Lab Lemmings

The recent plague of personality tests on blogs has me thinking. According to the test, both Doug and I have a high degree of neurosis. Spider says his results are so whacked he won't even post them. Others are afraid to take the test. If I were take the test results seriously, I might be worried I'm not good enough or I'm not calm enough or I just don't measure up (to whatever standard). In fact, the biggest neurosis may be believing that the big red bar is right. Tim said it well: "Those things are fun to look at, but I wouldnt place too much weight on it." Another thought I had was that this test (and other blog "phenomena") may be test cases in a sociology student's doctoral thesis. We may all be lab rats in someone's maze, and because these blog phenomena are self-propagating, that makes us more lemmings than rats. I probably won't avoid future blog phenomena, but I will certainly take them with a grain of salt. And finally, it's funny that we need a test to determine who we are. When the test results come back describing some kind of horrific trait, we accept it as fact and discount all the positive aspects and interactions we have in our lives. It's amazing how easy it is to forget the ancient aphorism, "Know thyself." We let a silly test divert us from our own identity and let someone else tell us who we are. So, my message to all my blog friends is this: I've read your blogs for a few months now, and I can tell you that no matter what the test results say, you're okay. You're good people, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.