I think anecdotes are a great way to understand people. I don't feel very understood most of the time, which apparently is a peril of my personality type, according to the Meyers-Briggs test which assigns you the four letters. I can never remember my four letters for very long, and I suspect that it has something to do with how everyone can remember theirs, so whenever I tell someone mine, usually right after the test, they tell me theirs, and their initials get sent through the mixer along with mine and before long all the certainty about my letters is gone. I do remember some of the write-up, however, because it described something I'd noticed about myself but hadn't been able to properly elucidate. Socially, it stated, I am a chameleon. Rather than enter in to a situation and just being myself, it stated that being myself actually means blending in to whatever scene I happen to be a part of. As a consequence, it continued, I feel often that most people don't really know or understand me. All of that is true, and I've spent a great many years feeling misunderstood, or not understood at all, and disingenuous. Since being told that I'm a chameleon, I've made some peace with the idea that I change based on my surrounding as a response that is, apparently, natural to my personality type. It's a bit strange, and a little confusing, to wrap my head around it, though. I used to wonder, am I the person I am at home, or the person I am at church, or with my friends, or at school? The answer is, apparently, yes.
I started off talking about anecdotes, and I have one I'd like to share, because I think I need to get it out, and maybe, if you're interested in doing so, you might understand me a bit better. Steph suggested, just a short while ago, that as something fun and free to do, we could go out and test-drive cars. I believe I saw something like this on one of those lists that are popular on websites like Pinterest and Tumblr, telling you how to have a nice free/cheap night out on the town. Those types of lists are fine, so far as they go, but stuff like test-driving vehicles when you have no intention or financial means of buying one makes me feel profoundly uncomfortable. I said this to Steph, who was confused by my reaction. I told her that I felt like requesting a test-drive was initiating a social-contract. You there, car salesperson, in return for allowing me to drive your vehicle around, I promise to consider purchasing said vehicle. It seems to me that it's a pretty clear ethics violation to request that another person hold up their end of the bargain when I know I won't hold up mine. This is why I know I would never be a "successful politician". You have to say that you're going to represent people in exchange for their votes, with no intention of representing them. You also have to be good at misdirection. When people say, "You're not representing us!" to you, you have to then point at someone else and claim it's their fault, then you can be re-elected. I haven't though of a way to misdirect a car salesperson yet, if we were to try do the free test-drive thing repeatedly. That's another reason I wouldn't be a successful politician, they've still go us arguing about whether or not climate change is a real thing, instead of us talking about the pollution problem in general. What I'm saying is that we're all car salespeople who haven't figured out that the people who keep coming back to take free test-drives of our votes have no intention of honoring their end of the bargain.
