OMGJeremy

Guide To Personality Sorting

In this modern day and age, human beings are often too caught up in their busy lives. They have work to do, bills to pay, stressful situations to cope with, and entertaining distractions galore. These distractions are what people currently use to “unwind” from their other stresses, but they aren’t really that relaxing. Not like the meditations of yesteryear. Or at least the peaceful sitting out on the back porch and reflecting on life and your problems while watching the sunset. Perhaps you would also be sipping on an iced tea and sitting in comfortable silence with your good friend and hound dog, listening to the ambient noises of your small neighborhood and feeling glad.

Yes, people are more likely to ignore their problems than solve them. Forgetting is today’s cure. Or maybe it isn’t and my perspective is completely skewed. Who really knows or cares right now, right? My point is that people today don’t give themselves time to understand their own behavior and quirks. Our own personalities are too-often undiscovered or ignored. I can only assume that in the past, people understood themselves in a timely fashion and that was that. But today, we have to have someone else explain us to us, usually in the form of a handy quiz on the Internet. But we find that being told that if we were in the fictional world of Harry Potter, at the Wizarding School of Hogwarts, that we would be placed in the Hufflepuff House, isn’t really as satisfying as we would like. And even after taking untold amounts of these quizzes, we find that we aren’t really told ENOUGH about ourselves. We want MORE, damn it!

Well, luckily, there IS more. There is so much more… And that is why I am here today, writing this article. I am here to tell you about various methods of learning about your personality, and really, anyone’s personality that you have even a modicum of information about.

This man doesn't even NEED secret personality reading techniques! It's all right there already, in his pineal gland.

Wait – What’s Happening?

I am going to list six of the personality-determining tools that I am most-aware of, in order of Least-Useful to Pretty Damned Accurate. I may even rate them and list pros and cons in an uncharacteristically orderly fashion. Or, more likely, I will put all of that information in big chunky paragraph form so that you kids have to work hard for your understanding. It really could go either way at this point.

So, as you read on, you can probably determine what it is you like the most. It is very possible that, while I utterly loathe the idea of graphology and find it to be total ass and a half, that you, the reader, may find it to provide a delightfully keen insight to your secret inner mind. Or, you may find that the Chinese Zodiac is complete and utter bullshit just based on the fact that you can’t imagine how an entire year’s worth of people could possess the same personality traits, whereas I can and do see the significance of what it tells us.

And of course, you are encouraged to do searches on the Internet and your local library for more information on each topic. I know that it takes a lot of gall to try to inform you people like this, and to write an article which tries to help somewhat and clear up any misinformation, but that’s just how I am! At least, that’s how I am according to every source that tells me about my personality. But those things really just reinforce what I already know to be true. Then again, I have a lot of time to think about myself.

However, this article is not about me, it is about all of us! Let us begin!

Graphology: The Subtle Art of Judging a Person Based Entirely On Their Penmanship

Handwriting Analysis is a terribly complicated matter, believe it or not. And, I believe, it is unnecessarily complicated for the less-than-stellar results you wind up harvesting. In the various graphology books I have picked up, they have been sure to tell me all about how things such as the size of the loop on your small letter d have very huge significance in what it says about your personality. And how if you write on an unlined page, and your sentences go upward, you are optimistic, and when it goes downward, you are pessimistic. Or, at least, you are optimistic or pessimistic at the time of writing those sentences. Or, maybe you just had the paper at an angle when you wrote it. And if you forget to dot your i – Oh, heavens! That either means that you are forgetful, or the type of person who rushes, or maybe you were in a hurry at the time of writing. But, what it says about your personality is that you are a lazy, forgetful type who leaves everything till the last minute. Or, once again, at least you were when you wrote that.

That is the major drawback I have found with the graphology. It leaves a tremendous amount up in the air and seems to draw the same conclusions that any amateur would about anything at all. It’s like looking at a person’s sweater and seeing that there is a spill on the sleeve, and a hole on the shoulder. You generally assume that the person is accident-prone and not all hung up on their appearance. But you also leave room for the possibility that they accidentally forgot to do their laundry and that was the last thing they could wear and then they had an unfortunate spaghetti sauce accident. But if you are to use graphology’s rules, that sweater would indicate that you are a slob, not just in appearance, but also emotionally. You have no self-esteem and no care for conventional society. You are also a tightwad who would sooner wear filthy threads than go out and buy new clothes. You have no shame. And you are a horrible person.

At least that’s how graphology has been presented to me in every book I have seen. They do their best to prove to everyone how valid they are as a personality tool. And apparently, “proving it” simply means that they must speak in a very decisive manner with no room for self-doubt, and here, “self-doubt” simply means “other possibilities that may be equally accurate, or even MORE accurate.” It seems to me that this may be useful for people who know themselves pretty well, but not for the person who is just beginning their path to self-discovery.

Oh god what an interesting ampersand. I tremble with anticipation to find out what that might even suggest about you, Erik.

• In Summary: Graphology is too rigid and insane to work for most thinking people.
• Pros: Studying the Graphology may be useful if you know that you are going to be analyzed at some point in the future, so you can practice how to write in order to give the best impression.
• Cons: Beyond that single pro, there is no actual conceivable use for handwriting analysis except for maybe as a party trick or something. A very, very lame party trick.

Palmistry: Personality in the Palm of Your Hand

We have all seen the Fortune-Tellers in our local carnivals. If they are not working the Tarot Cards, they are Reading Palms. You may not realize that palmistry isn’t just a vehicle for seeing into that person’s future. It can also be used as a way to see their personality, and, in fact, it is probably more reliable as a personality tool than as a fortune telling tool, simply because they constantly tell you things such as, “Of course, you still have free will, so you can use this fortune I am telling you as sort of a guideline, and you can, you know, change your mind and make decisions that will lead you in a totally different direction. That will be $25, please.”

Palmistry on the whole is a little bit tricky. There are a lot of lines on your hands which could mean ninety thousand different things based on whether or not your Mount of Jupiter is firm to the touch or if your Mount of Venus is practically nonexistent. Some lines might not even appear at all on a person’s hand, and some lines may be easily mistaken for other lines which may or may not appear. And then the curvature of lines somehow combine with the depth and general appearance of them. Do they cross other lines? Swoop upwards or over to the left there? Are they cross hatched with tiny lines, and if so do any of those lines make triangular shapes or maybe squares? They do? Where are they and on what line? If it’s over there it may mean that while you are creative, you aren’t a very good artist. Oh, but if it’s under that finger, it means quite the opposite.

Deducing a personality with palmistry is actually a lot like reading a road map. That is, if you don’t think of road maps as ways of getting here to there, although, I guess that’s what you do when you are trying to tell the future… But instead if you look at the road maps as evidence of what the area looks like. Especially if the map has little altitude lines and things. And you can go “Oh, this region is pretty sparsely populated and is characterized by craggy cliffs and a shoreline and stuff. The names if the towns sound like they might be sea towns to me. I bet the people make their living here by fishing.” Or some other assumption based on some sort of logical thinking like that. THAT is what palmistry is like. Only the road map of palm reading is about 34512 times more complicated. It would be a map where if Rural Route 9 set off at a curve that went over Santiago Hill at an acute angle would indicate that the people who lived on Santiago Hill would mostly likely be Amish Farmers who secretly long for a life of fighting crime. Or some such. Something completely out of control.

I see a, um. Bird in your future? At night. It is vomiting. I know this all because I have the gift of PALM READING.

• In Summary: Palmistry is a rather complicated discipline which incorporates a lot of guesswork, and things are “apt to change due in part by free will.” Yeah.
• Pros: Hands are kind of interesting, and it seems like it COULD be valid on some level that your subconscious thoughts show themselves through the lines of your hands. Although actually saying that makes it sounds completely insane. Failing all else, if you become good enough at it, or at least at faking it, then you could make a few bucks at a carnival or festival.
• Cons: There is just so very much that goes into reading a palm. So much knowledge. So much effort. Yech.

Numerology: Numbers Are Everything!

Some people are naturally predisposed to math things. They see numbers and equations everywhere they look. I have a friend who is like that, actually. He is either a genius or a madman, or BOTH, conceivably. But, his number fixations make a lot of people uncomfortable because, to most people, anything involving numbers instantly becomes “high concept.” Seeing subtle geometry in your glass of water makes you into some sort of mathematical monster and people will avoid you just because they don’t like to feel inferior and stupid. But I am deviating from my topic. I am not in this section to discuss math, in general, to you, but instead to tell you all about the conversion of the alphabet into numbers, or at the very least, seeing the esoteric significance behind most numbers which are sacred, and so on.

It really isn’t as hard as it sounds. Don’t worry.

Numerology is a hot and cold topic for me. I am not a friend to numbers. Or, more accurately, they are not friends to me. Math taunts me. However, I can and will do simple addition if it will provide me with an insight to myself or people I know. The most complicated part of Numerology, in fact, is doing the addition. Well, or deciding on whether you prefer using the Pythagorean Alphabet or if you put more trust into the Ancient Chaldean Numerology. There are probably others, but these are the two most noteworthy as far as I know. Pythagorean is somewhat simpler because you can figure it out yourself by writing numbers one through nine across the top of your page and then writing the letters of our alphabet directly under it, horizontally. So that A equals 1 and B equals 2 and so on. The Chaldean one requires a chart that can probably be found on the Internet somewhere. Those letters equal numbers that are specific to their vibrations or something equally as New Age sounding as that. Then, after you write out and calculate your name, and reduce numbers, you use a book or a website or something that will tell you what your Prime or Compound numbers actually mean. Prime numbers generally tell you about your personality, and Compound Numbers generally speak in terms of karmic debt and life-time deals.

That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? I imagine that the ancient philosophies behind numerology turn out to be pretty complicated and freakish, but I don’t really know about them, as I do not have a mathematical mind. My friend I mentioned earlier in this section, I believe actually created his own numerological system. He came up with the numerological values of letters through the trial and error system and with equations that I do not at all understand. So, I imagine that the Ancient Druids of Algebra and Geometry or whatever must have gone through a very similar practice, and then they spent thousands of years perfecting it just so that we good people of today could use it as a hobby and as a way to entertain ourselves. Good going, ancient masters! You’re okay by me!

The world as it REALLY IS.

• In Summary: Numerology is complicated in the background, but really easy where it counts. You just have to know how to add. Oh! And also, it winds up being strangely accurate.
• Pros: It’s easy. And it makes you feel more confident in your math skills.
• Cons: There are two wholly different methods that appear to be just as valid. This means that you can get two totally different answers that seem just as right. This makes you doubt the validity and wonder if you aren’t just really gullible or something. But who knows? Maybe those different answers really ARE correct.

Chinese Zodiac: Not Limited to What Is Read In the Chinese Restaurant

Contrary to popular belief, the Chinese Zodiac is far more detailed and accurate than what we see on the place mats in every Chinese restaurant ever. Those place mats appear to try to group together many millions of people and categorize them in just a few words. No wonder so many people have walked away thinking that the Chinese Zodiac is quite solidly a bunch of malarkey. After all, who would ever believe that every person born between February 9, 1967 and January 29, 1968 would have the same basic traits? And then, to think that everyone born in the years before and after (every 12 years, mind you) would ALSO have those traits? What is THAT about? How could that ever, ever be accurate?

Apparently, human beings aren’t as individualistic and unique as they want to believe, because I have found it to be alarmingly accurate. It is probably a testament to the Eastern Ways of Thinking, but whole years of people are very similar to each other. I have heard that this is very clearly evident if you are a school teacher into the Chinese Zodiac. Each year of children are decidedly different than the last. Grades who have children who are mostly born in the Year of the Monkey, for example, will likely be more boisterous and mischievous than those children who were the year ahead of them, in the Year of the Sheep. The Sheep children will most likely be quieter and more creative in general. It’s strange, but it is true, I find.

Also, most people are not aware that the five elements come into play with the Chinese Zodiac. You might be a Dragon, but depending on your birth year, you will be a dragon who is metal, earth, water, fire, or wood. Each element places various subtle differences between you and other dragons. And when you put into consideration that, through all of those animals in the zodiac, and how each of them have 5 different elements, the cycle of the Chinese Zodiac spans very many decades. As I mentioned in Numerology, I am no good with math, so I will not bother to give you an exact number of years, but it’s really about a lifetime long. If you think of things in that way, then you will see that the Chinese Zodiac, especially if also used with Western Astrology and other things like that, will give you a very detailed and varied description of each person as an individual. It’s honestly pretty neat.

Awww! Omigod! The Chinese Zodiac is so CUTE!!!

• In Summary: Although it has had a pretty big misrepresentation thanks to those damned place mats, the Chinese Zodiac is surprisingly accurate and expansive.
• Pros: If you are interested in Chinese Culture, you will find that the Zodiac, like all things Chinese, are steeped in legend and tradition. That’s interesting. Also, it is fun to be able to tell your friends and coworkers and bosses that they are Cocks, if indeed you are so lucky to know people born in that time.
• Cons: You are treated less as an individual with this method, but that’s okay. You need to learn that you aren’t the center of universe, kid. Get used to feeling like a mere cog in the machine!

Typology: Modern Answers to Age-Old Questions

Recently, I have been reading up on this Typology stuff, as it interests me. It is based on 50 or 60 years’ worth of psychological theory and research. I am assuming that there is a huge variety of different sorts of these systems. The one I am most familiar with is that Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® thing. What they seem to have done is decided that we human beings can be broken down into categories over certain things. I’ll just give you the examples rather than clutter this part up with fumbling words. We prefer to either be extroverted or introverted (E or I). We take in information by Sensing or Intuiting (S or N). We make our decisions through either Thinking or Feeling (T or F). And we prefer to live by Judging or Perceiving (J or P). Once you have taken some quizzes that determine which you are of those 4 sections, and we are a little of each, but we are more predominantly one or the other, you have discovered which of the 16 personalities you are. The personalities sound like ENTJ or INTP or ISFT and so on, but as to avoid this section looking like a bowl of alphabet soup, I will not go into too much detail about them. There are whole websites devoted to that, after all.

Taking quizzes is a relatively fun pastime, so it is kind of fun to figure out your Temperament Type for this method. However, you have to be careful that your current mood isn’t discoloring your answers. It is possible that one day you might be feeling tremendously extroverted and the next day much more introverted. You need to be aware of yourself enough to know how you are USUALLY. Or, at the very most, take the same quiz a few times over the course of some length of time. Believe it or not, there is a sizable enough difference between an ISFP and an ESFP that you could wind up with completely inaccurate results.

As I mentioned earlier, this is actually a method of personality finding that is based on many long years of psychological evaluation and many, many studies. This reassures many people that it isn’t just a bunch of shit. They feel that this scientific studying certainly indicates that it is far more valid than the thousands of years spent on astrological endeavors that haven’t ever been backed by the scientific community. These Personality Sorters have been put to use in various workplaces so that they know how to deal with their employees, and who will work best together, and who will organize the best, and who will come up with the best ideas, and so on. However, through my personal studies, I have found that it can be somewhat inaccurate if the person taking the test is not completely aware of themselves. Or if the answers turn out to be exactly equal, you have to choose one or the other in order to get a reading, when really, neither is exactly right. Those sorts of things make it seem like maybe Typology needs another long length of time before it is anywhere near perfected.

Scientists of yesteryear tirelessly work on developing this system of Typology.

• In Summary: As the most-studied of personality tools, Typology is rather well-respected among cynics and those prone to disbelieve things of this nature. When answered accurately, the results are very accurate.
• Pros: Taking tests is fun. There are a lot of well-documented books and websites on the subject. The results seem to be very objective and true. There doesn’t seem to be any bullshitting in sight.
• Cons: You can’t just ask a person what type they are unless they have already taken the test. And it is unbelievably tedious to administer the test to even your close friends. And it is probably a bad idea to try to get a relative stranger to answer those questions honestly or at all for that matter. Also, it seems like there needs to be more research done, or better tests devised or something.

Western Astrology: Hey Baybee, What’s Your Sign?

We see Astrology all over the place. It’s in our newspapers, in our pick up lines, on our socks and on our shirts for those of us who are tacky in nature, and yes – in our hearts. And that’s just a list I made up without any thought at all! More often than not, we hear our astrological signs in the horoscopes of the day, telling us to watch out for a certain sexy stranger who might show up in the afternoon, or something even more vague than that. Many of us dismiss astrology for this reason alone. However, like Palmistry, Western Astrology isn’t limited to blind stabs at fortune telling. Oh, heavens no! Astrology is so very much more than that. It is a personality indicator, for one, and it can even be an excuse if you are one of those flaky people who like to blame everything else for your faults rather than take it upon yourself to make the effort to change for the better. Yes, Western Astrology is truly a friend to us all.

Astrology has almost been rejected as much as the Chinese zodiac for many of the same misinformed reasons. It seems that most people feel that the extremely generalized definitions of each sign are as far as Astrology goes in accuracy, which is not accurate all that much at all, really. We all know that everyone we know who are Geminis are not exactly the same. As it turns out, this has to do with the more mysterious and advanced levels of Astrology which I will sort of touch on in the next paragraph. I expect that the people who reject Astrology based on the fact that it is an “ancient crackpot superstition” are really just scared. Yeah. They are big frightened cowards who are afraid that they, and everything about them, depends on something as out of their control as the positions of the stars and planets. They are too wussed-up to accept that maybe they CAN be figured out by a formula and some careful study. OMG What if Free Will DOESN’T exist?! Oh superfuck! I wet my pants in terror possibly because it was WRITTEN IN THE STARS! Boo hoo hoo!

As I sort of suggested before, almost every person on Earth over a certain age knows what sign they were born under. And when I say “born under” – I actually mean it for real. Astrology is based completely on the stars in the sky. Many of the constellations, twelve of them, in fact, are named after the signs. Some people who are totally way further into this scene than I will ever be, actually can make “Birth Charts” which are quite literally maps of the sky at the exact moment you were born. This then shows wackiness along the lines of which “house” various planets were in at the time, and apparently if things are “ascending” or “descending” is a big deal, too. It is honestly all way over my head, so I won’t dare try to explain it to you, because I hardly understand it myself. But, from what I can detect, about 4563985 different things on your Birth Chart all interact differently to give you a highly detailed and highly astonishing and highly accurate account of who you are and where you will most likely be going in your life. It’s a little spooky, but very interesting.

Birth Charts look so easy and yet... - Wait - they don't look easy at all!

• In Summary: Western Astrology is well-known and accurate enough for getting to know another person very quickly and in a general way. It is popular and easy to memorize basic definitions which are generally accurate.
• Pros: This method of personality deciphering is good for times when you are in a hurry to see whether or not you want to “waste time” on this or that person you just met at that slimy bar. But also, if you really want to work at it, it can be so accurate and telling that your mind almost erupts with disbelief.
• Cons: Because of that flaky New Age element, Western Astrology has been sort of snickered at as some annoying hippie bullshit that is as annoying and worthless as everything else they are into, such as peace, love, universal harmony, earth magick, veganism, sandals, and hackey sacks. Thus, if you are going to go out and randomly speak astrologically to people you don’t really know well, be warned that these people might instantly put you into the Flaky Loser category. Also, making Birth Charts is something you can’t just do for fun one rainy afternoon. It takes a bitch load of effort.

Now You Are Armed With Knowledge! Hahaha! You Were Tricked Into Knowledge!

Yes. Readers, you may now go forth and judge people with even more authority than you did earlier today! You see, unlike your tried and true former methods of judging people based purely on arbitrary factors such as their musical tastes, choice of footwear, inclinations towards various minor ailments, and so on, the methods I have given you are usually looked on more favorably. So you will no longer look like such massive jerks when you reject a lady based on the sound of her laughter or the smell of her breath. No! Now you can cover those reasons up with a simple, “Wait, what is your birth sign?” And when she says Aries – hell – when she says ANYTHING – you can just say, “Oh, our sun signs are completely incompatible GOODBYE FOREVER.” She will not blame you and will instead feel relieved. I guarantee it.

You can thank me later for giving this gift of judgement to you all, and I welcome you to my world, which appears to consist of judging people seemingly at random for 90% of the day. Many of you will be quick to point out that I am a girl, so this is natural. However, I must again point out that by knowing words like “graphology” and have basic knowledge about things like this, my opinionated and fickle nature appears to have far more validity. At least, it does for people who already believe in those things. The other people who resist will just figure you to be another psycho. But that’s okay. You don’t want to know them anyway because they are boring monsters whose minds are so small and rigid that they would only drag you down into a pit of self-doubt and sorrow.

There are many other personality-reading tools out there which I am not well-acquainted with, so I did not include them in this guide. Phrenology, the study of the shape and bumps on the human head to figure personality and basic human worth springs instantly to mind. I really am sorry that I did not include it because it is outrageous. But I really don’t know much about it at all. And I am sure there are many great methods from the times of the noble and paranoid Puritans which would have made for interesting reads, but those will have to wait for the follow-up article that will require actual research. And, oh, how I hate researching things.

Good luck into getting to know yourselves and others, you lazy yet inquisitive bastards.