Who Are You? Who Am I?

In her comment on yesterday's blog, CSIowa writes, "I think we could get along quite well in this world without anyone thinking s/he knows what work anyone else should be doing."

Thank you, CSIowa. And for that I'll continue my rant from yesterday. Just for today, OK? It's not only that we think in diverse ways about work. We judge each other in diverse ways. And to be honest, I don't think we know much about the other person--or maybe even the other person in ourselves. Is it possible that Jesus knew about all of this when he said, "Judge not?" 

Years ago, I went into an extended midlife crisis. I'm not unique. But I realized I just didn't know what I wanted or even what I could want. I was teaching at the University of Minnesota at the time and hunted down a woman from the student counseling center, who agreed to talk with me. I  started by taking the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory and then several other tests. I don't remember their names, but one of them aligned my personality with the types of jobs I might consider. At the very top of that list, numero uno, was "artist."

I was stunned. I had never considered being an artist. I didn't know any artists. I knew performers, but I didn't know artists, and my impression was that artists were an odd bunch. Skipping to the bottom line, I not only did not know much about myself. If I had not just taken that test, I would have thought I was, as my mother used to say, "kinda differnt." I spelled her words the way she said them, in case anyone is wondering.

It's not only that we work differently. It goes much deeper than that. We all too often think people who work differently and act differently and think differently are "kinda differnt." Thus people who enjoy interacting a lot, who charge into their jobs with full vigor, may not understand people who prefer to work alone. Here's one diagram of how, for example, extroverts and introverts differ:

It's not that one of us is more valuable. It's just that we're "differnt." That's all. People who think rationally may not understand people who think intuitively. And vice versa. In fact, we're inclined to think of people across the fence from us as "kinda differnt," and we tend to steer clear of them. But I'm inclined to agree with a friend who said recently, "We're all just meat suits."

And sometimes it goes deeper than that. At times we are inclined to imagine people who think differently from us as disabled or handicapped in some way. I had a recent conversation with a person, who said a sibling was somewhat mentally handicapped. But this sibling, the person  continued, has found a way to become a stained-glass artist. All kinds of complex designs in stained glass. This sibling has made stained glass windows for mansions and churches and public buildings, and the work is highly sought after and prized. Yet because the two siblings think in opposing ways, one more rationally, one more intuitively, they are kinda differnt from each other.

It seems like a terrible loss to me that we all too often just "don't get" each other and therefore pass by like trains in the fog. The end.