7 Quick Takes vol. 27

1.     More studying personality types! Masha and I are having an e-mail based conversation about it, and she’s convinced me not to be so coy about my type. So, I can say that I seem to be INFP, though I also have traits of ISTJ. Which, I suppose, is a way of saying that my only really strong trait is introversion; the rest are all a muddle and a morass. But, on the whole, I find INFP descriptions tend to fit me better than ISTJ ones, so I’m fairly confident in claiming that as my type: I’m not particularly ordered or practical, nor am I very insensitive (rather, I’m insensitive in the abstract: I fantasize about being insensitive, but I can’t bring myself to be so when I’m actually dealing with people).

So, my current self-assessment is that I’m an INFP who idealizes and tries to imitate ISTJ traits.

2.     Speaking of which, our esteemed hostess mentioned an advanced personality program called the “Birkman Method.” Unfortunately, it costs $475, so it must remain a mystery to me. 

Though I did consider it anyway. 

3.     When it comes to TV shows, I have a habit of ‘binging’ on one, where I’ll watch two or three episodes a night for a week or so. My current taste is Columbo. I’ll probably do a post on that soon, because I really love that show. It’s a delicious cocktail of humor, puzzle, and good-natured social-commentary. It doesn’t demonize the rich, but it does attack all manner of the snobbery and entitlement that often comes with wealth. There are few things more satisfying in fiction than seeing a smug ‘elite’ type taken down a peg by the common man, and Columbo is pretty much based around that concept.

4.     I reworked the opening of Lost City of the Dimetrodons (LCD) this week, which put me in a quandary as it ended up in such a form that it will require me to basically re-do the entire first act! I just started figuring out somewhat how I’m going to do that, after a few days of working on other things. As a bonus, it’s helping me straighten out the hero’s character a bit. Still, the whole sequence remains a mess, with me unsure of what I ought to try to keep and what I ought to abandon, and how to make the things I keep work without the things abandoned. ‘Tis all a muddle.

5.     More snow and cold up here; couple bad days of roads. I really like snow, but I prefer not to have to drive in it.

6.     Starting to take up drawing again, though my first attempt at ‘upside down’ drawing was rather disastrous. It took me four tries to even get through the darn thing, and even then Stravinsky looked more like some kind of fish-man from the eight underworld than anything else. But a half-drawn picture of a horse and knight and some doodles at work turned out better, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.

7.     Let’s end with a Chesterton quote: 

“To be everlastingly passing through dangers which we know cannot scare us, to be taking oaths which we know cannot bind us, to be defying enemies who we know cannot conquer us – this is the grinning tyranny of decadence which is called freedom.”

Vivat Christus Rex!