little boxes on the hillside.

Recently, I was subjected to a personality test in class. I use the word subjected for semantic reasons only, because the negative connotations associated with the word do not apply here – I rather enjoyed the experience. Anyways, the test determined my personality by way of preferences and the outcome was 4 letters: INFJ. Apparently, I fit into one of 16 different personality types. In fact, the theory is that everyone, with no exceptions, will fit into one of these types. Any alarm bells ringing yet? Exactly. Is it really possible to describe everyone in the world using only 16 types? Most likely not. So, why do it? Why do psychologists always put people into boxes? In fact, why do humans put other humans into little boxes?

It’s true. Humans are obsessed with categories and labels, it appears. We live a very organised life. Even the laziest, messiest, slobbiest of people will have organisors of one kind or another. Most interestingly are the ones we use for our fellow people. There is an unspoken, unconscious process through which we “sort” the people in out lives. The number of boxes we use is dependent on ourselves. For example, it could be as little as two: “people I like” and “people I dislike”. Usually, however, it is a bit more complex. “People from my course”, “people from uni who aren’t in my course”, “people who are from my courses in first year”, “people in my college”, “people in my college darts team” etc. The list can continue, and that’s just for the people in university with you. The funny thing is, that once we’ve formed these groups, we tend to be reluctant to let them interact or worse merge. God forbid that we should have to resort someone. We obviously put some sort of importance on these boxes…but what real use do they actually have? Is there any real benefit in boxing up our friends? And what would happen if they were all tipped out onto the floor in one big pile? Will we not be able to cope with the chaos of interactions? I wonder…do you?