Dept. of Birthdays

[kaffy_r]

Two Remarkable Women

Because I will be late for my own funeral, I have missed the birthdays of two remarkable women, and I want to correct that right now.

On Friday, a_phoenixdragon  celebrated her Benny Birthday, and I hope she was surrounded by love throughout the day. My dear, you are a force of nature, you have more energy in your little finger than I have in my entire body, you are fierce, and funny, and kind, and bone-deep hungry for life, for learning, for understanding this world and its inhabitants better. All that you have gained in this world, you have gotten because of your own huge heart and gloriously, mulishly stubborn resistance to standing still, or becoming stagnant. You are creative during times when I'd curl up in a ball and twitch, you are loving and generous in situations where I'd shoot someone, you are humble but determined not to stop trying to make your life better. You're like a weeble, you know; you wobble, but you don't fall down. Let's hope we can get together; I'll make curry for us all, and you can make your legendary pasta sauce. In the meantime, keep being your extraordinary self, and know that I adore you, and want you to have your best year yet.  Happy Birthday!

And far across the Atlantic, elisi  has been celebrating her birthday with Mr. Darcy and their daughters. I hope your birthday has been magnificent, in just the right shade of magnificence you desire, whether that be quiet or raucous. You are one of the first people who introduced me to the idea that one could look at one's fandom love in a way that takes squee beyond squee, into depth of thought. You are both insightful and incisive; you provoke thoughts in those with whom you speak (I know this from first hand experience.) Your influence is such that, when I watch something that I know we both love, my first thought is "I must see what elisi thinks."  When I write, one of my first thoughts is "Does this rise to elisi's standards?" Not to mention, you have a puckish sense of humor that you let out on just the right occasions; you care deeply about the world - you are, in short, someone that I am so very glad to have met on the Internet. Here's to many, many more discussions (at least that don't involve four-letter alphabet soup personality modalities; I leave that to you, Owls, and Proton.) Happy Birthday! 

Comments

[owlboy]

>>at least that don't involve four-letter alphabet soup personality modalities

IT IS SUPREMELY LOGICAL AND GOOD!

[kaffy_r]

The important thing is that y'all believe that.

*ducks, runs*

[elisi]

S'like meta for understanding people.

[kaffy_r]

I'm not so sure, having ended up with multiple designations from different tests. Also, the definitions don't make sense to me. For instance, the meanings they attach to "intuitive" don't seem ... intuitive.

Argh. No. I will not be sucked into this discussion. Get thee behind me, Myers Briggs!

[elisi]

*cackles*

Tests are [mostly] useless anyway. The only way to get a good understanding is... to let the whole thing eat your head. After a few months you should be able to understand some of it.

[kaffy_r]

I am, apparently - or at least according to the last test I took - an INFP-T which, I am informed, comprises fully 4 percent of the population.

yeahnope.

[elisi]

... Imma gonna let Proton take over from here.

(Personally, what I find so useful about it, is that it explains how other people see the world. And why.)

[kaffy_r]

Ah, you see, from your response, I can tell that you're a little like me, in that you seek an orderly understanding of humanity's MO.

However, when you're as ancient as I've become, you also learn that that instinct is silly. Humans never ever operate the way you think they're going to. Humans are messy. Very, very messy.

*wanders off, looking for a pipe to smoke so that she can look as wise as a professor*

[promethia_tenk]

Elisi wants to drag me into this, but I have a strict policy of not talking Myers Briggs with anybody who isn't sincerely interested in learning it because, unfortunately, she is absolutely right about the necessity of letting it eat your head before it's going to start to make sense. Trying to learn it at a surface level is worse than knowing nothing about it at all (as the internet provides constant proof) :-\

That said, I genuinely don't know how I would manage without it! It's like having the cheat sheet for people. If you ever have way too much time on your hands, you know where to find me.

[kaffy_r]

I have a strict policy of not talking Myers Briggs with anybody who isn't sincerely interested in learning it because, unfortunately, she is absolutely right about the necessity of letting it eat your head before it's going to start to make sense.

Smart policy! And, since my head regularly gets eaten by many other things, arguably far more malignant, I'll leave it to others.

If you ever have way too much time on your hands, you know where to find me.

Heh. Why does the phrase "The first one's free?" abruptly occur to me?

[promethia_tenk]

Smart policy! And, since my head regularly gets eaten by many other things, arguably far more malignant, I'll leave it to others.
*nods*

A good metaphor is that it's like the blind men trying to describe the elephant. What Meyers Briggs is actually about is people's instinctive methods of processing information. Not who you are, just, when presented with a piece of information, how does you brain decide whether it's worth paying attention to or not, and how to categorize and value it? Unfortunately this cannot be directly observed, so we are all looking at things we can observe, like behaviors, and attempting to use them to describe the underlying patterns of information processing. Therefore, anybody's individual attempt to describe Meyers Briggs is going to be incomplete and subjective, and you really do have to absorb as many different accounts as possible to begin to see the underlying gestalt they are all pointing at. But, once you've done that and have started to see what an elephant actually looks like, you see the elephants everywhere. And you start to understand why you've spent so much of your life getting trampled without warning. (I've never met an analogy I couldn't overburden, can you tell?)

But that's why it's so frustrating to take tests or try to read the type descriptions.

Heh. Why does the phrase "The first one's free?" abruptly occur to me?
*snerk* Well, I will pick you apart. And I will tell you you are wrong until you are fed up with me. And if you decide to speak to me ever again after that, I'll tell you you're wrong some more. And give you homework. But that's it, I swear ; )

And, if you survive that, the prize is you get to fight with me and Owls about what types fictional characters are!

[kaffy_r]

Heh - let me see if I understand your description well enough to translate it into my way of thinking.

MB is a tool that be used to analyze thought and reaction patterns in people, but it's difficult to impossible to get a handle on simply by reading one description of MB, the process by which it's used, or its terminology. Instead, you need to immerse yourself in it. I assume that means read copiously and then sit back and not read for a while, letting everything soak in.

That leads me to the question of who developed Myers Briggs in the first place (I assume Messrs. Myers and Briggs) and how much evolution there has been in the interpretation, explanation and use of the MB framework. I can find most of that online, I assume.

I just edited out a fair bit, realizing that I was about to become obnoxious, which wasn't the point of my response.

I think you'd make an excellent teacher, and if I ever decide to become curious about MB, I'll knock on your door and get ready to be told I'm wrong. :)

[promethia_tenk]

Heh - let me see if I understand your description well enough to translate it into my way of thinking.
Lol, yes, that is the elephant-free essence.

I assume that means read copiously and then sit back and not read for a while, letting everything soak in.
*nods* You also have to actively practice typing people. You don't get better at tools unless you use them.

That leads me to the question of who developed Myers Briggs in the first place (I assume Messrs. Myers and Briggs) and how much evolution there has been in the interpretation, explanation and use of the MB framework. I can find most of that online, I assume.
MMmmm. There are a bunch of related theories that all grew out of some of the ideas of Carl Jung and which loosely go under the name of 'Meyers Briggs' because the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator is the best known and most widely used version (like, lots of businesses will have people do the MBTI as a team-building/personal development thing). Jung provided a lot of the basic categories and vocabulary, but his work on the whole is pretty esoteric and woo-woo. Isabel Meyers and Katherine Briggs took his ideas and made them into a more practical application with the intent of helping people to better understand each other and better apply their personal gifts. They're the ones who created the personality test and personality profiles to make everything more accessible. The most useful version, I think, is function theory, which gets back to Jung's emphasis on cognitive processes rather than outward behaviors, but in a more rigorous way.

How scientific is any of this? Not very. The most 'scientific' method of personality typing is the five-factors theory, which relies a great deal on cross-cultural analysis of the traits that different societies have words for on the premise that if many societies all have a word for the same general trait, then that is probably something baked in to humans, rather than a product of a particular society. A number of the dimensions of five factor theory map fairly cleanly onto the categories of Meyers Briggs. The problem with the five factors is that they constrain themselves so thoroughly to what they can prove that there's almost no practical application: you find the right labels for a person and it ends there.

I just edited out a fair bit, realizing that I was about to become obnoxious, which wasn't the point of my response.
Please do be obnoxious if so inclined! I have a high tolerance for obnoxiousness about ideas ; ) And I'm always interested in what people think about this and why.

I think you'd make an excellent teacher, and if I ever decide to become curious about MB, I'll knock on your door and get ready to be told I'm wrong. :)
*grins*

[kerravonsen]

I love reading your birthday posts; they remind me of the good in the world, of the blessing that fabulous people give to all around them. Just thought I'd let you know that they're appreciated by more than just the immediate recipients.

[kaffy_r]

Thank you so much for your lovely message - I am, as you say, blessed to have some truly lovely online friends, so it gives me a great deal of pleasure to let the world know how lovely they are.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

This so much.

♥♥♥

[kaffy_r]

Remarkable women indeed, eh? ♥

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

More than words can say. ♥

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Bless you, dear one!! This made me get a little dust in my eyes...thank you! I'm hoping the next year will be better one...and that somehow I can get back to see you and BB and enjoy a visit with you (and the fuzzy babies), even if only for a little while. As for your assessment of my character...well, as always you leave me a little speechless, lol! Blessings to you, BB and FB, honey...and thank you, thank you, thank you!!

*hugs you tight, tight*

[kaffy_r]

Just the truth, my dear, just the truth!

Hugs back to you!

[promethia_tenk]

Somehow I missed your birthday! *hugs and good wishes*

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

LOL!! Tis okay, honey. Somehow, I rather missed it as well! :D Thank you, thank you and -

*Big!Hugs!*

[promethia_tenk]

You really do have such a talent for seeing and describing the best in people.

[kaffy_r]

The people I write about bring me joy - I simply try to pass a little of that along with the birthday wishes. And these two certainly deserve some applause!

[maruad.livejournal.com]

"Because I will be late for my own funeral"

Aren't most people? Otherwise why would we refer to them as "the late ....."?

[kaffy_r]

*snrk*
*snort*
*guffaw*

OK, thank you for that!

[eaweek.livejournal.com]

Two amazing women, indeed! Happy birthday to both!

[kaffy_r]

Isn't it wonderful, the number of fantastic people we meet on These Here Intarwebz?

[elisi]

Late reply is late!! (See, you are not alone...)

Thank you so much, you always have the most incredible birthday wishes of anyone I know. ♥

You are one of the first people who introduced me to the idea that one could look at one's fandom love in a way that takes squee beyond squee, into depth of thought.
I merely feel like I'm passing on a present? Because back in... 2004? someone did the same for me, and it was like magic. And so I have done my best to help others see too.

Your influence is such that, when I watch something that I know we both love, my first thought is "I must see what elisi thinks." When I write, one of my first thoughts is "Does this rise to elisi's standards?"


(Now I shall become self-conscious and shy.)

at least that don't involve four-letter alphabet soup personality modalities; I leave that to you, Owls, and Proton.
LOL. They infected me, and now I can't get rid...

Thank you - and also I must agree with every word you wrote about Mandy. That woman is an honest to god super hero who walks amongst us.

[kaffy_r]

Thanks - I don't have the wherewithal to send people the kind of presents I think they deserve, but I have more than enough words (some would say too many), and I try to make them do the job. And as I always tell people, I only say what I believe; it's all true.

I'm glad that whoever introduced you to the idea of meta thought did so; it's being passed on, and that's such a fannish thing in and of itself.

I seem to be immune to the INTJXYZ phenomenon, for which I am, I confess, rather grateful. Heh.

Having spent time on the road and at a con with Mandy, I can tell you she is as amazing in person as she is on the page!

[elisi]

but I have more than enough words (some would say too many), and I try to make them do the job.
And a fabulous job they do too!

I'm glad that whoever introduced you to the idea of meta thought did so; it's being passed on, and that's such a fannish thing in and of itself.
She was my first LJ friend - she's not around much anymore, but her name is the_royal_anna and her meta is... *kisses fingertips* Best ever. I don't think you are a Buffy fan? But here are her Dr Who posts - mostly Nine/Rose which was her particular tipple. <3

I seem to be immune to the INTJXYZ phenomenon, for which I am, I confess, rather grateful. Heh.
Yes, it EATS YOUR HEAD. Useful though. And fascinating. And... Yeah. Ate my head.

Having spent time on the road and at a con with Mandy, I can tell you she is as amazing in person as she is on the page!
You lucky thing.