The Labelmaker

Way back in the day, in an 'Interpersonal Communications' course, I was introduced to the "Meyers-Briggs Temperament Indicator" which claimed to be able to classify everyone's personality on the basis of four categories having one of two values. Resulting in a mere 16 possible bins for all of us to be thrown into.

So they had us take this test, and then we found out what we 'were'. Or at least what the test claimed we were. You are either Introverted or Extroverted, Intuitive or Sensing, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. I got pretty fascinated about this whole process, wondering what the merit was behind all of this, and how the whole 'nature vs. nurture' part of the debate fit in, and not liking the idea of there only being 16 different types of people in the world, but I did agree with most of what they said I 'was' (INTP), so it intrigued me.

I eventually bought the book (Please Understand Me II) and even made myself a little program that let me take the test automagically without having to write anything down. If you don't know your bin, and want to take an online version of the test (not the one I made), try this one here. Then let us know what you 'are'.

All this to say why do we have to label everything and try to find an explanation or a tidy little container to put everyone in? Or do we? If we do, is it a bad thing? I don't know, but I find myself doing it all the time...

"What kind of work do you do?"

"Where do you live?"

"Are you taking any prescription medication?"

I guess I try to construct a box for everything and everyone, since without it I'm just too uncomfortable with all the mystery or uncertainness, or lack of control or whatever it is that motivates me to explore and find out that the box no longer fits, so I can then create a new one, which will then be found wanting...

And so on.

Tim "choose your own adventure" James