A Fated Pair: Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers

Long time since I've posted, but I recently came across the sort of information that begs to be posted on these narcissistic journals called blogs. That's right, info about ME.

I know that my large blog audience has been waiting breathlessly for 11 months for my next post. So it's time to come clean with the real truth about yours truly, El Martbo.

I am an ENFP: An extroverted, introspective, feeling, probing person. Whoa! You say. Extroverted and introspective. That’s a contradiction isn’t it? And feeling and probing? So that mean’s your going to be a dentist, right? Just don’t feel and probe too much in my direction!

Ah, let me allay your fears. You see, in the beginning, when Myers and Briggs created the personalities, they divided the feeling people from the thinking people and they saw that it was pretty good. Then they divided the judging people from the probing, people. (You know, the kind that say, “it’s about the journey,” born liberals, basically.) And they saw that it was maybe okay, but they had their doubts. Then they looked at the perfectly normal person they just hacked to pieces in order to make all the other types and he was dead. But it was too late. Darn, I guess we’ll just have to live with each other now.

The NF part of my personality means that I am an idealist. I was interested to find out that Doug Wilson and Doug Jones, two men that I admire greatly, are also idealists. But they have some key differences from each other. Doug Wilson is an ENFJ, which is basically the perfect personality for being a teacher and pastor. He’s extroverted, but introspective as opposed to “sensing.” That means he prefers to work with words than with tools. He sees the principles behind things and can communicate this principles to others. Now of course, anyone who has heard Doug Wilson speak, knows that he is a extremely thoughtful and rational individual, but he’s not a techno-geek or research-minded, rationalistic person; he’s in the “feeling” category. Finally, he’s a “judging” person as opposed to a “perceiving” person, like myself. The J types are good schedulers. They can really get stuff done, which explains a lot about Doug Wilson. It makes me whish I was a J too! Oh well. Doug Jones is an INFP. In the book, “Please Understand Me II,” which explains the personality types and the philosophy behind them, INFPs are nicknamed “healers.” And I think that moniker applies to Doug Jones pretty well.

One of the traits of my personality is to want to discover things (hopefully good things) about myself and other people and then tell everyone about it. Well, there you have it!