Alright, since people don't really do interviews here, the forum is in need of a good, long questionnaire for self-use. The following is not perfect but it's a start at least. I started with my interview questionnaire and tried to add as many questions as possible without having too much overlap. If you have any questions you think I should add, please post them! This is experimental and will probably change in the future.
Instructions for use: please answer the following questions, preferably on video, in as much detail as possible! The idea here is to get a window into your thought process, what is important to you, how you see the world. Talk about whatever is comfortable for you to talk about, but if you give super-short answers then it will not be easy to type you.
To fill out the questionnaire in writing, please quote this post to preserve the markup, so that we can tell your answers apart from the questions (which are in bold).
The Extended Questionnaire v0.1
Describe yourself.
I don't know where to begin. I'm complicated and most people find me difficult to relate to. Skimming this I think I'd do better with less-open-ended questions (though I like your approach)
At this point in life I'm getting stuck because I'm really sick of school (classes are easy) but I'm not sure I'm motivated enough to finish grad work. I have other issues, especially with mood. I've become awkwardly bellicose. My nature is actually relatively peaceable and not at all depressive because depression requires a certain level of self involvement..though people who know me would probably report that I'm quite self-centered, the crux of my interest cannot be found within myself
I try to give others the benefit of the doubt, but many people annoy me, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual in some cases, plus I'm not really proactive about forming new relationships, so I'm alone and have fallen into clinical depression which I'm only beginning to emerge from. I don't think contemplating my own navel is productive and I'm most annoyed when I see others doing this, even starting fights, but I do it myself. I'm troubled by inconsistent values though my own are not consistent
What do you study or do for a living? How did you come to do that? What do you like or dislike about it?
Literature. I think society's most advanced ideas can only be explored through dedicated study of quiet text. But it's difficult to do something I love as a career because I'm not sure I can handle taking my job personally. Other issues.. I'm pretty slow with reading new books and especially new authors, but I get a lot out of what I do read, and find many parallels between society's current problems and allegorical representations
My calling in life is probably to write something of my own, and it will be published if others find it meaningful, but writing has long latency periods and even if I were super productive I could not tolerate such an unreliable source of pay. I don't know how to balance my energy; it's certainly easier to write when I have a moderate amount of life stress (too little causes ennui and too much renders me despondent) but I also can't handle caring deeply about something which I exchange for money, so I'm thinking I'll switch to language and teach mechanics and write on my own time
What are your values, and why?
They shift as soon as I become aware of them; sorry, I cannot answer this question
What else do you do on a daily basis? What are your interests and hobbies? Why do you do them?
Lol I don't really do much. I write, read novels, communicate with internet stranger, sometimes do homework, usually attend classes, fall into long discussions with professors, and tear my hair about medical and financial issues which are constantly catching fire and demanding attention. I guess I'm impatient because my presence on this earth fails to justify itself unless I synthesize my ideas into something sublime
Describe your relations with family and friends. What do you like and dislike about them?
Not applicable. I have no relationship
What do you look for in friends? In romantic relationships?
Friends, someone nice who doesn't annoy me, doesn't take things personally, and demands enough attention that I can't forget about their existence
Romance idk.. someone who sparkles. There has to be something special about them, though as only hypothetical, I don't care what. We won't get along if we couldn't be friends..I know this seems self-evident when stated but many people operate under the delusion that it is otherwise. In men I'm drawn to obvious extroversion and social skills, in women I'm drawn to intelligence, in all I'm drawn to a certain flippant disregard that can morph into a more genuine aspect only when someone matters particularly to them. I'm not afraid of fighting with people I'm close to (as opposed to strangers, with whom I'm mostly bland but sometimes I will yell and embarrass myself a la Se polr description) and my relationships only work if we can muddle through our problems rather than pretending they don't exist. The aspects of a person that I eventually grow to love are their flaws, but in an everyday sense a significant other should impress me in some way (hence the part of socionics that I really buy into is the notion that people only grow when exposed to an opposing force
What conflicts have you encountered recently with other people? Why did they happen? Which kinds seem to happen on a regular basis?
Conflict when someone gave me incorrect change and had an attitude that I was petty for asking her to be minimally competent at her job.. my heart beat fast and I got very disproportionately upset
I don't usually fight with people I don't know and it's been a while since I've been close with anyone
How would your friends describe you?
No friends
Probably the high school friends would describe me as bizarre and silly and childhood friends described me as overly serious or constipated if I had friends now it'd be the latter again. People also tend to think of me as flighty but it's a misunderstanding..I stay put very obediently when given reason...eg, for one ex I fought most strenuously to save our relationship (he left anyway)
What do people generally see as your strengths? What do you like about yourself?
Smart, academically competent (same answer for both)
I have a couple double-edged swords that I'm not sure anyone else can see, but one which bears mentioning—my mind is independent of others' —of this I feel sure. I build off my own heuristics so it takes me longer to reach certain conclusions. On the other hand, I excel at debating, especially when I can amass some concrete evidence in favor of one side. Evidence in favor of the other side I can twist to fit my purposes. This is quite alpha: the only people I can't debate are the ones who won't talk to me. Sometimes I will abruptly find myself on the other side of a very high fence, as if lacking some personal mooring. This leads me to an odd sort of empathy, in which I can often see both sides; at the same time it makes me look untrustworthy: how can an honest man fight for one thing the first day and another by the end of the week? Yet I intend no dishonesty: my position is simply liable to move in ways that other people don't expect and often cannot cope with. My pride doesn't interfere with my inquisition, and people will abandon me, saying I've tortured an idea for too long. But I know truth when I see it—it is my divinity, and false idols do not satisfy. I also hardheadedly pursue things when I don't know where they will lead, or what I will gain from them..this is of secondary importance to the quest. Along the way there are skirmishes in which I mold myself to whatever army I fight for, though ultimately I fight for none because no army of man can contain my concepts. (Granted I'm not a genius, and someday in the future all of these paths will be paved over, but they haven't been yet because the area around them is but poorly lit.) I draw my life energy here, moving my head into something shadowy and far from people; a very intelligent woman read my writing once and said it was deliberately opaque, but amended that it contained some tired concepts which had to be seen afresh to find where they intersected. And it's no massive panacea I hope to find, just whatever is in that dark area. I hold the infrastructure of man in high regard, for all its flaws, but I appreciate my solitude, and don't often invite others to join me in whatever fleeting truth I hold (and when I do it is an invitation of breadcrumbs scattered along the way from the end of the road to wherever I have found myself. Generally the breadcrumbs only serve to lead me back to others. Still, if a person will make the climb, I don't mind their company. Reading and writing imitate this process). I know when people haven't crossed some bridge or entered some cavern by the quiet. I hear no echoing voices, and when I return to my encampment under the lords of the edge, I carry back some trinket, which may appear as trash, or something radioactive and dangerous, or nothing at all: it has fallen out of my pocket along the way, or it wouldn't suffer me to carry it; and in every case it's quiet again, people have nothing to say. This is how I know I've grown apart from civilization. Sometimes it's exciting and I feel like superman circling the earth at high velocity, only to crash to the ground again in a burning wreckage. Sometimes I see others like me, perhaps even a great and old procession, but they disappear in the distance so I can never tell fore/aft nor truly if they're simply mirages in the heat, though I don't think so: as I've said, though I'm undeniably smart, I've no reason to regard myself as genius. I am simply oriented differently. To me the fence keeps disappearing because I exist in both realms: the one with the fence and the one without, and when I shift it glitches or something. The fence is real of course, perhaps I even spend my life hanging off of it and weaving my fingers through the links and simply dreaming about absence, but the quiet says something, if only that I'm severely autistic, lol.
What are your weaknesses? What criticism do you often face from others? What do you dislike about yourself?
Weaknesses, don't know what I haven't already alluded to in previous questions
Ah, I may not have explicitly stated that I manage to give off a false impression whenever I aim to be honest. It's only when I'm acting shady that people actually believe me. I just don't communicate well despite adroit use of language
Criticism that I'm selfish and awkward. Actually people don't criticize me thoughtfully enough to give a really clear picture, so all I can say is I rub people wrong and they probably don't think about why
I dislike the image I portray to the point that sometimes I feel a desperate need to get away from myself..I'm awkward, usually I hide it but sometimes it emerges painfully.. I don't know how to respond to most of the statements made by others except for "I hear you"...nor am I curious enough about most people to ask questions properly.. I'm bad with social mechanics despite great investment of effort.. I'm just pretty enough that it causes problems and some women decide to be awful to me when I've done nothing to merit such treatment
I dislike my inconsistency..often I feel I cannot put down any anchor
Also generally I can be accused of arrogance. It's true but not emerging at random from a void
In what areas of life can you manage well on your own? In what areas of your life would you like help?
I'm good at formal logic and understanding structures, e.g. algebra, semantics, and the type of logic underlying philosophy
Also I have a knack for understanding how physical objects work..e.g., I might ponder a refrigerator and understand the basics of how it works without needing reference materials or taking it apart. Things like the underlying mechanics of a city also make intuitive sense to me, so it's not a matter of scale (e.g. when I was a kid, I asked what this large painted building was, my mother said it was a water tower, my sister asked what a water tower was for, and I said that it used gravity to create water pressure...I don't know how obvious this sort of thing is to children but it's something I didn't need to be told..I knew by looking at it).
The above are self-explanatory, come naturally with no effort, and I never really need help with them. This same undercurrent carries to more abstract realms .. I'm quick to learn new computer programs or philosophical systems
(Lol, one of the reasons I doubt whether I'm even good with Ne...I can often look at machines and know what is wrong with them, but it never occurred to me to be an engineer/mechanic)
I'm sort of socially retarded, not to the point that most people notice it, but understanding concepts like sarcasm..growing up this was one of the only areas where I was behind the curve. While I easily understand memetics from a conceptual standpoint, I'm slow on picking up any particular meme, and overly proud of myself when I manage it (picture an arithmetically-slow child loudly reciting multiplication tables when he finally learns them). If I don't understand a joke when I hear it, the explanation almost never helps.
Most of the areas where I'm weak, I'm resistant or even hostile to any attempted help... Like this morning for breakfast I ate cold pizza and I'd already thrown the box away—though it's a persistent problem, I have never bought a plate, so I tried to eat the pizza from a tiny paper cup and made a mess. It's obvious such behavior will always cause messes but I persistently do this type of thing. I hate telephone conversations so I go months without filling prescriptions or completing paperwork. Occasionally I even forget stuff like groceries and rent..I muddle through, but I really don't like getting reminders of this stuff
I've gone on without answering this question so far...I don't think I know the answer
What things do you find to be a chore? What things do you enjoy more than others?
See above. Chasing down prescriptions from a forgetful pharmacist is at the top of my list right now.
I guess some television shows are okay, but the largest enjoyment comes from working on an important project for school that feels directly relevant to a future career and involves minimal/no busy work. I don't like reading but find retrospective pleasure in having read. When I was younger I used to feel excited standing in a bustling city at night. I like the lights
What goals, aspirations, or plans do you have for the future? How did you come to have them?
I answered this in the earlier question about school. I think I'll probably teach.. I don't really make goals nor plan, but it's just what I assume will happen given where I am now. And for the record, things don't always go as I assume they will
If you had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life without working, what would you do with your time?
Write novels
What did you do last Friday?
I have no idea
If you are doing a video you can stop here and/or choose from the rest of the questions as you like.
What is your biggest accomplishment?
I get congratulations for my test scores sometimes, but I haven't done anything of lasting importance yet
What traits do you find endearing that others might dislike? What traits are considered positive/neutral by others but tend to annoy you?
I don't have a very charitable heart, lol.
Maybe this is true of all people, but when someone who has wronged me in some way compels me to forgive them..it allows me to realize their humanity
Many people see me as negative and hard on myself..especially teachers, and they want to stop me from picking on myself, but I only do it because I'm not giving any effort—if I write a paper an hour before class of course I'll regret not putting more effort even if the paper turns out well. If I can excel with minimal effort that actually means I should be pushed harder. Also I'm not mean to myself like people think...I don't know where people get this idea, but as stated I'm bad at conveying anything. The people who keep encouraging me have good intentions but it only condones my laziness
Also, if I drop something and someone else picks it up for me, it's nice but also calls attention to my clumsiness. This isn't to say that I hate everything stereotypically Si, though: my ex used to order carry out and ate like a bird so didn't care if I wolfed down half of the food...I miss this because now I eat potato chips for dinner lol
I love people who aren't jaded, but I don't find charm in any type of ignorance.
What is something you regret?
Who do you admire, and why?
What's been on your mind? Has anything been worrying or concerning you? What problems have you encountered lately?
What are your religious or spiritual beliefs and why do you hold them?
What are your political beliefs, and why? To what extent do you care about politics?
Would you ever be interested in starting a business? Why or why not? What role would you play in it? What kind of business would it be?
What kinds of things do you do to manage and/or beautify your environment (your room, your house, etc.)? What do you think of daily chores?
What kind of work environment do you prefer? What do you look for in a job?
What is or was your favorite school subject and why?
How do you approach responsibility? What do you tend to expect of others?
Where did you go on your most recent vacation? What did you do there? How did you like it and why?
What were you like as a kid? How have you changed since you were a child?
What was your high school experience like?
Talk about a significant event from your life.
Do you like kids? Why or why not?
If you were to raise a child, what would be your main concerns, what measures would you take, and why?
Ever feel stuck in a rut? If yes, describe the causes and your reaction to it.
How do you see other people as a whole? What do you consider a prevalent social problem? Name one.
How do you behave around strangers?
How do you react to conflict? What do you do if somebody insults or attacks you?
What do you do if you're not getting what you want? What approach do you use?
Are you comfortable taking leadership roles? In what areas? Why or why not?
How often do you get angry? What kinds of things make you angry?
What is the best thing that happened to you during the past week?
What is the worst thing that happened to you during the past week?
What is the purpose of life? What do you find personally meaningful in life?
What is the most interesting place you have been, and why?
How do you dress or manage your appearance?
Do you like surprises?
What is one common misconception that people have? Explain why it is wrong.
Is there anything else important about you that we should know?
ILI or LII
Originally Posted by thehotelambush
I recommend using the questionnaire in my signature. I promise I will read it and make an analysis if you do
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