I keep on being reminded that "typing" people... especially celebrities... is often off base. "Personas are only masks...", blah, blah, blah... but it's true. I just realized that Bob Dylan is a great example of fooling people.
I was talking today about Dylan with Rob Stoner. Rob used to be Bob Dylan's band leader (he lives three minutes from my house). So, I started to ask him what it was really like to be around Bob Dylan. First, he started to tell me that Dylan was generally laid back, but enjoyed impressing people by talking like somewhat of a pompous ass. He would talk extravagently. Interesting... but more like a "so what"?
Then I started to ask Rob about Dylan's "solitude", because that's the impression that he likes the public to see him as... he talks about it a lot, etc... As soon as I mentioned Bob Dylan's love for being alone, Rob, without hesitation, spurted out, "He's full of shit!". He claimed that Bob Dylan was, in fact, an attention whore. He claimed that Dylan was only an "actor". He said of Dylan, that, whenever he was around a group of his friends, he would do whatever he could to draw the attention back to him. He was more of like a stuck up baby, wanting everything on him, all eyes on him, etc...
Then there is the identity thing with Dylan. Rob said that, throughtout his musical career, there were, "...at least 10 Dylans". What that means is that, ever so often, Bob Dylan would completely tear down his entire image; his clothes, his music, his personality, etc... for something new. If you remember, this is exactly the attitude of the "Extraverted Intuitive type" in Carl Jung's book. Jung wrote that, the Ne dominants often have trouble finding and sticking with a single identity. He said that their personal appearence was always changing, chasing after ever new possibility and opprtunity without taking the time to soak up what they have right in fromt of him. But Dylan's constant need for change wasn't soley in his appearence, though. He had a similar problem when he would have to play the same song over that he felt was old. He would break down and tear apart the chords to the point where the songs were "unrecognizable until he got to the chorus", according to Rob Stoner (by the way, also keep in mind that "Bob Dylan" isn't his real name... he had it changed). But I thought Introverts had a slowley awakening curiosity to new ways of doing things? They change, for sure, but not all the time.
On top of that, Rob started to tell me how wordy Bob Dylan could be. He said that Dylan would say whatever things popped into his head. Rob said that Dylan was "quick" with his thinking. Introverts thought process can very well be as fast, but the wouldn't show it; their verbal expression is slower.
Anywhere you go look for Bob Dylan's type, they will claim he is one of the Introverted types... does he ever have the public fooled! He's in no way an Introvert... Bob Dylan's an ENTp.
My point was to stop using quick stereotypes, shallow personalities, and the like, to type people whom you don't know well. A person's type often goes deeper than that, and it's more important to understand the workings behind people's brians that drives their type, as oppossed to outward personality.
... and that every celebrity is, in fact, an ENTp. :wink:



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