I attempt to write a manual for understanding my personaility

After an interesting 3 way discussion deriving from Christina's Shout vs Split culture post and how that links into dating etc. And then an interesting discussion on egos and so forth that generated some interesting questions and thoughts.

Any way ended up thinking/discussion a lot about my personality, so here are a few thoughts.

First up thinking about the underling basis or belief in my personality I'd say that for me it is:

• "I'm nothing, but that won't stop me" (negative and chaotic)
• While the underlying drive is a "love and desire for knowledge".
• Mixed with a Darwinian idea of the survival of the fittest.
  

As a result I spend far to much time thinking about things and thinking about thinking. Which means I fall prey to the trap of trying to determine all possible out comes especially for social interactions.
I think I know my self quite well and can model and determine my own actions in advance, but when it comes to trying to work out what others are thinking/feeling. That while I can empathise with there emotions i.e. feel others pain physical or emotional. I have problems working out the cause and am unable to interact with out some knowledge of the cause.
I must know something or I will not act in fear of making it worse. As a result I try to work out what they're thinking but hit a problem that I don't understand or know their underling biases, unlike for my self. Thus I'm forced to start extrapolating which when combined with the underling idea of "I'm nothing" leads to such thoughts heading in negative directions, trying to plan and work out ways of dealing with everything that could go wrong or has gone wrong.

With all the extrapolation needed for this I end up being locked up mentally, frozen and unable to interact. Thankfully and I suspect the only reason I don't get depressed is the rather chaotic ability to mentally go "stuff this" and to stop thinking about it. This doesn't mean I'll act it simply means I will stop worrying about it at least for a while and stop digging my self an ever deeper mental hole which could potentially lead to depression.


As such when I aim to change my self these underling biasis and drives combine, I think I see/understand far too well the many elements that make me up and how they all interact. The result being that I have problems working out what or where I should start making changes. While at the same time there is the knowledge that I have missed something and thus this internal model of how I think, could/is wrong and thus any changes based on it may fail. It doesn't stop me from changing (after all I'm still somewhat chaotic) but it does massively slow me down and makes most changes to be very deliberate actions or spontaneous events with no apparent reason behind them.

I guess that that is the delight and curse of having a personality that finds examining it's self interesting and an intellect that is capable of allowing me to do so, along with a mixed negative and chaotic basis.

As a result I've always been my own worst critic, and that while I can be hurt to a fair degree by others opinions of me. What I think they think of me is usually worse than what they actually think of me, leading me to often be pleasantly surprised, if highly suspicious that they may be faking it.
I guess that also feeds in to those silly love languages, where my prefered one is "Quality time". This may possibly be partly because I enjoy spending time with people being a social animal (as in the scientific use of the term) and also partly becuase the more time I spend with some one, the better I can model them mentally and the more I'll be able to understand them (this increasing my knowledge, my primary drive).
Touch then comes second becuase if it is either deliberate or unconscious, there is likely some meaning behind it in that one way it's a delibrate choice while the other it is being comfortable enough that it is not something to be worried about. Still if I have any suspicion that it is being used for some other reason, a tease or joke I can't stand it.
Then all the others come because to me they're meaning less and it's far to hard to tell if there as any particular reason behind it or if it's a conscious lie or illusion on the others part.

Damn this post has ended up longer than I thought. So there you have it a fragment of a possible manual to understanding a part of my personality, and I won't go into the Darwinian aspects this time.

What I'm curious about is:

• What are other peoples underling biases and primary drives? Are they like me "I'm nothing but that isn't going to stop me", just "I'm nothing", "I'm cool" or "I'm perfect" or some thing completely different.

• And what about your primary drives is it "knowledge", "relationships" of one of the many other possibilities.

Please I'd love to hear from you.

After all the more I learn, the better and the more I can stick in my internal models of people :P

Oh and here is a cat picture and a sunset becuase I like these photos

Rights

Warning what follows is probably a meaningless rant, containing a large amount of hyperbola, and the pushing of Idea's beyond what I actually think.

One thing that I think is over used and some what bastardised at the current time is the idea of rights.
People, the Media, various groups and Politicians all seem to have something present in the background of there thoughts something they call rights.
Some thing you should have or deserve simply because you exist, or because your a member of a certain country or segment of society or something. For some reason that usually isn't logical or well thought out these people deserve something some "rights".
Be this the right to free speech, Human rights, the right for the disabled to enter public buildings, the right to economic equality, or what ever.
The problem being that they seem to think these rights some how exist out side the normal order of things, that they just are, they're something you have or get not something you work for or do any thing about, the universe or other people just owe you them.

However I really don't see how this works. As far as I can tell the universe owes you exactly squat/zero that your'd actually want to collect (the only thing it may owe you death/entropy, but that's something most don't want to collect).
What I think rights are actually (rather than some debt the universe owes you) is a set of shared ideas/recommendations that are useful for helping human societies function. They seem to be ideas that if ignored are likely to have consequences due to the manner in which human's nature/mind work.

The important thing about these "recommendations" is that of you except them there are certain responsibilities associated with them that must be followed if you desire the right.
ie If you want human rights then it is imperative that you grant them to others. If you fail to then don't go complaining if yours get violated.
As such "rights" of this type can be considered to be the underlying frame work human society is based on. However it is essential to remember that such rights are not some fundamental intrinsic absolute. They only exist as an agreement between you and the rest of your species.

Any way it appears that somewhere along the way to our current society the responsibility aspect of such rights has been forgotten. People see equality as a right and this and that as a right. Maybe as a result of companies believing they have a right to profit with no regard to those who they profit from, or perhaps it's politicians voluntary to take all your responsibilities if you'll only just elect them, or the media going "oww look shiny, you need!" whenever something interesting turns up.
For example equality is not a right if you want equality it's something your going to have to work for.

On a slightly related note I'd thought I'd add a quote from a little TV/Anime series I was watching recently. It's not something I totally agree on but I do have a certain amount of sympathy for the Idea.

"People are not equal, Those who are born fleet of foot, those who are born beautiful, those who's parents, are poor those who have weak bodies.
Birth, growth and talent, All humans are different!
That's right people are born to be different!
That is why people fight and compete with one another!
From there Evolution takes place.
Inequality is not evil, equality it's self is evil!
We fight, compete and continue to evolve"



Finally I guess the point of this post was that rights come with responsibilities, if they don't they're just dreams, illusions of a delusional mind.
So don't expect any rights unless your prepared to work for them.

Friendship/Relationship Inhibitions

I've been thinking a bit lately about how I treat people, and the differing level of behaviours I associate with different levels of relationships. In specific the differing levels of trust, and willingness to communicate with people.

As a result I decided to sketch out a list of the way I treat people with regards to how well I know them. Though the list people has distinct categories in reality it's more of a continuum. Also thinking about it there are two significant continuum's. One for friends and one for blood relatives.
There undoubtedly should also be a third category being "spouse" but seeing I don't even have a girl friend I decided that was best left out.

Any way here is a list of some of the different ways I treat people depending on the type and state of the relationship.

Strangers:

• Limited to small talk about, a current event, the weather or something similar.
• Physical contact: minimal/none

Acquittance's:

• Happy to talk about every day stuff, ie job, study, current events etc
• Interested in certain of their primary interests
• Physical contact: Handshake level

Distant friends:

• Happy to discuss a bit about what I'm doing, what they're doing, there primary interests
• Physical contact: Handshake/backslap level

Friends:

• Happy to talk about most stuff, what I'm doing, what they're doing, Interests, opinions, what I feel in brief
• Willing to help if needed
• Happy to make jokes at their/my expense
• Physical contact: Don't mind hugs from members of the "fairer sex", but I won't initiate them {way to shy}.

Close/Best friends:

• Happy to talk about nearly anything, Interests, opinions, beliefs, hobbies, past times, future aspirations, emotions/feelings (to a limited degree) etc
• Enjoy spending time with them even if nothing much is happening
• Want to know more about them what makes them up as a person
• Likely to attend events I'm not particularly interested in they're going to
• Willing to go out of way to help if needed.
• Will answer many personally questions directly if asked (ie birthday, middle name, other personal)
• Physical contact: Happy with hugs from members of the "fairer sex" {from the other sex would require exceptional circumstances :-)}, but I won't initiate them {way to shy to do that}.

Girl Friend (never yet reached so theoretical :-P):

• All attributes assigned to best friend
• Would answer pretty much any personal question truthfully and directly
• Interested in everything about them, their friends, family, interests, desires etc
• Greatly enjoy spending time with them, and strongly desire to do so
• Physical contact: holding hands, hugs, kissing, general physical contact imitated by either party etc {hmm not sure I should include this bit :) seems a little odd!}
• And many other things that will no doubt be determined should I every find someone who is equally as interested in my self

The second continuum would be for family, direct and extended (all blood relations). The continuum would be much the same as for the friendship one with a few additions at all levels and obviously lacking the girl friend category (nearly posted it with out this bit :| that would have been bad, I can quite easily imagine some of the comments!)

Blood relatives/Family:

• Willing to discuss most stuff
• Willing to answer many personal questions truthfully
• Interested in most things about them
• Physical contact: Hugs, kisses both genders fine

Any way this hopefully gives you some idea of the possibly bizare personal inhibitions I have floating around somewhere in my head.
Note that these aren't hard and fast categories, they are the result of a mix of thoughts from rather late at night.

Also do other people also note that they treat people differently depending on how well they know them?

I'd expect most to do so, and I'd expect that most people would have quite differing degrees of how they treat people when compared to each other.