Why Extroverts Need to Read The Velveteen Rabbit

Ah, Myers-Briggs and children’s literature. The most natural combination in the world.

But really now. The connection will make sense eventually, I promise.

The Velveteen Rabbit, a heartwarming children’s story by Margery Williams, is about a stuffed rabbit who is loved by a little boy. Think Toy Story, but with scarlet fever. (Read the whole thing. It’s delightful.)

My favorite part of the book is when our hero talks with an old toy horse about how toys become Real:

“Real isn't how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn't happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time.”

So, here’s my thought: extroverts sometimes have a problem being Real.

Now, extroverts are not shallow people. This is a common misconception, probably because we sometime say stupid things when processing out loud (instead of processing internally first and only saying the things that sound really smart). And also because introverts will often see us as melodramatic and attention-seeking. Really, though, extroverts are capable of deep thoughts just like introverts.

We sometimes struggle, though, with shallow relationships. And with projecting a shallow image of ourselves so that everyone will like us.

The Myers-Briggs Conspiracy

If they had a place to subtitle blogs (or if I was self-confident enough to use a colon in the title of something that isn’t an academic paper), this post would be called The Myers-Briggs Conspiracy: Or Why My Personality Is Culturally Advantaged.

I am an ENFP. Here is a cool graphic representation of what the personality test people think this means.

Seriously, look at the words written on the head. I sound like the most delightful person you would ever want to meet. I practically exude rainbow-colored light all around me and cause flowers to bloom in my path.

You know what it doesn’t say? It doesn’t tell you what I struggle with and what my weaknesses are, even the ones that are directly tied to my ENFP-ness. Expressive? Yes, to the point of being a show-off. Persuasive? Mm hmm, with manipulative tendencies. Value authenticity? Right on, and I might actively avoid you if I think you’re shallow. Sociable? Sure, and also dependent on the approval of others.

(I didn’t put up just this picture because I’m a crazy egotist. I just couldn’t figure out how to download all of them as one picture. Here's the rest of the gallery--find your own type. If you don't know your type, check out a quiz I posted a while back.)

What to Do With Banished Adjectives

Most articles on ways to improve writing will give a very simple rule: cut adjectives and adverbs. Instead, use strong nouns and verbs.

And they’re right. Adjectives are like sprinkles. Used in the right way, they can add just the right dash of color, but they really don’t have much substance and can easily be overdone. (Or maybe I’m just biased against sprinkles because I threw up a bunch of them when I got food poisoning a few years ago…long story.)

The time when the no-adjective rule is most likely to apply is when it comes to characters. There are so many more ways to show what people are like that we shouldn’t need to slap on one-word descriptions. Unlike, say, a rock, which can’t do much to demonstrate that it’s rough or igneous or whatever, a person’s words and actions can substitute for adjectives.

Don’t tell us he’s quirky. Show him playing “Little Mermaid” songs an accordion just because it sounded like fun. Don’t tell us she’s a bad loser. Have her slam her cards down on the Candy Land board and accuse her seven-year-old cousin of cheating. Suddenly, adjectives aren’t necessary.

Legalism and Spell Check

I want to make sure that no one got the wrong impression from what I said about excellence in Wednesday’s post. Sometimes, I tend to take my perspective and preach it to the world, without taking time to consider the other side.

And I know there is another side to this because when I was a sophomore in high school, I decided that what I needed to do in order to be a better writer was turn off spell check.

Yep. That was my secret to success. I was going to get rid of those squiggly lines forever. Not because I held some hippie-like belief that I should just try spelling words however I felt like to free myself from an oppressive and arbitrary system of spelling. I just thought that being forced to look up words I didn’t know how to spell in an actual dictionary would be a good discipline to get into and (somehow, not sure how this was going to work) make me a more careful editor.

When I gave up on this little program after only three weeks, I chalked it up to laziness and felt a little ashamed of my “failure.”

Later, I learned this important rule: making something harder is not the same as making something better.

Survivor and Stuff

Recently, several of the Focus on the Family interns have been watching an old season of Survivor. Before I started it, my perception of Survivor was some island where people ate bugs and did obstacle courses and stuff, which didn’t seem like my kind of show.

So imagine my surprise when I started to really get into it. Yes, shouting at the TV, making predictions, dreaming that night that the interns went on Survivor and someone put scorpions in my sleeping bag . . . it was pretty bad.

I finally figured out why I love the show so much. Once you look past all the drama and manipulation and backstabbing and lying, it’s really just a strategy game.

Well, actually, if you look past the drama, manipulation, backstabbing, and lying, you miss most of the strategy. That’s because it isn’t a clinical kind of strategy game where you objectively move pawns based on set rules. You’re dealing with people, and people have emotions and personalities and complexity that a black-and-white chessboard doesn’t.

In Survivor, you would think it’s all very clear-cut. There is one goal: outlasting the other competitors to win a million dollars.

But so many things complicate that goal. And the contestants themselves do most of the complicating. That’s why reality TV works—because people are interested in other people, and this gives them a chance to see a group of real-life characters as they really are, playing a game with high stakes when they’re tired, hungry, and stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Pretending to be Myers-Briggs, Part 4

“Judging” and “Perceiving” are really vague titles that don’t give you an accurate picture of what they’re supposed to mean. Judgment has a negative connotation, like some old lady waving a crooked finger at you and squinting in old-fashioned condemnation. No one is really sure what perceiving means, unless they think of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride closing his eyes and letting his sword guide him to the right spot.

(What, no one else thought of that in connection with the word “perception?” Okay, fine. I’m weird.)

These labels are probably the least helpful out of the bunch. I would have renamed them “Structured” and “Unstructured,” but S is already used and it doesn’t sound quite as official. Also, I am not, in fact, Myers-Briggs.

Shame.

I am a firm P, meaning that I’m very flexible and slightly disorganized. Right now, I 100% guarantee that my sister is reading this and going, “Slightly? Are you kidding me? Have you seen her desk?” This is because Erika is a firm J. Whenever she can, she’ll grid things up, check them off, and arrange them in alphabetical order.

Pretending to be Myers-Briggs, Part 2

This week, we move on to Sensing vs. iNtuition. (Yes, spell check tried to automatically correct the deviant capitalization. Fight back. The people who created this test were geniuses. Spell check is just a computerized tool. Who are you going to side with here?)

Introvert and extrovert have entered our daily vocabulary. Pretty much everyone knows what they mean, and they sound like words too, which is a bonus. But it would sound pretty dumb if I called people who fit into these next categories “Sensors” and “Intuitors.” (Although they do sound like some kind of mutant superheroes with mental powers.) So I’m going to use the terms S and N by themselves, because that sounds slightly less dumb.

Once, my sister asked what the difference was between an S and an N.  A friend of ours said, “The example most people use is how you describe something like this apple.” We decided to give it a try. Here’s how it went.

Erika: That’s an apple. It’s the size of my fist, red—probably Red Delicious—a little bruised…um…there’s a stem. There’s a sticker on the bottom. That’s all I’ve got.

Me: An apple, Red Delicious…I hate those—why do they call it delicious when it’s gross? Snow White. The Fall…except that probably wasn’t an apple. We just portray it that way because red represents temptation, which fits with the Fall. The season of fall, when you pick apples. We went to an apple orchard once, and even though they were freshly picked, the Red Delicious apples still weren’t delicious. William Tell. Newton. Wasn’t that how he discovered gravity? I think I learned that in elementary school. School. Teachers. Children’s alphabet flashcards….

And it went on and on and on.

Pretending to be Myers-Briggs, Part 1

A while ago on Facebook, a few friends of mine posted a helpful informational picture-thingie (there is probably a trendy name for this that I’m too uncool to know). Its title was “How to Care For Introverts,” and despite the fact that it made introverts sound like houseplants, I found it very interesting.

Some of the tips were “Never embarrass them in public,” “Don’t interrupt them,” and “Enable them to find one best friend who has similar interests and abilities.” (Although heaven knows how you enable that…set them up with an online best-friend-finding service that tests their compatibility?) The last one, of course, was “Don’t try to remake them into extroverts.”

Fact of life: extroverts often don’t understand introverts…and, possibly to a lesser degree, introverts often don’t understand extroverts. Being only 10% extroverted on the official Myers Briggs scale, I am going to pretend that I am in some strange middle group that is either super conflicted or mysteriously above petty personality preference distinctions. Therefore, I will dispense wise advice from my position of authority on this subject.