Vita

Personality

1. I
   1. What I am
   2. I’m old-fashioned
2. In general

1. I

1.1. What I am

As a rationalist and a cerebral type, I’m more of a mistake theorist. I’m also a high-decoupler. (To me, the majority of people seem to be rather passionate, conflict theorists and/or low-decouplers, which often causes misunderstanding. 👉 debating with people.)

I think my Myers–Briggs personality type is ISTJ (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judgment).

I have what Thomas Sowell calls a constrained vision of the world.

1.2. I’m old-fashioned

I have always been an old man. I was old since I was born.

By that I mean that, compared to my peers, I always tended to be antiquated in my ways and to have unfashionable interests. Examples:

• Reading:
  • I think a lot about books, newspapers and magazines. I read them. Often, I even read them on physical paper. I don’t know many (any?) other people my age who buy a newspaper or a magazine at a kiosk from time to time, or who is content to pick up an old edition of some book instead of downloading/buying an electronic version.
  • Among those readings, I am most interested in the oldest, less trendy ones. For instance, I prefer the classics of world literature and the ancient essays to the latest best-seller and the recent popular novel. When I buy a magazine, it’s usually The Economist or something of the sort (OK: or something funny like El Jueves).
  • I usually join my local library wherever I live (I did it in London, in Madrid, in Tokyo, in Madrid again…), visit it, and sometimes (not much) borrow items.
• Writing: I pay a lot of attention to spelling and to good writing. Even when I’m texting. For instance, I never, ever, write things like “gonna”, or “4 you”. In Spanish, and even when on my cell phone, I never miss an accent, a necessary comma, or an opening inverted question or exclamation mark. For me, those details are important. Again, I don’t even know if I know somebody else who does that.
• Fashion: I am very dull and old-fashioned in my dressing. This is something I would like to change a bit, in truth. But it’s been decades already, and I never seem to start caring enough to try to dress like someone in the current age. I feel more rejection than most of my peers at the ways teenagers and very young adults dress these days.
• Manners: I am rigid in my manners, and expect others to be polite the old way, too. I don’t like being treated as “tú” instead of “usted” by strangers, shop attendants, and the like. I don’t like it when passers-by hit you with a question or a comment without prefacing it with a perfunctory “hi” or “excuse me”. I hate it when people play music out loud from their phones or speakers in public space.

2. In general

Although it’s a gross simplification, I can usually classify people around me into two groups:

• Left-brain dominant: logical; realistic; introverted;
  calm; dispassionate; facts-oriented;
  like maths, the sciences and tech
• Right-brain dominant: intuitive; idealistic; extroverted;
  excitable; emotional; feelings-oriented;
  like language, spirituality and the arts

(Again: this is not scientifically accurate, but a heuristic I tend to apply, almost unconsciously.)

Often, I find it hard to interact with right-brain dominant people. Conversation is difficult (not to mention debate).

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