Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Malaysian Psycho

In this media industry, you usually turn out as either one of two characters - panic-button mashers or those who are as cool as a cucumber.

I am acquainted with both types, and I see their skills in getting the work done.

It would be easy to assume that panic-button people are chaotic and annoying, but in reality, they sometimes provide the order necessary for certain conditions.

In essence, panic-button mashers worship order and are striving through chaos to get to it.

Meanwhile the cool ones have nerves that rival combat fighter pilots. Nothing, absolutely nothing fazes them. And I have seen the wrath of extremely powerful men and women thrown at them, and still they smile.

These people are comfortable even in chaos, and in fact sometimes create chaos by being their laissez-faire selves.

These characters exist everywhere, on all manner of political spectrums. It is not an alignment, merely a method. Like acting.

And the best ones can switch between the two extremes at will, and still you can follow their logic and common sense.

The ancient Greeks, I think, came up with a theory that personalities are divided into four - choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.

Sanguines are happy people, or pretend-to-be-happy people who outwardly exudes only mirth, fun and joy. They do things without thinking and are often the blondes of the psychological world. They are the most worthless of people, most of the time, until such an occasion their function is needed. They are defined by their narcissistic tendencies and self-absorbed nature.

Melancholics are brooding thinkers, analyzers. Does not mean they are smart, just that they like to think, until sometimes some of them get paralysed from doing anything. Most valued attribute: intelligence.

Cholerics have huge temper tantrums and are obsessed with control. They are usually the most successful of all personalities because they value goals above humanity. The greatest tyrants, CEOs, kings and warlords were and are all cholerics. Courage defines them. Cholerics are often fearless and make decisions very quickly and are very committed.

Phlegmatics are supportive and malleable. They get along and are the anti-thesis of cholerics. People-oriented and introverted, phlegmatics are often the ones who ensure the drive of the cholerics and the plans of a melancholic are executed well as they value harmony above all else.

I followed some courses that make use of these classifications and people who find themselves as identifying with any class to believe theirs is the best. These people are usually the dumb and mostly useless sanguines.

The truth is, we encompass all these personality traits in ourselves and are capable of switching from one to the other at any given moment, to ensure it is the most useful at that instant.

So be it two or four, the goal is to be able to accept all sides of ourselves and be effective. Even as the dumbass sanguines.