Light it Up

Emily Hohneke-3

       Dance. Lighting up on the stage.

I chose this picture because it’s a picture of me dancing, and dancing shows the different parts of my personality through the different styles. My flash fiction piece tells people that I enjoy expressing myself through dance, and my personality shines through me to light up the stage. Dance brings joy in my life, helps me get through bad days, and embrace the good ones. My face in my picture really shows my enjoyment towards dance, and how I just have a good time when I’m out on the stage. I turned it to black and white so the reader could paint their own interpretation of the colors in the picture to portray an idea of a lyrical style to it, because lyrical is all about painting a picture or telling a story through the movement of dance. I chose to be in my jazz costume because that’s my favorite style of dance, and it’s when I truly am lighting up on the stage because I’m the most happy. I’m a very energetic person and jazz incorporates that aspect of my personality and lets me express it.  

Personality Myth

Many people believe that everyone has a personality, whether that personality stays consistent or not is the argument. Experts have looked into personality and said that part of our personality we are born with and the learned aspects of it develops through age and stays pretty consistent. Others argue that people are capable of changing their personalities and that it is not consistent at all.

In “The Personality Myth” podcast Lulu Miller and Alix Spiegel explore the idea of your personality staying consistent. In the podcast they said “personality is an illusion, you can reconfigure your personality.”  Miller and Spiegel believe that people can change their personality and it’s not consistent. In the podcast Miller and Spiegel interview married couples and ask them questions based on their significant others’ personality to see if their personality changed or stayed consistent. Many of the people thought that their partner's’ personality had not stayed consistent, and some even said they married the other person thinking their personality would stay consistent. Another part of the podcast Miller and Spiegel interviewed Dan, a former gang member who talked about his personality and said “it was easier to be a no-good motherfucker than to be alone.” He then talked about how he changed his choices, thoughts, actions, feelings, and in theory his personality.

I agree with the personality myth podcasts’ idea that your personality is simply an illusion and can change. People change their future plans and some people even change jobs, which usually are chosen based on some part of your personality. For example, if you're someone who is an introvert you're probably not going to chose to be a nurse since you would be talking to people you don’t necessarily know all day. But if people around you start to make you more comfortable with talking to people and become more like an extrovert becoming a nurse is a bigger possibility. Although I believe that personality can change, I also believe that some parts of personality stay consistent. Memories slightly influence people’s personalities. But some memories are going to be so significant that they will affect a personality forever. Therefore, some parts of a person’s personality stays consistent while the other parts may not.