104 Realisation/Realization

I have always thought the American spelling looked more elegant than the Queen's version. However, since we were under Lizzie (no, not the one that lived in room 205, and now in Novena) quite some time ago, her English stuck, and but the accent didn't, thank God.

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Anyway, I realised (or, realized, whichever floats your boat) that people thought I was ridiculously calm on the A-Level Results day a.k.a. the Big Day. Really? Let me check my diary, sorry, memory... no, I was not! Now, Houston, we have a problem...

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Let us run through the facts... I can tell you that more than one person said, mentioned, or something like it, that I was not as worried as the others. I'm probably the only person that can argue against it, since everybody was more or less occupied with their own thoughts on that day. So, how do we handle this?

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Let's try personality profiling. By the MBTI, I know that I'm INTP, with the functions in the following order:

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Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Extraverted Intuition (Ne)

Introverted Sensing (Si)

Extraverted Feeling (Fe)

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We can try to extract an explanation out of this, but first let me explain the ropes. The first function on the list is the dominant function, followed by the secondary, tertiary and lastly, the inferior function. The four functions (unlike Extraverted Sensing, etc.) are present in my personality, but, judging by the order, by strongest function lies in Ti while the weakest in Fe. The "strength" is not solely judged by expressiveness, (how often I use the function), but also by dominance (control over the function). So, these are the basics, and by now, if I'm not mistaken, most people with dominant Sensing functions would have stopped reading.

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If you're still here with me, good, let's try to apply this the earlier situation. Ti makes a person very cold internally, and of course that leaks out quite a bit into daily expression. You see, logic is such that it makes a person very hard to sway to internal emotions, hence given a superficial appearance of emotionlessness (if there is such a word), and that makes me calm and placid, and spookily cold and unexcitable on the outside, about 80% of the time. But let me tell you, what goes on inside is totally different, but that is utterly unrelated to this discussion.

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In the remaining 20% of the time, it's usually what would be best described as emotional outbursts, due to the inferior Fe, which means that emotions are preferably expressed rather than kept inside. Of course, happiness and other positive emotions usually dominate. Well, I try to maximise the time I'm happy, just like any sane person would do. Unfortunately, negative emotions are inevitable, and during those times, it's best that you don't come within 100 metres of me. Really! Most people I'm around with long enough, would have accidentally found themselves in that 100 metre radius, but look on the bright side, you now know why it happens, if that's a consolation.

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Of course, we now must figure what actually happened on that day. I was very excited and anxious actually, physiologically all the signs were there, increased heart rate, sweating, temperature fluctuations. all the normal signs of anxiety. There were definitely outbursts, small ones, some may remember how I reacted everytime a bus passed by at Toa Payoh Interchange. Unfortunately, the Fe is weaker than the Ti, the Ti was also switched on at full capacity that day, trying to suppress the Fe, which if uncontrolled (and trust me, you want it controlled) would be potentially embarassing. So, the result could be less than normal external signs of anxiety. Not bad, psychology can be put to good use.

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Or we could resort to Occam's Razor and say that it was a natural bias to perceive someone who you think is definitely going to do well, as much calmer than yourself, who may not do as well. But that is just plain arrogance on my part, isn't it?