Me and Mister Keirsey

January 6, 1998 -- Second Entry

Well, the Keirsey test wasn't the only thing I unearthed Sunday when I was surfing... I stumbled across the Wellesley Review Page, and submitted my page for review. I received a pretty good response, I think... my reviewer liked my content, and pointed out that things weren't showing up right in Netscape... there seems to be a problem with the text running off the edge of the page. *sigh* So, I'll have to take care of that and apparently go back to using tables to format things. *sigh* [just did it with this entry] She also pointed out that my Missing Kids page was missing something else... a link to GeoCities, which counts as a content violation, and that some of my pages had two <BODY> tags, both of which have been fixed now.

All in all, she seemed very positive about my page, and it's encouraged me to go on and try for Site of the Week. I'd love to win Featured Site some day... hopefully before my 3MB of disk space runs out. *chuckle* I think I've got a few months to go, I'm using about 580k right now, and each page takes up another 5 or 6k, on average.

I was poking around some more at GeoCities, and they have a neat new Java applet for us "commoners" to use... it's called the Intel 3D Photo Cube, and it's basically just what it says. You set it up and give it 6 images to work with (or you can use the same image more than once if you don't have that many), and you can link each image or face of the cube to a different web site. Kinda cool... though a little slow to load at 28.8. The cube sits on your page and rotates, and you can click on the various pictures and it will show them to you, or you can double-click and go to the associated site. I'm sorta considering doing it, but I'd have to get my hands on a working scanner again. Or maybe I'd do something different with it... Hmmm.... Give me time. *grin*

Yes, I promised more about me and Mr. Keirsey, but be patient... I have other things to type about first... well, I thought I did... seems they may have escaped... Oh, wait, I remember now... I was just going to say that my class started yesterday; we were assigned 4 chapters to read and work through the exercises and do the questions for this week... I finished chapter one and about 2/3 of chapter two last night, so I'm pretty good as far as staying on schedule so far.

I hope to get more done tonight before Jevim gets back online (if he can get back online, assuming Cindy's expecting friend finally gets to meet her expectation), as I need to get all four chapters done by Thursday. Mom and I are going to Iowa on Friday, or so she says. The weather may have something to say about that. Anyway, just wanted to say that I'm doing well, so far. I'm proud of myself. :) Did I mention that the first 6 chapters or so are all review to me? Oooops, I forgot! They are... I took this class last summer when I was stuck at home with kidney problems, but I had too many things on my plate, and ended up dropping it at the time.

On to Mr. Keirsey

I went back today and followed some of the links from the page with my Keirsey results... I found out that the INFJ personality is categorized as an Idealist (the NF group) in general, and a Counselor in particular. Like I said yesterday, I was a little surprised that I didn't turn out an INFP (perceiving rather than judging), and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I was close to borderline between those two. The INFP personality is the Healer type, and my character of Lisana -- whom I've used in persona stories for a particular group -- is a healer, as well.

I found it interesting what the author of the Keirsey Temperament Web Site had to say about both the Healer and Counselor personalities:

Counselors

"Counselors focus on human potentials, think in terms of ethical values, and come easily to decisions"

The last bit of this is the part I don't quite agree with for myself. On many of the questions reguarding making decisions -- the Judging/Perceiving questions, i.e. the difference between healer and counselor -- I had a very hard time choosing, and I would dare say that I might choose one way or the other, depending on my mood.

"iNFjs have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions"

This explains why I like lurking in the GeoCities chats and trying to help people setting up their pages and the like. I could probably make a decent Community Leader, if I could make myself dedicate the time each day. Seriously, though... the reason I was first attracted to Jevim -- at least on the surface -- he'd been hurt in a relationship (with Emma *grr*), and had never completely healed, and I knew that and wanted to help him.

"because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, iNFjs can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people

That one hits very close to home... yesterday with Jevim running off was a prime example. I'd hurt him, albeit unintentionally, and he had to get away; naturally, I felt that it was my fault -- even though I knew I hadn't done it intentionally -- and I was the one to blame and was very hurt because of it. This is also probably the main reason why I don't like being around my mom. (Am I rationalizing now?) She says little things that she may not think anything of, but they hurt me, and so to protect myself, I pull away from her more and more.

"Counselors have strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another's emotions or intentions-good or evil-even before that person is conscious of them"

I think my stress reaction to Jevim's dentist thing has a lot to say about the empathic part... I'm not so sure about intentions, though. I try to stay away from people with bad intentions toward me, so I guess I haven't experienced that much. The last bit is what I like best:

"Furthermore, the iNFj is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena and to have visions of human events, past, present, or future. What is known as ESP may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in the iNFj, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance."

I do believe in abilities beyond the five senses... and I've had experiences of the "uncanny communications" with Jevim and my ex-friend Will, as well. I have dreamed of walking around inside people's houses before I ever entered them in waking life, only to find that my dreams are sometimes eerily accurate; I knew what Will looked like, and even described him to himself, without having ever met him, and I was pretty close, only missed a mustache. I've dreamt of other places and other people, only to see them or meet them, usually not long afterward.

I do have a theory about how this dream stuff works, but that's something for another entry, as I think this one's getting awful long and will soon exceed the length of my border spacer. ;) As for the emotional connections with people across distances... I really have no idea. The idea of souls touching across the miles appeals to me, but is that what it is? I'm not sure.

Healers

This is actually the personality I feel more centered in, and some of the characteristics fit in with what my family life was like, in a weird sort of way.

"Healers have a profound sense of idealism derived from a strong personal morality, and they conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place. ... Healers are found in only 1 percent of the general population, although, at times, their idealism leaves them feeling even more isolated from the rest of humanity."

You can say that again! When I let myself just sit and think -- meditate, if you will -- there is a place, or a feeling, that I can never quite reach. It's a feeling of harmony, balance, perfection... the way I feel like the world should be. And when I open my eyes and look at the way the world really is -- violence, rape, murder, hatred -- I sometimes wonder if I really belong here, or if I'm just so totally different that I will never fit in. Fortunately, Jevim seems to understand me, and he gives me a reason to stay here in the midst of all the horrors.

"Healers seek unity in their lives, unity of body and mind, emotions and intellect, perhaps because they are likely to have a sense of inner division threaded through their lives, which comes from their often unhappy childhood. Healers live a fantasy-filled childhood, which, unfortunately, is discouraged or even punished by many parents."

I can't honestly say that I had an unhappy childhood... at least, not for my first ten years or so. I don't remember the teasing starting until fifth grade, though maybe it's a case of selective memory. Yes, I lived in a single-parent family, but at the time, I got to see my dad every other weekend; I had all I could wish for, and I did very well in school. I didn't have imaginary friends, I had imaginary horses -- sometimes they were even unicorns; I used to "trot" them around wherever we went. The happier my mood, the bouncier the trot. Mom laughed and teased me about it, and one time even spanked me in the middle of the grocery store, in front of my best friend, who was with us. I had on dressy shoes with a little heel and slippery soles, and I fell, and I've never forgotten that. Embarrassment was always enough of a punishment for me, so I eventually gave up my imaginary horses. *sigh*

Once fifth grade hit, things started to go downhill... I remember being sixteen and planning to run away to my dad's because my mom was so unfair -- or so I thought. Actually, there were a number of times I wanted to run away, but I never did. Graduation night (from high school), while all my friends were piling in the bus to go to Disneyland, my mom took me home and made me a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. I had my new boom-box from my dad, a check from my godparents (I think), and a diploma, mortarboard and tassle to show for all my hard work in high school. And then Mom insisting that I go on disability the day I turned 18... no, my teen years were not all that great.

"In a practical-minded family, required by their parents to be sociable and industrious in concrete ways, and also given down-to-earth siblings who conform to these parental expectations, iNFps come to see themselves as ugly ducklings."

Mom always bragged to her friends how smart I was, how she wanted me to go to Pepperdine, or whatever, and be the first of her kids with a college degree. I was supposed to be the "perfect" one, after my older siblings had all done their own thing. Parental expectations there were, but she never gave me the chance to live up to them. Yeah, I went to community college for a while, mostly to please her, but I was doing it for her and not for myself, and it didn't make me happy. What I ended up doing was just staying home and becoming more and more insular.

"They wonder, some of them for the rest of their lives, whether they are OK. They are quite OK, just different from the rest of their family-swans reared in a family of ducks."

So where are the rest of the swans? I've found one or two, and a few who pretended to be swans, but were just long-necked ducks. (Ooops, there she goes judging...) There must be more, somewhere...

Have I rambled enough? *chuckle* This entry has been one of the toughest I've written, outside some of the bio stuff... I think I'll wrap this up for now and escape for a while. Mom's making dinner, so we'll see if I can pull my emotions together enough to eat out in the dining room with her.

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