Hartog’s Den

I went to California this past weekend to see Nalin perform in Death of a Salesman. He remarked that it was an incredibly apropos play for the subjects I have been thinking and writing about; namely, rejecting the establishment’s definitions and demands in order to define my life on my own terms.

I did enjoy the play, very much; I also very much enjoyed the steak and mushrooms we had beforehand at Foxy’s diner, but what I find myself thinking about now that I am back home in my much-beloved Phoenix is the conversation we had around the steak.

Nalin has been doing leadership training for his job which involved discussing his Meyers-Briggs personality type, and he took the time over dinner to explain each of the categories to me, and to help me figure out which of them applied to me. He also explained that while the tests give relatively good indications of people’s preferences, ideally the best way to figure it out is by talking to a psychologist and deciding yourself, because it’s easy to answer the questions in a way that indicates how you want to be perceived, by other people or by yourself, rather than how you truly prefer to interact with the world.

Turns out I am an INFJ, which requires much more detailed explanation than I have an inclination to give; but he talked me through each dichotomous pair of preferences (introverted/extroverted, intuitive/sensing, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving). When we got to the last one I said, “I think this is the one I have trouble deciding about; I think I’m really close.”

Then he explained to me the difference between judging and perceiving types—that perceiving types tend to find it difficult to make decisions, and like to look at things from a number of different angles. I was still a little confused and I said, “Well, I like to look at things from both sides, but most of the time I find I split things into dichotomies and feel like I have to choose one or the other.” By the time the sentence was out of my mouth I knew I had answered the question, and Nalin said,

“Wow. You are so J.”

This became rather a motif for the remainder of the trip; every time I opened my mouth to explain how I felt about something he would tell me how “J” I was.

But I thought about it for a while on the drive home, and today at work, and I began to realize just how much that particular inclination of mine affects me. I see literally everything this way (see? There I go again with the extremes). When it comes to my mood, either I am happy or I am practically suicidal; when I choose something, either I am right in a decision or I have made the biggest mistake of my lifetime; when it comes to exercise, either I am a full-fledged long-distance runner or I sit home and smoke hookah every day; and when it comes to my writing, the thing I want to do, either I am Ernest goddamn Hemingway or I am just some nobody girl in a cubicle, destined to live a life of obscurity and middle-class Willie Loman despair.

My love for the arts hasn’t helped me; there are innumerable instances of this idea everywhere around me: Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be,” and Bob Dylan’s: “If something’s not right, it’s wrong,” and, in the words of a particularly famous “J” (ha!): “Do—or do not. There is no try.” This can be a very useful way to look at things, like when your dead father asks you to kill your uncle, who happens to be the king; or when the fate of the Empire rests in your hands; or when your multi-million-dollar X-wing fighter is sinking into an obscure swamp at an alarming rate; but it is decidedly less useful when you are simply starting a new exercise regimen, or when you are trying to learn how to play the guitar. It is a very poetic and often inspiring way to see the world, but it also has given me absolutely no means for achieving the sorts of things that take years, and a number of false starts, to achieve. I have no way of coping with failure. The only way I’ve managed to stay a runner is because I came up with an entirely different reason for running than staying in shape, which was my mental health—it keeps my endorphins high, and gets me outside in nature, both of which combat the mild depression I experience due to my incessant brain ping-pong. I had to pick an entirely new purpose for running just so I wouldn’t feel like I failed at being in shape on the first day.

So yes, I’m a little “J.”

It has already begun to give me a great deal of relief to know that this is just the manner in which it is easiest for me to understand the world, and that it isn’t the way things actually are. I’m sure this sounds a little silly to you much less “J” people, but this is revolutionary for me. I have already been able to say to myself a couple times, “Okay, that’s not the way it really is, you’re doing it again,” or, more pointedly, “For the love of God, Hil, you’re allowed to have a freaking piece of cake occasionally.”

I still think I like this way of looking at the world. It serves to clarify things and adds a lot of depth and meaning with the contrast it provides; and when it comes to the important things in life, there really is no “try.” But I think I can probably stop worrying about the cake.