The User Manual of Me

I had wanted to write about myself.

Like a little user-manual using Jungian cognitive functions, MBTI types, astrological signs, philosophical outlook, psychological self-diagnosis, and all these other fascinating methods of how humans get to know themselves. Not only did I see this user-manual as a sort of reckoning of accounts, a way to show oneself who one is when one is not a quivering heap of anxiety and deadlines and unpaid bills, but as a caveat emptor for all those who may come into contact with me. I’m awfully proud of the person I can be — even though many times I’m not exactly ecstatic with the person I am — and I thought that by making a wee Guidebook to Izzy, it would show people how I’m not the kind of person who wants to indiscriminately hurt, nor who deserves to be carelessly hurt. In spite of all my terrible terrible things, I am still really rather lovely.

But it is long and tedious reading, for everyone except me. The only real user of my User Manual would be myself — and while it is something that I really do plan on doing, just because it seems immensely helpful to have all the shit that makes up the Me that is Me together in one place, it is not something that I really have any idea about how to start working on.

So I googled some shit.

Then I realised some shit:

All the MBTI types, astrological charts, cognitive functions, attachment styles, and learning processes I had intended on using were external to me. They were summaries, far removed from who I really am as a person. Yes, they are very accurate (all things considered). But they aren’t really how I can explain what makes me tick.

Instead, here are some questions I intend on thinking about today:

• How do you interact with the world? What do you do “differently” than other people?
• What (not obvious) things make you feel terrible? What makes you feel awesome?
• When you don’t feel well (mentally or physically), do you prefer people to stay away from you or get closer?
• What’s your schedule like? Does being a morning or evening person affect anything? Do you have a ritual in the morning or before bed that’s important to you?
• What random things annoy you for no good reason?
• What’s your communication style? How do you prefer people approach you about important topics? How do you approach people? Do you prefer people be blunt with you, or soften the blow?
• How do you make decisions? How do you handle making decisions on-the-fly? Do you prefer to be alone when you’re hashing things out, or get help from others?

Maybe I’ll have a better idea of how to deal with me after I’ve answered those questions truthfully and bravely.

In essence:

I want to tell myself

everything I know about myself

so I can improve myself

and interact better with others.

That works for me, because I’m not the end goal here. Other people are, and I really like that.