Questions Meme from redjo

[randysmith]

The questions:

1. Is there a personality trait that will always make you irrationally hate someone? What is it?
2. Conversely, is there a personality trait that will draw you to someone and make you forgive almost anything else about them?
3. What's your dream job?
4. If you could change one thing about yourself (emotional, mental, physical, you name it) what would you change?
5. If you could be any movie or literary figure for just one day, who would it be and why?



1. Is there a personality trait that will always make you irrationally hate someone? What is it?

Irrationally? I'm not sure I'd say that, but then I have a pretty broad definition of rational, that generally includes emotional reactions that "make sense". So I'll restrict it down to "illogically".

Annoyance can be produced fairly easily; the combination of not understanding something that I or someone else is saying, assuming that you do understand it, and not being open to (polite) correction will generally raise my blood pressure a couple of notches. There are certain kinds of arrogance that can do it (which is amusing given how arrogant I am), as well as making simplified overarching statements about topics that I think are very nuanced and complicated. The last makes it quite hard for me to listen to political debate of almost any sort :-}.

Hate is much harder; I rarely hate people. The only general class of people I hate are people who have badly harmed people I love (*). Beyond that, I can only think of a single case, which was a very extreme example of the annoyance situation above, in a work situation where I had to work with them (I was the lead for the project, and wow I wanted to kill them. That person is now an immediate deselect for any future job). And I'm not even sure I'd call that "hate"; I don't feel condemnatory about them now, I'm just intent on staying very far away from them.

So I guess that actually means "no". Interesting. Not what I thought when I started to answer this question.

(*) This applies to no-one on my friends list, though it does make meeting parents of lovers interesting. Parents have almost always done *something* nasty to their kids; there's too large a spread of time, and people are imperfect. So I reach for balance there--parents have usually done really good things to their kids too.

2. Conversely, is there a personality trait that will draw you to someone and make you forgive almost anything else about them?

If I interpret your question literally, the answer is "no"; there are certain kinds of behavior I just can't imagine forgiving (repeated lying, showing a consistent lack of care for people's feelings, betrayal, etc.). Having said that, an honest striving for seeing oneself clearly, looking for feedback from others and being able to listen when negative feedback is given, being able to accept if not enjoy awareness of negative things about themselves, and traits in that area will go a heck of a long way.

3. What's your dream job?

Arrggh! If I knew, I'd probably have it!! If anyone reading this has any opinions as to the answer to this question for me, please let me know; figuring this out ... well, my life is fairly good, so figuring it out wouldn't just improve my life by an order of magnitude, but it would be quite nice.

But that is not an answer (echoes of Herod's voice :-}). Let me give it a try. My dream job would have all of the following characteristics:

• Heavy intellectual challenge
  
• Co-workers that I had a great deal of respect for and comfort with, and who I would continually be learning from.
  
• Work I felt reasonably competent in. For context: I'm confident that any science/technical work I could become competent in over time. Work requiring fine manual dexterity is pretty much out, unless I could figure out ways to substitute technology and smarts for it. Heavy people interaction (leadership inside organization, customer interaction, coordination with other organizations) is fine, so long as it isn't the entire job. Work involving heavy structuring (see ADD comments in previous post) would be challenging and draining, but if needed I might be able to do it.
  
• Work who's result I valued in a large sense; that I thought was doing good for the world.
  
• Room for other parts of my life; sometimes work could be very demanding, but a lot of the time it would leave me time for my other priorities.
  

4. If you could change one thing about yourself (emotional, mental, physical, you name it) what would you change?

Wow. Tricky. Many things come to mind; how do I pick one? (I think of myself as relatively happy being who I am, but I'm always interested in growing). The ADD is too large, and too much of a plus despite the minuses. I wouldn't mind being a more stable/grounded/secure person, but that's not so bad that it seems worthwhile wasting a wish on it. Similar feelings about physical fitness.

I guess I'll say that I'd like to understand myself better. It's like the other things I mention above; I don't suck at it, but I'm always working on improving it. But it's important to me, and it leads in many other directions; self-understanding lets you manage yourself better.

(The other possibility I seriously considered was "perfectly healthy", where age is thought of as a disease; I'm at that point where the first hints of my body heading downhill are showing up, and I don't like it. But that seemed too large for the kind of wish you're offering :-}, and way selfish given how my health compares to that of many people around me).

5. If you could be any movie or literary figure for just one day, who would it be and why?

So this is going to show up my lack of breadth of culture; I haven't seen many movies and almost all the books I've read are F&SF! The image that most immediately comes to mind is Lyo, the wizard from _The Changeling Sea_, by Patricia McKillip. He had a combination of a depth of understanding of the world and a playfulness about both that understanding and life that really appeals, and I think if I was him for a day I could take some of that with me when I went back to being me.



(As per usual, if you want me to ask you questions and didn't catch the first round, fire away in comments)

Comments

[bethr.livejournal.com]

Would love some. Thanks. :)

[randysmith]

Here you go:
1. What do you most hope to gain from your energy work experience?
2 What need does being poly fill for you? If there isn't a need it fills, what makes you choose a poly life?
3. What's the one thing about your own personality you like best? The one thing you'd most like to change?
4. If you hadn't had kids but had had a happy, satisfying life, what would it have looked like?
5. What's your favorite song? Can you say why?

[mayica.livejournal.com]

Your answer to question 1 (aside from parent issue) is amazingly similar to what I would have said -- arrogance and oversimplification are two of my top "maybe I don't want to spend time with you" markers.