Typing (not the keyboard sort)

My mind is occupied thinking of Brain Typing … again. I think of such things most all the time, the way people think/don’t think. Use their brains, what their “personality” is, etc.

Today I went to the BT site and read some things I haven’t read in awhile. I printed out the Questionaire set, again. I say “again” since I’ve done this before. (I like having the BT Q&S on paper nearby. Just because.)

I’m not confused by it, as well it’s not that I do not know what is what about it for me or someone I know. I am just particularly interested in it and like to understand all of it as deeply as I can. I know bunches about it, but this is only the beginning, there is so much more to learn, lifetimes of knowledge to gain.

But the simple fact of the matter is, there are labels that can be slapped onto people, whether or not each person is a “label believer” or is a “box ’em up sort” even. There are ways about people that fit into particular categories, and there are precisely 16 main categories of how people can be grouped/labeled. Call it MBTI or BT. BT does use the MBTI labels. I, for myself, have found the different “online” MBTI tests to work out to what I am, and that does correlate beautifully with the BT information for me.

Being a certain “type” only means basic things, each person has “personalized” their very own type model. Even so, the basic framework is still there and able to be read. It’s the basis of who they are. That’s what the grouping is all about. People are one of 16 basic types, how they are wired, in other words. Male and Female share types. Male and Female differ in how they are though, of course they do. But it’s not a matter of only men have “x” capability in their brains. Nope. Women and Men both can and do share attributes of brain functioning.

I have a brain that hyperthinks, as this site is named after. I am an INTP, in braintyping that is BCIR.

My husband wearies of my constant talk about this stuff. I mostly do not talk about BT overall, but particularize Right-Brain or Visual-Spatial information, since my immediate family are all VS’s. This is an area of ‘education’ out there that is growing in awareness. Visual-Spatial people do think differently from “left-brain dominant learners”. There are more “left-brainers” than “right-brainers”. It’s not that neither uses the other side of their brains, but they rely for basic thinking and doing on one side, they learn through different mediums.

Right brain dominance is called Visual-Spatial or VS
Left brain dominace is called Auditory-Sequential or AS

Braintyping and MBTI divides into 16 categories of people. The “R” of BT and the “P” of MBTI are the VS people. The “L” of BT and the “J” of MBTI are the AS people.

AS is the primary method of instruction in schools in the USA, public or private. Homeschools as well. VS children (and adults) don’t do so well with such instruction. They do learn BEST via visual learning. AS instruction is lacking for VS’s mostly because of dry language and lack of visual aide for “hearing” sorts of lectures. Many or most, not sure which, of VS’s have a problem tuning into “spoken lectures”, listening to someone speak, and other sorts of situations of the like.

I know what that’s like. I need colorful something to draw me in. The speaker must be exciting, or they must employ pictures or an interesting handout that is interactive. Or I must make my own tuning fork utilizing paper and pen or pens. I am not a good notetaker, I am a doodle-notetaker. I can listen to a speech better with pen in my hand and freedom to doodle or write down words, whichever I wish to.

I am one who had to take classes in school that I didn’t connect with. I had no interest in those things, whatever they were. Later in college, I did go for 2 years, I found myself in classes I couldn’t stand. One of them I bombed in and had to retake, and bombed again. It wasn’t the fact of me not understanding it, but of me not getting on with the style of the teacher in the subject of English. I could have done fine, with a different format in the class, but that class was only offered with that teacher. Final. All in all, college was just an experience for me, I got no value from it in credits or diplomas. That’s core with me as who I am. I am me without sanction of paper, or with it.

Going back to my college experience, I also had chapel to attend often. We had to go. Long dry sermons, sometimes interesting alive talks. I did best in those firstly mentioned by feigning listening, but really just sleeping with opened eyes. I had allergies and over-the-counter meds were beneficial in how they worked here. Sitting still for chapel meant easily tuning out and floating off with the aide of anti-histamines. I didn’t do that on purpose, I had allergies, really did. It was just a side-benefit. It wasn’t fun doing this, just the only way to sit still was to have a way to not pay attention and not get in trouble. Moving about, laughing, talking, were not allowed. It was absolutely true that some speakers we had were engaging and it was easy to sit still and listen and absorb the information.

That’s how it is as an adult in church now too. I can sometimes listen and absorb. Other times my mind just doesn’t connect and it wanders far away. I don’t take anti-histamines for church, I don’t take them anymore at all. They are just nasty for me and I prefer to do other things and suffer without. So my mind isn’t taken into the clouds with those otc-drugs, and I have to be able to stay fairly still and content to stay still during the sermon. Sitting closer than not to the speaker helps to pay more attention. The only other constant help is paper and colored pens. I abandoned taking “notes” and only rarely attempt to take partial notes in a sermon. I just doodle and draw pictures, keeping that going tunes my ears to the audio going on. I wander some, but not much.

Other people are agast, I’m sure, that I, a grown woman, draw and doodle with colored pens during the church sermons on Sundays. So be it! 🙂 It’s how I listen. It’s how I hear and take things to heart.

VS people, in my opinion, listen and hear. They interpret when they can, and how do they do that? By making a visual of what they hear. However it is they can visualize what they hear is their own way. It’s easier for some that it is for others.

VS people don’t just have to listen to sermons. They listen to people talk to them, hear TV and movies and radio, talk or music.

On the phone they hear too. For me I can hear, but on the phone I can’t understand language exactly all the time. I don’t like the phone, never did particularly, just had to use it. I just particularly do not have to now, and I have a distinct aversion to it. I do speak to my DH on the phone, no one else. Those phone conversations are not easy though.

It’s not that I cannot hear, I have super hearing. It’s the language that I can’t wrap my head around. Did you know that the phone doesn’t contain the true voice of a person? The phone lines do not send all the data of a voice.

I am one that does hear inflections in a voice and interpret meaning via that, not necessarily the words themselves. Inflection in voice, the person speaking their voice going up and down, keeps me listening. These are interesting voices, with something to say that I can hear. It’s not as hard to understand these sort of voices. More monotone speakers can be difficult for me to connect with.

So I am just one type of person, not all VS’s are like this, but some are, I don’t know who else though.

My DH is an ENTP, but he’s far different from me, an INTP. Both of us are VS, but functioning of our ways is opposite. I like to listen to music that I like very loudly. Movies very loudly. This bothers him. He likes to listen to talk radio. I don’t like talk radio most of the time, only times when a subject matter is on that I like is it tolerable, but even so it still does to me what it does when I can’t listen or don’t want to, it hurts. Really does.

Music soothes me, calm music can, but intense music calms me more. Thunderstorms calm me too. It’s excitement that excites me on one hand, and calms me at the core. It is that core of me that hurts when things are too loud and obnoxious and overwhelming. So it’s this personal love of intense whatever of my own choosing that takes that hurt and smooths it out to calm peace.

My point in this post is just that there are categories of people to group folks into, and in each group there are similarities, samenesses, but unique personal ways as well. VS is a group of like folks, but among them are many differences. NT is a grouping of MBTI folks, the ones that have iNtuition Thinking as their middle letter distinctions. These are E/I J/P folks. All INTP ENTP INTJ ENTJ folks are NT. But you see how they are grouped by P or J or I or E as well. Their dominant functions of NT are different too.

My preference for understanding folks is to know if they are Introvert and VS, or Extrovert and VS, or Introvert and AS, or Extrovert and AS. Those are the more apparent, or transparent, things about folks that are quite important. The filler is what denominations they think with … which are very important too, but my own home is exampled with me and hubby both being NTP but one an I and one and E and that makes all the difference in the world, just with the distinct difference of Introversion and Extroversion and where one’s dominant function of the NT is placed therefore.

One thing about this is for me, labels are meaningful. For DH labels are mean/cruel boxes to put people in.

We don’t see eye to eye on that. So because the stuff I talk about has names attached to it, it’s not stuff he wants to talk about. He gets sick of me talking of it, “move on,” he says. That’s just it, once you know about it, there is no moving away from it, it’s not something to chuck aside, the language stays with you. You see things and understand them and have a systemic language to do such in … he can’t stand it.

Well, it’s distict with me to build systems and gain knowledge and make a big picture out of it all. I know that about myself, and knew that about myself before I ever knew about Visual-Spatial learners, MBTI stuff, Brain Typing stuff, etc.

I’ve always been enthused with personality tests and figuring out how to classify everything I come into contact with.

That makes me think of Adam, the first man that God created. He had the privelage of naming everything. What a job. What a wonderful job. I venture to guess a lot of people wouldn’t like such a job. Thankfully, God gave Adam that ability. I’m not saying he’s any certain type. Just saying that the job he had is something similar to what others like doing: classifying things into categories, systems, names, division into further categories, etc. Very INTP-ish.