The Acceptance of a Faulty Personality

The Acceptance of a Faulty Personality

You always had an excuse.

They loved and cared for you, but you pushed them away.

And now no one is there to listen anymore.

But would it matter anyway?

When they listened all you did was lie.

You lied about how you felt and you lied about why you felt that way.

You needed that façade to mask your apathy.

Artist Statement

My self portrait, coupled with my flash fiction piece, offers insight on my personality and complex way of thinking. I chose to edit a dated photograph of me and my past best friends sharing a laugh together, because that particular photograph, and the story behind it, shows how my demeanor often falsely represents how I feel on the inside. The day that photo was taken I was a mess of self-destruction, I had no morale, and my friends were bitter because they sensed my indifference. We were taking photos and the flash went off around 9 times, which made my friends laugh, but I was so out of it  and instead of telling them how I felt, I pretended to laugh with them. That photo eventually came to define our relationship: meaningful on the outside and damaged from within.

I inserted a recent photo of myself into this image. I didn’t try to look sad in the photo, but rather I tried to look authentic. I did this by bringing my feelings to the surface, primarily the feeling of numbness. Then I made the whole piece black and white to represent how dismissive I see my life, no need for details such as color. The black and white aspect also symbolizes the need to fit one’s personality into a box, when actually personality is much more complex than that. The two photos of myself juxtapose each other, which shows how often my feelings contradict each other.

My flash fiction piece is a memoir focusing on the excuses I made to get out of social gatherings when really I was depressed, and too uncomfortable to admit it to my friends. I wrote it in second person to make it more personal, both for the reader and myself, and I thought that making my sentences short and vague would make the reader think and over-analyze the meaning behind the piece. I also decided to italicize the word “needed” to put emphasis on why I act the way I do.  In the story I explore my regrets and character flaws by reflecting on my past friendships and how they ended. My portrait and flash fiction go together because they both show my distant attitude towards close relationships and my two different personalities, the one the world sees and the one that I see.

Personality and Implicit Bias

Personality is defined as one's distinct and enduring characteristics, including both conscious and unconscious feelings and behavior. Throughout history personality has been a topic up for discussion. Every great psychologist has had their own theory on personality, from Freud to Maslow.  Freud mostly focused on the unconscious and believed that ego, one’s sense of self esteem, was key in determining personality. Most people today believe that personality is concrete and consistent, which explains why marriage is so deeply rooted in many societies. Our implicit biases also contribute to our personalities, because they affect our actions and determine our feelings. Even today stereotypes play an important role in the world around us, but most go unnoticed. Many believe that implicit biases are bad, and are even detrimental to society, so they stray away from confronting their own biases.

In the Invisibilia Podcast “The Personality Myth,” host Alix Spiegel interviews a convicted felon, Dan, and finds that his personality doesn’t seem to match the stereotypical public  persona. After speaking with Dan, Spiegel sees how his personality has changed through his life  and she comes to the conclusion that “people who are believed to have the same personality just live in the same circumstances”. Clearly, personality isn’t consistent with behavior, but rather behavior is consistent with circumstances. Spiegel shows that Dan acted the way he did because his circumstances pushed him to, not because he has a cruel personality. Dan’s disposition never changed, but his circumstances did, which attributed to his observed “change” in personality. In addition, Spiegel proves that personality isn’t always good or bad, it is a complex subject that can’t be summed up in one defining adjective.

Also, in the TED Talk “How to overcome biases? Walk boldly toward them,” Vernā Myers explores the idea that acknowledging biases, and proving them wrong, can potentially remove them from society. She also brings up an interesting point that biases don’t die, but rather thrive, because it’s easier to be a bystander than an advocate. She illustrates this idea by telling a story of a grandmother making racist remarks over Thanksgiving dinner, Myers states, “You know who is at the table? Children are at the table”. Obviously, she is trying to bring attention to the fact that children learn their implicit biases through mere exposure to stereotypes and in extreme cases even hatred. This idea that children learn from their family proves that biases don't die because we won't let them.

I personally agree with Spiegel much more than I do with Myers. First of all, Spiegel’s conclusion that circumstances impact our behaviors, not our personalities, was glass shattering to me. It explains why many people of the same socioeconomic level seem to have identical personalities and similar biases towards certain groups of people. Spiegel’s point about complexity of personality also resonates with me. Everyone has a unique personality made up of both good and bad character traits, personality isn’t just black and white, the grey area is what builds personality. In class we took some personality assessments that placed everyone within a category personality, and that idea of conformity is what Spiegel criticizes in her podcast.

Although I agree with most of what she has to say, I do believe that Myers leaves out important ideas in her discussion on the topic of implicit bias. Yes, no one is born with biases, and yes, biases develop through experience and exposure to bigotry, but she is ignorant to think that one day biases will be obsolete just because they are confronted. Even when biases are suppressed they are still present, and implicit biases will always be predominant because everyone wants to feel superior to others. We live on these biases, and they aren't all bad, some even benefit society by exposing and confronting injustice. I know that finding my biases this year in class has been eye opening for me, and no matter how hard I try, I will still have to live with them. Biases will never die because we are our biases, they make up our personality.

steppy

Sometimes you shouldn't follow your impulses.

I chose to do a drawing of myself jumping happily from a cliff. I had myself wearing a sweater and the other clothing items because they're what I feel most comfortable and free in. My face shows happiness because I usually don't care about the consequences of my actions before or doing them. I usually do what I want, within reason, without considering how those actions could have results I wasn't expecting either on myself or my surroundings. The cliff was supposed to represent my good decisions and how I was on solid ground. Me leaping off of that was supposed to show how I'm making different decisions than I'm used to and I don't really know where those choices will bring me. 

 Most of the general population believes that once your personality is set in place, it's set in stone and is unchangeable. Your personality becomes so ingrained into yourself that it becomes as much a part of you as your heart, your lungs, or your hand. Someone who had been in a gang previously will always want to be part of that kind of lifestyle, whether it be substance abuse or crimes against society. In the podcast “The Personality Myth”, the narrator meets one of the inmates and immediately enjoys his company and conversation and thinks of him as a kind, intelligent person. When she learns the reason he was sentenced to prison, though, she thinks that there is something wrong with him and there will always be something inherently evil about him, even if he has changed drastically since when he first committed the crime. 

William James, one of the original thinkers and psychologists, first started the idea that personality was set in stone at birth. He believed in the idea of pragmatism, which is the thought that our decisions and actions are preemptively decided due to our beliefs and previous actions. James along with C.S. Pierce, popularized the idea of pragmatism throughout our society today, possibly making the population less open-minded about the idea of somebody’s personality  changing overtime. 

I believe that your personality can change if you continue to keep up the amount of effort that keeps it changed. Once the finite details of your personality have revealed themselves and settled into place, it’s extremely difficult to rip those little details out and replace them with something new. It’s even more difficult, I think, to make people believe that you’ve actually changed that. As an example, my boyfriend made me a promise that this year he’d do all of his homework and physically try to be passing all of his classes the entire year. Only a few months into the semester, however, he’d already subconsciously reverted back to how he was last year; not doing his work, not paying attention in class, and not actually trying to succeed in them. After I chewed him out for it, I was able to get him to do all of his missing work and, hopefully, start paying attention and taking notes whenever he should be. You can only really change your personality if you force yourself into changing it up to a period where it just comes naturally, although you can sometimes switch subconsciously into doing things you would previously do without realizing. 

LA project in Nov, 2k17 :-)

                                 

                                                brighten your world, ignore the darkness 
   

  This memoir relates to my personality because I try to stay positive even if they things around you aren’t going the best. I always want to stay happy because being sad or mad,  even in a not so desirable situation, won’t help the cause and make it even worse for yourself. Being happy will make any situation better for you and maybe even those around you.

Personality Theory

 

Most people have the conclusion that your personalities stay the same throughout your lifetime. Some also believe that your personality does not stay the same and that it can change in your lifetime. People who have looked into personality and have stated that the personality you are born with is what your personality will be for the rest of your life.

In the podcast “The Personality Myth” they talk to an inmate about his own personality and what he believes about it: “Every person has their own personality traits that will guide your life”. This means that every person is their own person and the way they are as a person will be how they are for the entirety of their life. The inmate also made word about “horrible things don’t make them horrible people”, this meaning they just because you did something bad in your lifetime doesn’t make you a bad person because that is not the way your personality represents you as a person.

I can both agree with these statements and disagree with them at the same time. I agree with them when they speak about how your personality is what you are born with and follows you for your lifetime. Also when it says your personality will guide your life because who you are as a person will lead you to find similar people that also have a similar personality. But I also don’t agree with the statements because you can change as a person from good to bad or vice versa. If you want to change the way you are and your personality you always can change. The way that you are born may or it may not be the way you are 5, 15, or even 50 years down the road into your life.

   

|| S I L E N C E ||

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Trapped in her own mind, she was forced not to speak of the evil.

                                                                Silence

                I chose this photo because it describes the depth of my childhood and upbringing to modern day. When I was 2 years old, my mother and father (both 19) split their separate ways and because they weren’t married I don’t say that they divorced. My mother left my father because all throughout their relationship he was abusive towards her but it worsened during her pregnancy with me. When I was born she was terrified that he would hurt me so she had to leave and find a safe place that he couldn’t track her down. I was told never to speak of this between visits with my father and my actual household as it would only cause conflict so I kept silent.                               When I was 8 years old, my mother got with my now step-father Thomas Jr. or “Tommy” which I call him up to date. Me and him didn’t get a long as I have always one who spoke of my opinion and I was stubborn as a bull which my mother tries to connect with my “zodiac animal” which is an actual bull. He was cheating on my mother for a period of time with another woman I will not speak of, but I acted like I didn’t know. I kept silent. I let them deal with it on their own time as the only reason I knew was because I was a nosy child and I would listen to my aunt and mother talk in my parents’ bedroom.                                                                                                                   When I was 13 years old, I began to make bad decisions. I never have done drugs. I didn’t have sexual relations. I just tried to act older than I actually was which made my mother uncomfortable because well, she herself was a young mother. My mother and I got into physical conflict multiple times because of our communication issues. The first thing we did was seek therapy. During therapy I was told to stay silent about the physical and mental abuse done towards me as it would only end with me and my 2 younger siblings being taken away by child-protection services. I did as I was told and kept silent. The conflict began to slow around a little after my 15^th birthday which just came with my maturity and my mother and I began to see more in each other than negative thoughts.                                                                                                                                      Now at 17 years old, my silence is over with. I no longer stay silent about my issues because I believe I have a voice and my story deserves to be told just like everyone deserves theirs to be told. I believe every individual is different and to figure out that conclusion we would have to speak of our stories and how they affected who we have become. In order to let people know that they should be allowed to speak of their own story, I comfort them and I ask questions to know more about them because I want to show that I truly care because I do. I always wanted that feeling as a child. I wanted to feel like someone was there for me. Though because of the abuse and the mental state I was in during my early teen-hood, I can come off as aggressive if so I am a bear but at the same time I want to appear soft and approachable like a teddy bear.

                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    One Pager:                                                                                                                  

One of the biggest controversies in America at the moment is the legalization of same-sex marriage, LGBTQ+ rights, TRANS Rights exc. Many of my peers do not agree with LGBT rights because of their biases or beliefs that come with their guardians’ guidance or their religion. I also have many peers who agree with LGBT rights most of which are LGBT themselves. We as a group receive many inappropriate comments such as “Dykes”, and “Attention seeking liberals.”                 

In the film “Growing Up Trans” by PBS Frontline several LGBT youth under the age of 10 talk about suicide. A child states that they don’t feel right being the gender they were assigned which now speaking of the subjects brings me to the fact that almost every child in the documentary mentioned that they didn’t feel right in their own skin that was assigned to them at birth or their assigned sexual orientation. Many of the children were called inappropriate comments such as, “ugly dyke” and “lesbian” which led them to suicidal thoughts. One child was afraid that post surgery of their lower half that they would still be able to produce sperm which she didn’t want for herself.                                                              

I believe if you have to will and motivation to change something about yourself no matter what it is you can do it if you put your mind into it. I have seen a lot of religious, sexual ,and political biases around recently. People will always have biases no matter what. 100 years from now we will have biases. While we are making progress to equality, there will always be those who have been taught that equality is wrong. Being a part of the LGBTQ+ community can make you feel insecure and paranoid at first but then you start to feel more at ease with yourself because you are a part of a movement so be proud of what you have done for yourself. You are you and that is what matters.

Pain

Pain is temporary, wait it out.

I chose this picture because, it shows that even while I’m in pain or feel stressed I know that I will be fine if I wait long enough. I want to show everyone that no matter how bad their pain is, if they wait long enough that pain will go away. Even emotional pain will eventually go away, even if it seems like that pain will last forever.

Some people would say that an individual’s personality never changes, while others say personality does change. When someone says that personality doesn’t change, they are saying that people will always be the same for their whole life. The people who say that personality does change are saying that personality changes based on personal experiences and personal values and morals. The people who say that personality does change usually base their statement off of personal experiences or examples they see, or did see, sometime in their life. The people who say personality doesn’t change base their statement on either themselves or other people who don’t show any differences in personality. People will always argue about if personality can or can’t change.

In the Invisibilia podcast The Personality Myth, she goes to a prison to talk to a prisoner to see if people are able to change their personality. The inmate she talked to said that he used to be a terrible person who wouldn’t listen to people and fought a lot. But, now he says that now he tries to help people and do good things because he saw that he was a bad person. In the podcast she said, “to commit a terrible crime, there must be something wrong with you.” She said this before she talked to the inmate. After she talked to him she realized that just because someone commits a terrible crime doesn’t mean that they have to have something wrong with them. She also said, “when the stuff in your mind changes, people change.” What she meant by this is that when you look at something a different way, you also see other people differently. Before she talked to the inmate she didn’t know if it was a good idea. But, while she was talking to the inmate she realised that just because he committed a crime that doesn’t mean he is a terrible person. After she talked to him, she didn’t know what to think about the other inmates in that prison. She was trying to prove that people’s personality can change if you try hard enough and if you want to see a change in yourself.The things she said at the beginning were about how uncomfortable she felt, during the middle she said how she saw that the inmate wasn’t a bad person anymore, and at the end she talked about the confusion she felt while interviewing him.

I believe that people can change their personality because, I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t changed their personality. Even if someone only changes a little bit, they have still changed. No one can live their life without changing anything in their life, and that goes for personality as well. I know that I have changed my personality in my life because I used to only do the minimum work required to accomplish the things I need to finish. Now that I have grown up and realised that not giving my best effort I won’t go anywhere in life. I changed because I didn’t want to live my life being a lazy person who only does the amount of work required to finish something. Now I do my best on everything, even if I put more effort in than I need to put in. If you try hard enough you can also change. Sometimes the change people make isn’t good and they become a worse person because of their change, they can keep changing until they become the person they want to become. People who say that they won’t change their personality don’t realise that they will change even if they don’t want to. Sometimes the change isn’t caused by the person who changes, but by accidents that happen in their life that are out of their control, or by someone in their family or their friends that make them see something differently.

What is a Limit?

By Colin Hall

A pane of glass, a blade of grass, a brick wall, or a cliff to tall, limits are meant to be broken. All my life I was told the sky was the limit, but that still isn’t enough. Climb to the top is still not enough. That is what I am. If the stars aren’t enough I’ll reach even higher, if the sun is to dim burn even brighter. This is what I have done, still do, and will continue to do until the bitter end. Impossible is only suggestion, because those same words, those two echoing, almost maddening words continue to ring in my head. The drive, the moto, the will to carry on, all in those same two words. 

Continuous Improvement.

It is a common opinion that people have a specific personality, that a person is, honest, caring, rude, likable, disloyal, good, bad, or in between. This is what defines a person, for good or bad. This is a mentality that has been around for a very long time, and this way of thinking prevails to this day, especially in highly populated areas. This was the basis for saying things like. That person has great character, or that is not a very nice man, or even, you should trust them I know them to be a good person. These along with many other expressions are commonly used due to experiences with another person’s personality. It is used to do everything from, judging people, or describing people for better or worse, and is a fundamental element in modern society. You can see this all the time in neighborhoods when someone tells you to avoid the unkempt house of the crotchety old mad and his rabid dog, or those Frederickson’s across the street are having a party next door, I like those kind folks. Maybe I trust the nice old lady across the street to look after my cat on a long trip. The point is most people do, or at least can relate in some way to these basic assumptions about others based off of personality and how much we like or dislike anthers.

The people of the podcast The Personality Myth would like to challenge this idea in one simple way by saying that your personality can change. They do this by going into a prison holding an event hosting the different abilities, skills, talents, or tricks that inmates who volunteer can do. This can include things from poems and music, to magic tricks and shows. To further the point they interviewed an inmate who committed a very bad crime (I won’t say what he did but it was bad.) and they couldn’t even tell what crime he committed based on talking with him. They actually had to ask him directly what he did, and afterwards he said, “It was easier to be no good”.  To finish the podcast they talked about a study on kids’ honesty with a marshmallow and wrapped it up by saying, “The future isn’t in a marshmallow”.

I view this personally by connecting it to my own ideas and philosophy. I believe in the idea that the only real limit is one you set so to relate this to personality I see both sides being right or wrong, here’s how I see it. If someone wants to change something about themselves it will happen, whether it takes a few days, to something taking almost their entire life, regardless of how long it takes, if they want it bad enough for better or worse it will happen. The same thing goes the other way to people are stubborn, and, regardless of their environment will remain that way again for better or worse. People throughout history have proven just how much a mindset can determine things. In this regard it can almost be scary what the simple thought of, I can, or I won’t, do something can be. People are capable of choosing to either adapt to an obstacle or push through it regardless, this simple choice really is the determining factor. I will use myself as an example as my final argument. I was bullied, still kind of am but that is beside the point and hated it so much so I would lash out which again still admittedly does happen. Regardless because it was based on discrimination, specifically for my mental disorders, I started to get the idea that discrimination was just as bad. So I got it in my mind and forced this to be as basic a thought in my mind as how to walk. It didn’t take too long to work mostly due to my previous experiences, but it did work. I can prove this with the fact that when I took the bias test, it said I had no immediate bias. Was it the only way to do it? No. Was it the best way to do it? Probably not. Did it work? Most certainly!

broken

Zoe Baum

Broken

She puts on a new face every morning. Every smile she gives, there’s a crack. The mask on her face stays flawless all day but when she comes home, the mask opens. Her face is barely held together. She’s broken.

Rationale

The story is about a girl who hides her emotions and pretends she is a perfect girl. But in reality she’s slowly breaking down on the inside because of unsaid thoughts. The self-portrait I feel was perfect for my story.

I did my makeup as flawlessly as possible but then put a zipper on my face. The zipper was to represent the mask the girl opens at the end of the day. Underneath the open zipper is cracked, broken skin. For every fake smile in the story, her face broke more. Broken on the inside, fake on the outside. The inner face cracking represents how you feel on the inside when you hide your emotions. The longer you hide, the more you break.

One Pager

Personality and bias. We all have them but not everyone has the same idea of how we got them. There are many theories about how we grew into our bias and personalities such as we got them from our parents. That what our parents taught and how they acted in front of us formed our personalities and bias. Another group of people agree with that but also think it’s what we have experienced in our lives is what shaped us. Some people think that their personality sticks with them their whole life and that’s who we are. But other people disagree and believe we are constantly changing our personalities and that in fact they don’t even exist because of how inconsonant they are.

The personality myth is exactly that. That our personalities really don’t exist due to how we act around different people and what we change into overtime.  Everyone acts differently for different people and everyone changes overtime.  “There are no good or bad people” (Invisibilia Podcast “The Personality Myth), meaning no one is constantly bad or constantly good. That someone could done something bad in the past but changed and doesn’t act the same anymore. Or the other way around with someone who used to do only good and now does bad things. The past cannot change but people can.

I completely agree with the theory of the personality myth. People do change, every day, all the time. When we are little we tend to be gullible to what our parents say but as we are introduced to the public, internet, and television we start to adapt our own thoughts and feelings. An example of this is that I have my parents’ sense of humor because I grew up with it but still have different opinions on subjects because I learned out them myself. I learned other sides and stories so I could have my own thoughts on the subject myself, not just my parents. I can also relate to the idea of not having a consistent personality because while I’m at school, I’m very quiet and reserved but with my friends I’m loud and outgoing. In all honesty most people, including myself, most likely don’t know what kind of personality they have. They just think they know. Our environment is constantly changing and without knowing it we change with it. No one is the same person they were a year ago. We constantly build our character but only in certain situations the real you comes out. We are all hidden under our own skin.  Everyone wants to be the personality they describe themselves as but if people always stayed the same, the world wouldn’t be as interesting as it is now.