Arrgh, procrastination.

[hmpf]

My Personality

Neuroticism	36
Extraversion	4
Openness To Experience	86
Agreeableness	37
Conscientiousness	4

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Wow, I'm low on emotionality. 3?!? I'm positively a Vulcan!

I have to say overall this is fairly accurate, especially the detailed version.

Actually, I hate memes and tests, I'm not really sure why I'm doing this. Oh, yes, to avoid work, of course.

Comments

[hittite.livejournal.com]

heh heh, avoiding work is as good a reason as any. I remember doing that, after I saw it, I think, in seti_drd's blog, but when it told me that "you don't like to talk much" I decided it was not worth posting here--imagine, me, not liking to talk much??? What planet are they from? It did have some good points, but it is a lot like a horoscope, I bet if I had looked at yours in detail, I could find things that would fit me as well--most of what they say are generalizations.

I don't remember you being a Vulcan, if I may say so... Don't believe the stupid test! :)

No, really, it *is* quite accurate.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Most of the tendencies observed there fit me to a t. I've looked at other people's results, too, and they're quite different from mine, and wouldn't fit me. As stupid internet tests go, I'd say this is one of the better ones.

The emotionality thing isn't wrong, either. I tend to get emotional about fannish things, but other than that, I don't experience a lot of emotional highs and lows. In RL I'm really quite cool and detached.

And the last part of the detailed 'analysis' there demonstrates nicely why I'll never succeed at university (nor, probably, anything else, really). "Self-efficacy, achievement-striving, and self-discipline" are nearly non-existent in my personality profile. This is true, and I've known it for years.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Haha, how brilliant is it that I did this test to procrastinate and it told me that I like to get by on a minimal amount of work and am prone to procrastinate? Awesome.

I agree that this is a pretty good test, sort of sadly. There's some good stuff in there about myself. A lot of contradictions that I also think are true and it's weird to have highlighted.

Apparently my defining attribute in the more detailed breakdown is Liberalism (98%) which I was cool with. Unfortunately, my other three highest scores were Vulnerability, Depression and Anger. I'm a vulnerable, depressed, angry liberal. Go me. I have trouble coping with what others would consider the demands of normal living. Depressing, but true.

Unlike you I'm much more emotional, but I think we both knew that. I'm also totally neurotic (71% overall!). Kev's response? "...Yeah. I'll go with that."

It's weird that our results are so different. I wouldn't go so far as to say we're similar, but hmm...I guess I thought we were more similar that this. We're both talented underachievers who procrastinate and don't have the discipline to make something of our talents, yet want the success and sense of achievement. (I actually score zero for achievement-striving, also, disturbingly, for morality).

Perhaps our similarities lie in the fact that we both scored highest in Openness to Experience which seems to be the artistic bit - most of our interactions online & offline are tied up with fandom which is intriquitely tied up to creativity and imagination.

Perhaps I should stop psychoanalysing us based on internet tests...

Procrastination ctd.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>Haha, how brilliant is it that I did this test to procrastinate and it told me that I like to get by on a minimal amount of work and am prone to procrastinate? Awesome.

Same here! Sad-yet-funny, isn't it?

Liberalism (97) is one of my defining characteristics, too. Sort of comes with the general openness, I would assume. I also score extremely high on sympathy (95), which is odd as it would seem to have some connection to emotionality yet I score very low on emotionality (and I think it's true, too).

I'm less neurotic than I thought - a nice surprise. *g* The near-total lack of anger in my profile did not come as a surprise, though - I think that's part of what makes me so 'zen', as you put it, about many things.

It really is a fairly good test. And yay for talented underachievers - still better than being an untalented overachiever, right? Though I suppose that depends on your perspective, too - an untalented overachiever might be successful, and for people who are into success/fame/etc. this might be preferable to just having talent but never really getting anywhere... I guess I'm enough of an intellectual snob to value talent over success. I'd rather be good at something, or even just have the potential to be good at something, and be the only one to know, than be famous but secretly know I stink at what I do. (I did not score very high on modesty. What a surprise. *g*)

You know what... I just came across a posting in someone else's LJ that highlighted to me what my problem with 'achieving' might be. That person (not naming anyone here as it was a flocked post, if I remember correctly) was just recently diagnosed as having ADD, which surprised her greatly. And, you know, I think something like that could be going on with me, and quite possibly you, too: the, ahem, laziness and the procrastination, a certain unfocusedness... those are very typical symptoms, aren't they?

But this means entering dangerous territory. It's a bit like my recent - tentative - self-diagnoses of that facial recognition disorder and asexuality. These are all areas where I seriously, errm 'underperform' in comparison with the average. Yet what exactly makes something a disorder? Is anything that's in the lowest or highest three percent of a given statistical distribution indicative of a disorder? Or is it just an extreme personality trait? And do I want to have my more extreme personality traits pharmaceutically fixed? It would make a lot of things easier - the way I'm 'functioning' at the moment I am simply not fit to succeed in the society I live in. You could even go so far as to say I'm pre-programmed for failure. But in many ways that is also what makes me *me*. Do I want that changed?

I don't know. And this is not a rhetorical 'I don't know'. I *really* don't know.

Re: us being alike/different

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I think.... we're alike in a combination of a few crucial areas, and we probably both haven't found many people similar to us in those areas or at least not that specific combination. Hence the sense of kinship.

Does that make sense?

Re: us being alike/different

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does and I agree. Also, I managed to score 76 on trustingness, 66 on altruism and 0 on morality. Lord knows how that works out. But yeah, you're totally zen, and almost completely lacking the righteous ire that I can conjure, though I often wish I couldn't.

Also word to being a talented underachiever rather than an untalented overachiever. I'd rather have the potential to be fabulous and never reach it than have the potential to be 'okay' and max it out. Oh, vanity.

Re: ADD...interesting since Asperger's syndrome which is possibly associated with and commonly misdiagnosed as ADD runs in my family on my mother's side. Actually, ADD is something my friends joke about me having a *lot*. I didn't really seem to have it as a kid, though, but now I do have trouble focusing or concentrating on anything for any period of time.

I also understand your hesitancy to find out "officially" as it often doesn't help, especially if you don't want the drugs. I once got as far as being referred to see a psychologist because my GP thought I might have OCD and I had similar thoughts then - I wanted help with the social issues and distractions, but thought it wasn't on the level of a "disorder". Turns out I was right, although I do still have a high level of 'sub-clinical' OCD type symptoms. Oddly, though, perhaps these are more in common with ADD because it tends to all tie in with my brain never slowing down or stopping, but not able to concentrate, so forcing itself into these stupid compulsive counting and naming games. Huh. Or perhaps I'm just explaining my thinking patterns into the most plausible 'syndrome' of the moment.

But...like I said, probably more on the level of a low personality trait than a disorder.

I feel you on the 'not being programmed for this world' stuff. It does suck.

Ironically if I were to go to my doctor and ask for an assessment for ADD, I'd have to receive the referral myself, at my job, then make myself an appointment, then phone myself to check that the appointment was okay. Or have a co-worker do it. Kind of makes the decision to keep on keeping on with my laziness issues and assume that I'm just lazy not "afflicted" a little easier. ;)

Re: us being alike/different

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

You know, in a continuing effort to waste time, I just went and did a couple of those unreliable "Do you have adult add?" questionnaires. Which I a) find unreliable, but b) seemed to score really high on. Like, in one, a score of over 70 put you in the highest, most likely to have ADD category. I got 76 and was told to see someone about it 'immediately' in big bold letters. Even after going back and being uber stringent with myself in case I was skewing my results, I got 67 which was 'you'd probably better get this checked out'. And in this other one, I had real high scores on 27 areas where 20 suggested a strong tendency towards the disorder.

I'm not too fussed because, like I said, unreliable. But also...scoring *that* high...kinda freaky. You know, maybe I am fussed. It's a bit weird cos it's not something I'd *ever* considered before.

Eh, I'll spend an hour trying to get to sleep because my brain won't wind down, and then by tomorrow I'll have forgotten about it.

Not just the drugs...

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I also understand your hesitancy to find out "officially" as it often doesn't help, especially if you don't want the drugs.

The problem isn't even the drugs so much - if there really is a medical problem, then taking medication to cure/treat it doesn't seem like a bad idea. The problem's rather, what do we define as normal; where does illness begin? With ADD and the way it seems to have turned into a mass phenomenon, it sometimes seems to me as if we've taken a fairly common human trait that doesn't fit the current productivity dogma, and defined it as a disorder. And the fact that we can 'fix' it by way of medication seems to confirm our view of it as a disorder. But maybe we're just artificially narrowing down the naturally occurring range of human behaviour to conform more closely to the demands of the current socio-economic model?

>Ironically if I were to go to my doctor and ask for an assessment for ADD, I'd have to receive the referral myself, at my job, then make myself an appointment, then phone myself to check that the appointment was okay.

Yikes. What if you ever get a *really* embarrassing disease?!

Err wait.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Since all the interactions would be with yourself, your secret would be safe, presumably.

;-)

Re: us being alike/different

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I'm not too fussed because, like I said, unreliable. But also...scoring *that* high...kinda freaky. You know, maybe I am fussed. It's a bit weird cos it's not something I'd *ever* considered before.

It's not something I'd ever considered before, either, but it does seem to make an awful lot of sense, considering how I've spent most of the last six weeks (and a lot of my time in general). It's one of these things I'd never thought about but that sort of immediately 'clicked' with me when I read about it - like the autistic tendencies thing, the facial recognition thing, and the asexuality thing. As I outlined above - the question is where do we draw the line between 'normal', if somewhat extreme and inconvenient personality trait, and 'disorder' that needs treatment? And do we, do I want to change my personality artificially if it could make my life easier and happier?

As I said before: I don't know, I really don't know.

Re: Not just the drugs...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

>it sometimes seems to me as if we've taken a fairly common human trait that doesn't fit the current productivity dogma, and defined it as a disorder. And the fact that we can 'fix' it by way of medication seems to confirm our view of it as a disorder. But maybe we're just artificially narrowing down the naturally occurring range of human behaviour to conform more closely to the demands of the current socio-economic model?

Yes. Exactly. I also figure that the human brain is so complex in terms of its chemical balance and the way it works that everyone is going to have some sort of behaviour pattern that skews one side or the other of 'normal'.

>Yikes. What if you ever get a *really* embarrassing disease?!

I don't actually work for my local doctor, I work for the national health service in an office that has been set up to receive referrals into the mental health system. Then we make appointments with psychiatrists and community psychiatric nurses or the learning disability services. This also covers behavioural disorders such ADD. So I'd go to my local doctor who would make a referral and send it to my office. There *are* things in place to hide the identities of patients in some situations, but realistically, I'd end up getting seen by a member of one of the Community Mental Health teams I've probably spoken to half a dozen times on the phone already. You know, if I actually wanted to do that. Which I don't.

But yeah, my job's sucky at the moment, soooo, happy things, like cake!

Re: us being alike/different

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I say we REFUSE to conform and DEMAND that the rest of the world take drugs to be more like US.

We're obviously superior and thus should be used as a model for a far happier world where leisure time is the most important thing and no one feels any pressure to actually get anything done to any sort of schedule. A world where procrastinating for two hours before you can actually make yourself sit down and start writing is NORMAL.

Maybe we just see how crappy and straightjacketed the world is and are refusing to conform to this creativity killing, personality choking, mind-numbing morass of depressed rat-racers. I read something in the paper the other day that our current lifestyle is directly responsible for there being more depressed kids (although, again, over diagnosis?) and it's the barrage of television and junk food and not interacting with other humans. Maybe our brains are allergic to this crappy way of existing and they're rebelling the only way they know how - by refusing to engage.

At least...that sounds a lot more poetic than the alternative. :)

Re: us being alike/different

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I like your analysis/wishful thinking. ;-)

Of course, unfortunately, my unfocusedness extends even to stuff I really *like* to do, like writing, and making jewellery. (Heck, I even really like studying, in theory, yet I can't seem to do it efficiently.) So...

Yeah, but leisure time = definitely very important, and it *should* be. Did you know that in all hunter-and-gatherer societies people had a *lot* of leisure time? I maintain that the human psyche needs that. And I think I'm always mentally active, even when I'm not necessarily *productive* in any measurable way.

Re: us being alike/different

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

>Of course, unfortunately, my unfocusedness extends even to stuff I really *like* to do, like writing, and making jewellery. (Heck, I even really like studying, in theory, yet I can't seem to do it efficiently.) So...

Yeah. Me too. A little upsetting, isn't it?