A while ago I was asked about my personality type based on Jungian typology. And I promised to answer, so here goes =)

But, I decided to start writing fist, before taking that test and before reading any instructions on the test page. Just to openly explicate my thoughts about personality tests. Then, after taking the test I can write more and reflect on my previous thoughts - to see if taking the test has any impact on the way I think about personality tests.

So, when thinking about personality tests, for me the first question is: "What is personality?". Obviously, it has something to do with traits and characteristics which are long-term and typical for an individual person. Like, if someone is peaceful and calm for 999 days, and then one day is seen to express a fit of anger, nobody will say "you are such an angry person!" - no, on the contrary people would wonder "uh, I didn't expect that, normally you are such a peaceful person, so what makes you go angry now?". OK, this may sound so simple and obvious that there is nothing to ponder here, right? No, for me there is a real question hidden here. Let me use a metaphor, an another short fictional story;

Emme likes to play football and to dance and to leap around. But one day in the excitement of a football match Emme collides with another player, falls down and lies on the ground, unable to get up. Emme is taken to hospital, where they find out that Emme's leg is very seriously broken. The doctors say that it will take a full year to heal, and for the first six monts Emme has to sit in a wheelchair. Well, Emme is determined to get fully healed, to return to the joy of leaping around, dancing and playing football. After five months Emme has learned to maneuver the wheelchair at ease. Emme goes nearly everywhere with the wheelchair. And one day, in the local library, Emme is interviewed by a psychology student for a scientific research.
- Hello, do you have a moment to answer some simple questions for a scientific enquiry?
- Sure, I'll be glad to answer, go ahead.
- Is it typical for you to leap around in joy, to dance and to play football?
- Hmmm, er, what does 'typical' mean here?
- Uh oh, it means that do you this kind of things regularly, and do you enjoy doing them?
- What does 'regularly' mean?
- Are you kidding? When was the last time you were dancing?
- Six months ago.
- When was the last time you were playing football?
- Five months ago.
- OK, so that doesn't sound very regular to me. I'll tick "no, Emme doesn't enjoy leaping around, dancing and playing football."
- NOOOOO! THAT IS NOT TRUE! Of course I do enjouy them, they are part of my personality.
- Then why don't you do those things you enjoy so much?
- Because my leg is broken and I need to recover before I can return to those things I enjoy. This is just a temporary situation, and not typical at all.
- OK, I see. So we make it "yes, Emme enjoys leaping around in joy, dancing and playing football."
- Fine. And do you have more questions?
- Yes. When is the next time you plan to go dancing?
- Hmm, probably after seven months or so.
- WHAT? That doesn't sound very regular to me!
....

Yup. I've had a feeling that depressions masks away some aspects of my true inner personality. But, since my depression has been rather chronic, it sometimes becomes hard to distinguish between "temporary issues which are not part of my true personality" and "long-term traits and characteristics which define my personality". And it all becomes even more fuzzy as I sometimes get confusing feedback from other people.

In Emme's case we can assume that most of the people understand that Emme has to move around with a wheelchair because Emme's leg is broken. Luckily, many people will not be telling Emme "Ah, just forget about that accident you had, get over it! Stand up and go back to playing! If you ruminate over the past issues and collapse into that wheelchair like a poor victim, you will never recover! Come leap and dance with us, it is fun!". But people suffering from major depression or related symptoms often hear that kind of advice. But, then, it must also be said that there are cases when that kind of advice really does the trick. So, let's take an another metaphor.

Imagine a humal soul is like a metal bucket. Everybody has a different kind of bucket - some buckets are bigger and some smaller, some are decorated with paintings of flowers, and some have a golden rim. Some buckets are shiny brand new, other have suffered some damage and have dents. Every time a person sleeps the bucket gets filled with water, which then is used to water the garden of thoughts and feelings. Now, it would be rather common that many people feel that their bucket is not good enough, that others have better buckets. In this case it actually is helpful to learn to accept ones bucket the way it is, and not to compare it to others. The worth of a bucket is its ability to contain water - all the golden rims or decorative paintings are just eye candy not affecting the functionality of the bucket. So, as long as you can carry enough water with the bucket of your soul, there is no reason to feel bad about the size, shape, colour or looks of your bucket. Right.

But then, sometimes when I try to describe the others the way I experience the world at the moment, trying to describe some of the issues vaguely labelled under the term "depression major", people try to offer their help by saying "Oh, don't care about those dents. It is perfectly normal to have some dents, almost everyone has them! Don't ruminate over the past issues and just enjoy hauling water with the fine unique bucket of your soul!". OK, I can understand that kind of reaction, since it is seems to be so very common that people have problems with accepting all the dents or the lack of golden decorations on their soul bucket. So, it is understandable that people assume that I am typical, and they interpret my descriptions according to the stuff they feel themselves and what they think is normal. Nothing wrong with that. Still, I think that sometimes it can happen that a dent is so severe that it has a hole.

And even in the case of having a dent with a hole, it doesn't mean that your soul bucket is bad and worth nothing. No, it all depends on the size and location of the hole. Or, the number of holes. Having just a tiny hole near the upper rim of the bucket is pretty much nothing to worry about. Having a big hole in the bottom of the bucket is a real pain, and you have to constantly refill your bucket as all the water keeps leaking out before you can water all of your soul garden. Or, having a number of tiny holes every here and there is equally painful - but if you describe just one hole to the others, they might think "oh, just a tiny little minor puncture - don't whine about it! I have one too, and I've been living perfectly normal life with it for years!". Yes that is true, if that tiny little minor puncture is the only hole there is. But it is different if there are two dozens of such minor punctures.

Finally, if I talk about the issues with my mental well-being, I never think that my soul bucket is bad and worth nothing because of all these dents and holes. I'm not asking for any kind of extra comfort, compensation, or special rights because of the holes my soul bucket has. No, I'm only interested in how to get those holes fixed. As I know that most of the holes can be fixed. So it would be utterly stupid not to fix a hole which can be easily fixed - you just need to seek around and ask if anyone knows how to best fix this or that kind of hole. (But, pretty often I've experienced even trained professionals of mental health-care having serious difficulties trying to understand that a hole I'm describing is actually a real and not just my delusional whining. Somehow, to fix a hole I'd guess it would start with identifying the existence of the said hole. Just like if a car is broken, the mechanic starts with identifying the problem to find out how to fix it.)

OK, so, as you can see, so far I haven't been talking that much about my real personality nor personality tests. That is because I haven't been so interested in the typology of buckets - I don't care that much if my bucket is tall and thin, plain or decorated. I've been mostly interested in learning to better identify and understand the holes I have, finding ways to fix them. Of course, in some cases, it might happen that I realize that a certain minor puncture is nothing to worry about and that I can accept it as a long-term characteristics of my soul bucket. But, I still feel that I can't go that way with all the holes in my soul. Also, I remember and I have a deep feeling that most of the holes can be fixed, and that my own life would be more enjoyable that way.

So, given a question "how much soul water your bucket can carry for 12 hours?" - I really can't answer. Of course I can say what the situation of the day is, but I feel that it doesn't define my true personality. I can accept all the dents in my soul bucket, but I feel that my true personality has some holes less than I currently have. Also, seen from this perspective, it is more or less useless to dream about how that true personality would be - that remains to be seen. Each wide hole made smaller, and each small hole fixed makes my life easier, enables me to haul more soul water, making my soul garden to re-flourish.

OK, these were my 'prejudices', or my thoughts before taking any personality test. Now I'll switch to the another tab of the web browser and take the test.

---

Here is my score

Erkka is: INFP
Introvert(44%) iNtuitive(59%) Feeling(28%) Perceiving(47%)

You have moderate preference of Introversion over Extraversion (44%)
You have distinct preference of Intuition over Sensing (59%)
You have moderate preference of Feeling over Thinking (28%)
You have moderate preference of Perceiving over Judging (47%)

As you can see, most of the descriptions come with "moderate". Which, I think, is due to my Gemini personality =) I mean, I feel that my personality kind of a has both extremities, I'm stongly "this" and equally strongly "that", and then when replying according to this, it ends up looking like I'm moderately somewhere in between the extremes. Which, to me, doesn't feel about the right description of my real-life personality. (And this, even without considering any of the holes in my soul bucket. I think without the holes I just could go more towards the both extremities, to widen the sphere of my soul space.)

I must say that I found this test a bit more alien that I thought it would be. Mostly because of the stereotypical reason/emotion -dualism the test seemed to presuppose:
10. When making a decision, you rely more on your feelings than on analysis of the situation - what the heck? After decades of exploring the world with both my intuitive feelings and rational analysis, I often find them converging. In most of the situations my intuitive feelings already point to the same direction which I will get if I pause to analyse the situation. And, even more importantly, if there isn't a clear solution in sight, my gut feelings tell me to pause to analyse. So, if I then follow my feelings and pause to make the decision based on analysis, how should I answer question 10.? I'm not anything in between those extremities of "feelings" and "analysis". I'm both, at the same time, with full-blown force. And I feel extremely alienated when suggested that using analysis somehow means lack of feelings.

Same with this one: 15. You trust reason rather than feelings. I answered "no", and felt rather alien about it. Whenever reason says "A" and feelings say "B", I usually step back to think, to meditate, to contemplate, to feel and to intuit, until - most of the time - either reason turns towards "B", or it starts to feel like "A", or they both tell me "C, it is C!".

This 19. Your actions are frequently influenced by your emotions is also a rather difficult question. I do admit that I don't understand what does it mean. Does it mean that there are situations where my emotions say "B", but I ignore it and do "A" instead? Or does it mean that my actions don't arouse any emotions at all, and I'm just acting in a perfectly logical and rational manner like a robot is supposed to do? In either case, I find that any answer to such a question is not going to describe the way I feel my soul bucket is. Take the classical example of slaughtering a lamb. No doubt, I have emotions of compassion towards the lamb, it feels somewhat bad to end a life, and some of the smells make me feel slightly nauseous. But do I act unaffected by those emotions? No, those emotions are embraced by a stronger and deeper emotions of humility, feeling-connected-to-nature, accepting-my-place-in-the-food-chain and making-a-decision-and-carrying-it-out-in-as-clear-and-beautiful-way-as-possible. The moment I thrust a knife blade into the neck of the stunned lamb to cut the arteries, the moment I'm acting purely guided by all of these emotions. (And, afterwards, if I pause to rationally analyse the situation, all of those emotions make sense from the logical and scientific point of view. I fail to see a contradiction of emotion / reason here.)

Then, another topic:
23. After prolonged socializing you feel you need to get away and be alone. I answered YES. But this one clearly has more to do with the holes of my soul bucket. No, don't get me wrong - I know that even without any depression-like symptoms I will need a healthy dose of solitude. I see my need to be alone, and I don't see it as a hole in the bucket. Some of it might be dents, but dents are not a problem as long as the water stays in. Holes are a problem, as the more the bucket leaks, the more often it needs to be refilled. Dropping the metaphors, for me there are situations when I recognize that I feel unnecessary panic and fear in social situations. Often I can cope with that inner panic and behave in a pretty normal way, so that most of the time the other people might not even notice the panic I carry inside. But coping with panic is very energy consuming, and soon I need to get away and to be alone. Especially, as this often happens also with the people I really like, it is bit like wanting to return to playing football but having a broken leg. I have an inner feeling that without the inner panic I would enjoy some social situations more deeply, more freely, more fully, and find them less energy-consuming. Therefore, I'd like to fix certain holes in the social area of my soul bucket. Not to have my bucket look like "normal", not to be like the others. But purely to fix my own bucket so that it better serves me with watering the soul plants I love.

Finally, 39. You are strongly touched by the stories about people's troubles makes me wonder. I often hear that to be strongly touched means to be over-flooded with the pains and trouble of others. If I hear a person telling a story about her troubles, then if I start crying because of all the pain the story has, then I'm strongly touched. And if I'm not flooded with pain and sorrow, then I'm rational and distanced, right? Once again, I do understand that many people find it that way, it is just that personally I can't relate with these dichotomies. I think most of the time I'm deeply touched with the stories of other people - but most of the time those feelings of empathy are enveloped with feelings of cosmic tranquility and peace. After surviving this and that trouble, I don't get knocked over with stories of troubles. I sympathize with them, I feel the pain and sorrow involved, and I have a feeling of resilience, I feel "it will be all right!", and therefore I don't feel like crying and weeping in the face of human problems.

On the other hand, sometimes I might be moved to tears simply because of the beauty of the story. That happened yesterday in the local supermarket. I went to the counter to pay, and before me in the queue there was a gentleman carrying only a 24-can case of beer. Something in his habitus told that his winter clothes were donated by a charity and that he might be more towards the sad end of alcoholic spectrum. Yet, he behaved like a polite gentleman, and the lady working at counter treated him as a fellow human. The man handed some money to the lady and grumbled something which the lady couldn't pick every word of. But then the lady understood that the money was not enough to pay for the whole case, so they needed to remove some cans from the case to make the price lower. But somehow, the fingers of that man were in a poor condition and he couldn't remove the cans himself. So, the kind lady did it for him - smiled and said "I remove three cans, and now it is OK, you'll get a 50 cent of change, here you go!" The man left with his reduced case of beer, and I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye - merely by the way how the lady treated the alcoholic man with dignity. Well, I know the situation is bit more complex than that - it might be justified to ask, if it would be more compassionate to tell the man not to buy that beer because it is not good for him, and to hand him a leaflet about free treatment for alcoholics? What dignity there is to help a man to ruin his life? Then, on the other hand, I think there is some more layers to this. For example, telling that "drinking that much beer is not good for you, go seek therapy!" might be like saying "your bucket is not good with all those dents on it, I don't want to interact with you, go away and only come back when your bucket looks better!". Given that situation in the supermarket, I think the lady found the best possible way to show dignity towards the man, to tell that "dents or not, it is not a problem for me, I'll serve you just like the others, and offer some extra help if your hands aren't in a shape to remove three cans from the case." - and, ultimately, it might be this kind of little actions of friendliness, which one day might accumulate and make an alcoholic to seek help for his problems. Or, at least, to die with what dignity there is left. (This is towards what I mean by cosmic tranquility - I know sometimes some problems are too big to solve, and eventually a person will collapse under the burden of trouble. Yet, that doesn't make the universe seem like a bad place in my eyes. Trouble and death of an individual is always a tragedy, there is nothing merry about it. But hidden inside all the misery, we all are made of the mysterious Flow of Life, and that great Flow of Life in itself is somehow wonderful and beautiful.)

PS. No picture today. Instead I'll mention about the title. A classic book by philosopher Edmund Husserl is titled Cartesian Meditations, where he goes to explore and to re-define some of the key notions of the philosophical legacy of René Descartes. The central topics are mind (the conscious experience) / body (the world out there, which is thought to be reflected in the conscious experience). I sometimes like to mimic that title, especially when dealing with these same questions =)

EDIT: Ah, more or less unrelated, just a song by Hermmani Turkki.