Virtuoso

[igenlode]

I did yet another Myers-Briggs test (I've played around with them for 25 years or so, and the only consistent result is that I'm contradictory and inconsistent -- and introverted), and this time got a 'character type' label of Virtuoso.
Which as a one-word summary does actually sound quite apt!

Identity ranking: 96% 'turbulent', i.e. constantly second-guessing everything. 91% introversion: well, we know that...

On the other hand: "optimistic and energetic" -- no, not either. "Cheerful and good-natured, rarely getting stressed out" -- no, not at all. "Relaxed, refusing to worry about the future" -- just... no.

Comments

[erimia]

"Contradictory and inconsistent and introverted" basically summarizes most of my attempts to take a personality test. Though Myers-Briggs is better than most here, I guess, because I consistently get INT result, only P/J component constantly varies.

[betweensunandmoon]

I've heard that you should stay away from online tests if you're trying to figure out your Myers-Briggs type, as they tend to be inaccurate. Maybe try this instead? https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
Also, hi, INFP over here.

[igenlode]

I've just located the original (non-online) test results from my first acquaintance with Myers-Briggs circa 2001, which involved answering about a hundred questions -- in two sections, primary and supplementary.

According to the primary set, I was an INTJ.
According to the secondary set, I was either an ESTJ or an INFP -- "these results conflict with the evaluation", it says apologetically ;-p

The set of questions I just did produced ISTP, which is yet another widely-varying combination. It really doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the boast that "the MBTI instrument.... produces the same results when given more than once (reliability)" ;-p

[betweensunandmoon]

That's why I like the Enneagram better—Myers-Briggs is way too complicated.

[watervole]

I always think personality tests end up telling you what you know already, but we do them because they make us feel that someone else understands us.

[igenlode]

I think the description of them as being basically the intellectual equivalent of astrology is pretty accurate; the reader zooms in on those parts that happen to be relevant and says "oh, how perceptive!" while ignoring the other random parts that bear no relation to reality at all.

[watervole]

You're totally right. Tarot reading works in exactly the same way.

[betweensunandmoon]

I take offense to that--if something in a tarot reading appears not to relate to your situation, it's probably telling you about something you didn't know was there, but should pay attention to. Either that, or you're asking the wrong question. At least, that's been my experience, and I've been studying tarot for around a decade.

As for astrology, it's actually a lot more complicated than just your Sun sign—there are dozens of factors in any one individual's birth chart that all influence each other.

[igenlode]

The relative apparent positions of the various stellar bodies visible from the Earth's northern hemisphere have nothing whatsoever to do with the personalities of human beings who happen to be born in the same city at the same time, let alone with predicting their future. (If you look at it from a perspective encompassing the universe beyond our solar system, the whole idea is manifestly bizarre -- it dates back to the belief that the sun and stars were bodies orbiting the earth).

[betweensunandmoon]

Well, of course they don't—that's absurd. :P

Astrology doesn't predict your future, it predicts your present.

[igenlode]

The movements of the stars (an optical illusion caused by the rotation of our planet and not by any activity on their part) have nothing to do with the present lives of little scraps of humanity on a single planet thousands of light-years away.

They are big balls of gas orbited by planetary systems of their own. They do not even exist in constellations as we perceive them (stars in the same 'constellation' just happen to line up when you view them from a certain location in our galaxy and aren't in fact anywhere near each other). They have zero influence on our daily existence, personalities, propensities, etc.

Astrology has as much basis in reality as the creation myths of the Sumerians or the Romans' habit of casting oracles from animal entrails.

[betweensunandmoon]

I might just be sleep-deprived, but I find it kind of funny that we're having an argument about planets.

I'm not nearly as much into astrology as I used to be, so I honestly don't care that much. Just let me have my pieces of cardstock with pretty pictures on them, and I'll let the various heavenly bodies in our solar system mind their own business.