ON HATING PERSONALITIES

It just lay hanging, bare and largely unimpressive, also looking nude and isolated. Like a pendulum swinging between the extremes of being somber and apathetic at either end. The painting stood looking like a perplexing conundrum, and you all stood there looking and thinking. “Maybe it is the nature of art to not be understood sometimes.” But that would be overly simplistic and lazy as an interpretation of what you’re seeing. Moreover, you don’t want to show the other people that you’re not as mesmerized. Otherwise, it would make the whole trip awkward, to say the least.

So, in this enormous and modern art gallery, as the others have moved on to the next painting, you stay behind because you want to understand just this one in front of you. But why are you a stickler? It’s because you’re sure the next ones will be harder to decipher if you fail this one. The rest are wondering why you’re taking too long on this one. They think you get it, and now they feel like they missed something you might have found. A sort of code you have cracked, and they now have half a mind to come back. However, there’s a lot to see, and they leave you to your own devices.

For you, it has become a classic game of chicken between you and the painting, the “who blinks first” stalemate. Then you sooner realize the folly of your own actions because you remember that it’s just a picture, and the failure to understand it never really hurt anyone. But this time, your sense of belonging is what’s at stake.

It was indeed a picture; it was a middle-aged man who looks like he already hates his life. It would be an exaggeration to call it the male version of the Mona Lisa, but we’ll use that for the lack of examples. However, it somehow drew you in, and now that you think further about it, the curiosity wasn’t innocent after all. Not a plot to partake in snobbery. Why? Because it has quickly metamorphosed into something you find undesirable but nevertheless poignant; it metamorphosed into sadness.

Because now the picture has moved from being uninspiring to being plain sad, it undesirably reflects the state of your own soul. It was sort of a mirror that told you the harshest truths about your own self. You brushed that undesirable thought off, but your face said otherwise. The painting, even though void of any other noteworthy detail, knows better, and the portrait of a middle-aged man keeps staring somberly.

Then the delusion follows a furore precipitated by shape-shifting, hallucinatory glances, because the picture changes, and you feel like it’s now smirking. More clearly, because of the light shining from the window across, it’s now a tad discomforting. It reminds you of who you are and what you’ve become, describing the current state of your own life. You deciphered it, and it deciphered you; now it’s laughing at the folly that had you looking like the rest of the world wanted you to look.

You wanted to look social and accomplished, with many friends, a plethora of followers, a village of sorts, and a lover on speed dial, ready to stroke your beard and tell you how “you’re the best thing to ever happen to her” with your hand on her behind. But you know she is that way because she was denied fatherly love and is too sensitive to your half-hearted attempts.

You left the art gallery, but the art gallery didn’t leave you. And it’s most importantly because, at the end of the day, you felt alone, even in crowds. You are an introvert, and the day drains you of every ounce of your energy. You got so carried away in your delusion to belong and forgot to recharge. You know you are an introvert, but somehow, you were convinced that only extroverts lived their days to fullness. But that painting told you the harsh truth.

Surprisingly, even before all this, and for a long time, you didn’t know that such distinctions of personality existed, and that the spectrum only grew to be wider and more diverse each passing day. Introvert, extrovert, and whatever sailed in between was of little importance, only an effortful bore of trying to explain the complexity of the human condition. And now you feel rebellious and think, “Why should I really give a damn about all this?” But you can’t help it, because knowledge is a kind of opium you’re now addicted to.

So you scroll through a psychology website, and 30 minutes later, you have enough knowledge to conduct a crash course on personality. You’re now more conscious about personality than before. When you answered that questionnaire that popped up at the end, it revealed that you were an indoors person, a quality that was in times past frowned upon as boring.

So, consciously or unconsciously, you had moved out of your way to ensure that you “corrected” certain aspects of yourself, especially your introverted nature, which you thought of as a prevailing problem – a bogeyman that repeatedly invites social anxiety and needs addressing. However, at the end of the day, you are always left with egg on your face and debilitating depression.

Then, you realize how much you lost by recognizing personality distinctions and engaging in the futile task of trying to conform to the one labeled as the most desirable. You lost yourself in “personality prisons” because, as you recall, you were fine without this knowledge and went about your life being yourself. Now, you feel an aura of peace emanating from your rebellion, and you think, “Screw it, all that crap wasn’t worth it anyway. I’ll be myself; they can define me as they see fit, but that’s their problem.”