Personality, continuity, and happiness
RWL #429
Greetings from the LHH! Well, here we are, again - the last Wednesday of winter break. The students return this weekend and life gets busy again. As you know, if you’ve been following me for a while, spring semester is when I get deep into placing our juniors in their summer internships. I have 25 juniors this year to place, and I have five placed so far. My goal is to have them all placed by Spring Break, which is mid-March. Fingers crossed - I’ve never been able to do that - but it would be great if I could.
I’ve decided to do another year of daily art. This was a quick ink and wash I did of the woodstove at the LHH earlier this week. I’m dropping all of the art in this Flickr album if you would like to see the progression. Just to be clear, I’m not under the impression I am particularly talented. In fact, the point of the exercise is to demonstrate that anyone can make art, and that it is fun to do so. The hard part of a daily challenge is the daily part, but I think it’s worth doing.
This week the links have a theme of self. Personality, continuity, and happiness. I hope you find them interesting! As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: Thing of Things, What Openness To Experience Means
Why: Openness to Experience is one of the “Big 5” personality traits. The Big 5 personality traits are
Openness to Experience: Reflects curiosity, imagination, and a preference for novelty and variety over routine.
Conscientiousness: Indicates a person's level of organization, responsibility, and dependability.
Extraversion: Measures sociability, energy, and the tendency to seek stimulation and company of others.
Agreeableness: Captures the tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, and trusting towards others.
Neuroticism: Represents the degree of emotional stability, with high levels indicating more frequent negative emotions like anxiety and mood swings.
The Big 5 is the most widely accepted set of personality traits by personality psychologists. You can take the Big 5 test to see your scores for free from a number of websites. I like this one:
https://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/
A very good book on the Big Five is Me, Myself, and Us by Brian Little.
I think the trait that gets the most politicized is Openness to Experience. It also often gets mixed up with Excitement-Seeking, which is a sub-trait of Extraversion. I’d say I am relatively high on O and relatively low on Excitement-Seeking (you are never going to see me bungee jump, and the only reason I jumped out of an airplane is because the Army made me do it). I am the nerd in the article.
If you have taken a test like the Myers-Briggs or any of the other ones that try to figure out what kind of dog you would be, etc., you should give the Big 5 a whirl. It may give you some insight.
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Watch
What: Philosopher Raymond Martin on the Continuity of the Self (5 min)
Why: I saw this post on Facebook (I think), and it got me thinking about the topic of self-continuity.
I am of the camp that looks back of my former self, like the one I was before lunch, and wince. Good lord, how could I have been so young and foolish?
But it is not just psychologists who think about this topic. Philosophers going back to the Greeks have been talking about it. Martin tells a classic story to illustrate the complexity of self-continuity.
No answer for how to be kinder to our former selves, but interesting from a socio-political perspective.
I’ll probably write more about this at some point.
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Listen
What: Top Traders Unplugged, How to Craft a Rich Life Beyond Money ft. William Green (105 min)
(link)
Why: The guest, William Green, has written a book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” based on his interviews of highly successful investors. They discuss some technical investment topics, but the majority of the interview is about creating a meaningful and purposeful life, and has relatively little to do with investing. Right after I listened to the interview, I bought the book. I’ve started reading it, and so far recommend it if you are interested at all in investing and the good life.