Sunday, November 06, 2005

On (my) personality

As I have been aging, maturing, etcetera, I have always noticed people tend towards certain things they enjoy, often my left alone as I do or am interested in almost anything. I think the science of psychology defines these differences as "personality", why people differ. Sometimes I've had to resort to defining what I don't like.

THINGS I DON'T LIKE
- watching sports

Shit, that's a short list.

Anyway, I've been wondering: can people change thier personality? Not in the practical sense that I want to do it, but more so in the sense like does it happen. In mythological narratives (I am using that in the archetypal sense - 8 mile is a mythological narrative) people seem to come rushing out of the womb with an installed personality, which pre-determines the rest of thier life. It seems like things they do as a kid are premonitions for what they will do later. Is personality really that set?

I'd think its more malleable, at least using myself. I think I've changed, although not drastically, over several years, especially if you use the Four Colours thing (Orange, Gold, Green, Blue). While Green has always been one of the two top, Orange and Blue have moved around in there. The only one that has never really been there is Gold, which is confusing because I seem to be attracted to Gold people.

THINGS I'M NOT
- Gold

Again, a short list.

This personality thing worries me then. If everyone else is sort of easily defined and slottable, what the fuck am I doing everywhere at once yet nowhere? Because I mean if you aren't specifically something then you are nothing, right? Of course, I'm asking rhetorical questions, one because no one is going to answer in text conveniently if I ask a regular question [schizophrenic crisis] and two, because I'm asking them because they are silly questions. I do stuff, lots of varied stuff that's really inter-disciplinary, but not nothing.

So I geuss I'm not going to get some easy answer and path coming straight out of the womb towards my pre-defined goal. However, if I have some sort of tragic struggle for existence, I'd rather have it for a specific thing than for the answer to the question "what am I?"

JOBS I THINK I WOULD ENJOY
- Television/Film Director
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- Game Design/Developer/Writer
- Science Journalist
- Wise hobo
- Mathematics Researcher
- Modern Artist
- Improv Performer (The Improv Show doesn't count - something I get paid for)
- Psychology/Human Factors Researcher
- Astronaut (the kind that actually builds stuff, doesn't do crappy experiments)

But why do I feel I need to "define" what I want to do? This is the existentialist crisis moment, and that was another rhetorical question.

This brings up stuff about immortality I have been thinking about. I'll write about it later.

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