Learning you

Two housewives, Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel, who had been investigating human personality traits around Katherine's kitchen table in the early 1920s, were excited when the psycologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung published his 1923 book on the same subject. They took his findings to a new level, extrapolating his theories to create a repeatable personality preference survey, finally producing the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which is widely used in psychological and employment testing today. Katherine started her research partly as a result of being disgusted with the waste of war, during WWI, thinking there must be a better way for men to resolve their disputes.

Katherine was home schooled and home schooled her daughter Isabel as well. Isabel's father, Lyman Briggs, worked in the field of physics, being director of the Bureau of Standards in Washington. Isabel grew up in Washington and later attended Swarthmore  College, earning a degree in political science, She met her husband of 61 years, "Chief" Clarence Myers. during college.

Like her mother, Isabel was concerned with stopping conflict among people, and intensified her research when WWII came. She was allowed to test over 5000 students at George Washington University, and studied the results for years, looking for patterns among dropouts and successful students.

I'm guessing she was an intuitive since she was so fixated on patterns.

Ok, so they were very educated housewives.

Which one are you? No, really...

Have any of you ever checked out your personality profile? It seems to be all the rage now - at least there are tests all over the internet. You've got your Carl Jung and your Myers-Briggs. You have engrams and colors and... more.

Save your time - I've narrowed them all down into one condensed version for you. I call it the Max Unfailing Personality Profile Estimating Technique (MUPPET). You can forget about all your Introverted Thinking and ENTP The Mastermind and all that. The way I figure it, there are only three types of basic personality types in this world: Homer Simpson, Ned Flanders and Mr. Burns. Which is to say "Clueless", "Religious" and "Asshole".

Kidding. Rewinding.

My three REAL base personality types are "Investigator-Planners", "Craftsmen-Artists" and "Helper-Savers".

In the first group you have all the Scientists, Inventors, Planners, Engineers, Architects and what not - people who generally use their brains to make their living. Even Walmart managers are in this bin.

In the second group are the people who are only happy when their hands are making something. Machinists. Potters. Sculptors. Woodworkers. Surgeons. Maybe not surgeons.

In the last group are your Bishop Tutus, Ned Flanderses and Mother Theresas, of course, but also counselors, schoolteachers, crossing guards and homeless-shelter organizers. And surgeons, probably. And paramedics (unless they were just unemployed and needed to cross-train.)

Painters and dancers and photographers and musicians fall into the "Interpreter" personality type. Wait. There is no such type.

Four. FOUR personality types.

Never mind.