectures and author talks. Between one neighbor and one other person in town and my long-time-ago friend near Mt. Rainier I've got a small but developing set of friendships. There are some hikes to not-so-distant places I've been pondering and with the weather turning fast into real Spring I'll probably be out and about on my bike in a few weeks. I don't bike for the exercise and I don't bike for some "biking" passion. I bike for fun and that being the case it's simply no fun to bike when the weather is less than 70 degrees. Who wants to bike inside a cocoon and all this high-tech polypropelene fiber on all the "bike" clothes only gives me a rash. I'll keep hiking on foot until it's short-sleeve shirt and shorts weather on the bike.
On Friday I turn 58 which seems like a really large number to me. I think we all want to stay the way we are when we're in the prime - our twenties and thirties. By our forties little things crop up like needing glasses or not being able to bend over as far or creaking when standing up after sitting for a long time. By fifty those same little things are still around and new little things come along such as feeling like you've pulled a ligament when you haven't or acquiring strange sleep habits (which I must admit my mother did warn me about). I can hardly wait to see what the sixties bring. My mom is now approaching 88 and I've been watching her my whole life to see what the worst is that I might expect. I say worst because my mom is even smaller and lighter a frame than me and has the unfortunate genetic trait of having skin which is overly sensitive to sunlight - which causes a real bad rash on her. In that regard I'm pretty lucky, no skin cancer and a skin which takes to the sun quite willingly. I darken easily and lose it easily. If I take sensible steps, I never burn - haven't burned in nearly three decades now (badly that is). This year, for instance, I've been outside with sunshine enough that I've already got a nice bronze on my head - my arms still look like some lily-white-skinned yankee but my legs are browning up nicely. That's important because getting sunshine on your skin improves one's state of mind (seasonal affective disorder) and also provides tons of Vitamin D. Here's an important health note - Vitamin D improves calcium metabolism by up to 80 percent. Calcium metabolism is extremely important for not only good, strong bones but for off-putting any onset of osteoporosis which may occur because of one's sex or genetic composition. This quote from a health site provides a good reason to get outdoors: "Sunlight is the primary source (food is not the primary source) by converting 7-dehydrocholesterol (in the skin) to vitamin D3. Also available in fish liver oils and through supplementation." All by way of keeping me fit and healthy so that I can live another 42 years - thereby fulfilling my goal of living to a hundred. Why? Because who knows what I'm gonna wanna do next.
Enjoy the week. I've just committed to a mountain trail bike ride tomorrow - my first of the year and I'll probably be tired and sore when I'm done. More on these and other thoughts later. Have a good week and if possible, get some sunshine.
Chas
I did learn one fundamental thing about myself sometime in the mid-80's. That's when I took a week-long, all-day, retreat held at a small, fancy hotel near the US Capitol - perfect setting and ideal lobby. This particular special enhancement workshop was focusing on how could managers get two things better: a view into what their troops were saying to them directly and behind their back; and a reduction in the effort and time it took to truly transmit a complicated set of instructions down a command chain. There were a lot of senior NASA types here, the group was about 35 and we sub-split into five groups of about seven each. There were a lot of the senior types who knew me personally and a lot who knew "of" me.
I'd always been sort of the odd man out at NASA anyway. A liberal arts degree, Eastern effete snob type deep inside a technical and para-military mission-oriented organization. Most of my peers were engineers or scientists with tons of technical savvy and lots of logical and repeatable methods for everything. A lot of what I did which put me in the company of these folks was more from insight or "vision" than any technical or logical "method." But, I always had a hard time proving my point before being allowed to begin a project - even if I knew for certain that the project would succeed and bring rabid praise upon all.
What I learned at that retreat was that I was one of probably less than five percent of the agency employee base who based the bulk of their decisions solely on "intuition" and that in trying to explain myself to these logic-driven and data-demanding peers I was failing to translate my "intuitive" vision and grasp into the logical and determinable elements that these kinds of thinkers understood. They "believed" me, but were hard put to prove why. So, I learned that in explaining things to most other folks that I should not rely on my intuition in "selling" the idea, even though that's how it came to me in the first place. I should use the logic and data components and let the logic and order of the idea sell itself - which it always would because the intuitive grasp also included a view into these elements. I score very strongly in all areas of the personality profile tests but bank my "personal" (or "career personal") decisions on the intuitive input - even if I have full command of and knowledge of the data and logic and inter-related other components of the "project." I guess I didn't realize that I was seeing all the logical points and going beyond them and thinking that everyone else would be able to see the same logical points too. What I was instructed by pretty much everyone in that session to do was to mask my "leap of faith" and simply discuss the fundamentals and logic of what I was going for. Some would get the "vision" without me telling them and to the others it wouldn't matter.
That completely changed my approach to project management. From then onward till my retirement I presented the best briefing books, with the most data and widest set of alternate scenarios possible. My projects were incredibly well-documented and nearly always came in on time and under budget - which was less important than "did they get good press" and good Congressional attention and good reviews from sister technical agencies. Which they did also.
What I'm saying is that knowing a little bit about what makes one tick can provide a great benefit in dealing with others. This is so logical it's unbelievable we don't all go into self-psycho-analysis. The test which intrigued me the most was the right-brain - left-brain determinant test. There are several choices of test here and I took them all and more than twice each - again to remove any variability. What didn't surprise me was that both my right and left brain hemispheres seem to be cooperating. I'm "almost" a right-dominant personality type but in repeated tests my left-brain quotient was consistent at 52, while my right-brain quotient varied from 56 to 58 to 60. A ten-point difference between the two is considered enough to make the person left or right dominant. Less than five is considered to be mutually-collaborative hemispheres.
I suppose this is good. The right brain is the spatial and intuitive locus, the left brain is the linear and logical locus. Both are clearly required in this world. A longer time ago than the mid-80's retreat I mentioned was another experiment in right-brain - left-brain determinism which I did. In the early '70's I was just making my way with my first couple of jobs, was fresh and young and pretty naive. I was also painting and drawing still, something I had started when I was in grade school and never quite got out of my system. I'd always return to drawing or painting or building little things like mobiles when all my other interests seem to wind down or go on hiatus. This time I had decided that I wasn't using my left hand enough. I had already discovered a right-hand - left-hand personality problem from working on mechanical and electrical projects all the way through high school and college. My right hand would hold the tool and my left hand would hold the object being worked on - which made my left hand the anvil. My right hand was always using strength and not necessarily aplomb or acumen to work on some of these mechanical and electrical gadgets. My right hand, then, often inflicted some blood-letting wound on my left hand. One instance was the complete cut-through to the bone of my left index finger at the first joint by an Xacto knife blade being wielded by my right hand. Earlier, as a child, my right hand was turning a can opener while my left hand held the can and the lid sliced through the skin between my forefinger and thumb, revealing to me for the first time, the complicated and disgusting nature of sinew and cartilage and connective tissue. On another instance, many years later, my left hand instinctively was up and shielding my face from the muzzle of a gun being aimed point-blank at me by a bad person in a Houston park. That hand took a bullet for me - which because of the closeness to the gun - blasted its way through my hand sideways with the force of the blast pushing the hand sideways just as the bullet entered my palm. The exit wound is on the pinky finger side which meant the bullet ripped its way through all the sinew and cartilage and connective tissue of my left hand. It works fine, now, btw, but that included six months of squeezing a rubber ball hand therapy. I still have lots of ghost pain in that hand from all these various wounds. A constant reminder, if you will, of the years of abuse my left hand has taken.
So, this one afternoon in the '70's I was thinking about my two hands and my two brains. I decided to draw my left hand with my right hand and to draw my right hand with my left hand. Both were really neat hand drawings. The one by my right hand was technically much better and actually looked like my left hand, not just "any" left hand. The one by my left hand, though, had much, much more character. That hand looked like it was real, not just a good technical representation of the hand but a hand which could move off the paper. That impressed me. I'd never drawn with my left hand before and always knew that there were things inside of me I should explore because there had to be some other hidden talent or capability which I was otherwise missing. I've tried diligently to include my left hand's perspective in things I might be doing with my right hand which could hurt my left hand. I have gotten pretty good and rarely injure my anvil hand anymore, and, more often than not these days it's my left hand which uses the screwdriver. Plus, I've gotten expert at putting the screwdriver, regular size or miniature, into the right slot even when using only feel to work something on the back side of a panel. As with so many things, it's really just a matter of putting your mind to it. I mean, if my right hand can control and use a screwdriver and mate the screwdriver head to the slot in a screw, then surely my left hand can do the same. Just add this to the bag of tricks I've compiled. Part of this is a true desire to use more of my body interchangeably. I wear my shoes pretty much evenly these days after an initial start of wearing out the right outside heel area. I've corrected my stance. I've recently corrected my posture so that I now stand more erect. I figured it would be easier to prevent a curved spine now than it would once the condition began to onset. Minor corrective measures. I'm constantly searching for something new to learn or try or test - even about myself. Which makes me a real sucker for these sorts of online tests. I'd probably be much worse if there were home blood chemistry and endocrine tests; I'd probably have vials of my blood set up on laboratory racks in my studio.
I think I've mentioned previously but if not I'll do so here - in college I spent years as a lab rat - literally. The Penn State psych department had a great stipend scheme for volunteers for their various experiments. They were investigating psycho-acoustic phenomena, psycho-visual phenomena, para-psychological phenomena ("guess the next card" tricks and "turn the lights on in sequence" tricks); and memory inhibitors/enhancers (the methods, not the drugs, alas!). I kept myself amused and got paid modestly for these hours and hours each week. The tests ran in sequence with the terms so I learned to ask ahead what the next tests might be next term so I could plan my courses with enough free evening time to participate in these weird experiments. It helped that they were being done in the psych labs which were housed in old, stone block and brick, "farmers" buildings on campus. These were some of the oldest buildings and were originally the dairy and insemination labs for cattle and livestock. It did lend a certain "Frankenstein" look and feel to the experiments. You think I'm weird. I know I'm weird. Funny thing, though, is that I learned an incredible amount of things about how the body and mind works by taking these experiments. Of course all this was happening amidst the backdrop of the sixties with the drugs, sex and politics of that time. It's almost phenomenal to me how much has transpired in not just my lifetime, but just sections of my life. It's as if my life has these definitive chapters which could as easily have been spun off into their own series or novels. I'd love to take the modern theoretical physicists up on their notions and spin myself off into about two dozen different lifelines in about two dozen different alternate universes.
Otherwise things have been busy and going well. I've finished a number of art works, have finished a mobile on which I wanted to mount electroluminescent wire only to discover that the wire and the mobile I made are somewhat incompatible causing me to now come up with another mobile. That thought process is underway. My recording efforts are still in the experimental phase as I try and get clean audio captured in noisy diesel-engine bus environments. Exploration wise I've recently made some new outreaches and hit up Sand Point, a promontory on the northeast side of the city which juts out into Lake Washington. I've caught a number of art walks and lectures and author talks. Between one neighbor and one other person in town and my long-time-ago friend near Mt. Rainier I've got a small but developing set of friendships. There are some hikes to not-so-distant places I've been pondering and with the weather turning fast into real Spring I'll probably be out and about on my bike in a few weeks. I don't bike for the exercise and I don't bike for some "biking" passion. I bike for fun and that being the case it's simply no fun to bike when the weather is less than 70 degrees. Who wants to bike inside a cocoon and all this high-tech polypropelene fiber on all the "bike" clothes only gives me a rash. I'll keep hiking on foot until it's short-sleeve shirt and shorts weather on the bike.
On Friday I turn 58 which seems like a really large number to me. I think we all want to stay the way we are when we're in the prime - our twenties and thirties. By our forties little things crop up like needing glasses or not being able to bend over as far or creaking when standing up after sitting for a long time. By fifty those same little things are still around and new little things come along such as feeling like you've pulled a ligament when you haven't or acquiring strange sleep habits (which I must admit my mother did warn me about). I can hardly wait to see what the sixties bring. My mom is now approaching 88 and I've been watching her my whole life to see what the worst is that I might expect. I say worst because my mom is even smaller and lighter a frame than me and has the unfortunate genetic trait of having skin which is overly sensitive to sunlight - which causes a real bad rash on her. In that regard I'm pretty lucky, no skin cancer and a skin which takes to the sun quite willingly. I darken easily and lose it easily. If I take sensible steps, I never burn - haven't burned in nearly three decades now (badly that is). This year, for instance, I've been outside with sunshine enough that I've already got a nice bronze on my head - my arms still look like some lily-white-skinned yankee but my legs are browning up nicely. That's important because getting sunshine on your skin improves one's state of mind (seasonal affective disorder) and also provides tons of Vitamin D. Here's an important health note - Vitamin D improves calcium metabolism by up to 80 percent. Calcium metabolism is extremely important for not only good, strong bones but for off-putting any onset of osteoporosis which may occur because of one's sex or genetic composition. This quote from a health site provides a good reason to get outdoors: "Sunlight is the primary source (food is not the primary source) by converting 7-dehydrocholesterol (in the skin) to vitamin D3. Also available in fish liver oils and through supplementation." All by way of keeping me fit and healthy so that I can live another 42 years - thereby fulfilling my goal of living to a hundred. Why? Because who knows what I'm gonna wanna do next.
Enjoy the week. I've just committed to a mountain trail bike ride tomorrow - my first of the year and I'll probably be tired and sore when I'm done. More on these and other thoughts later. Have a good week and if possible, get some sunshine.
Chas
Posted: Tue - March 8, 2005 at 11:51 AM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM