i forget who had this as a signature, but I liked it.Originally Posted by dudeijuststarted
"if you find yourself loosing a fight, your tactics sucks"
I would like to see the stats on which personality types start a thru hike or long section hike vs the percentage of each type that finish. I know age, injury and illness play a part. I don't think I can change my basic personality type but I am curious if my personality type stands a better than average chance of finishing. My guess is those personality types that are determined and feel they have some control over their environment do well.
From my non-shrink perspective, here's my take on it. (simplified version)
.
In our worlds (many of us, not all of us) we live in the illusion of control. We get mad, even angry or rageful, when people don't do what we think they should be doing or what we expect them to be doing. Driving is usually a great example. When people don't drive the way we think they should be driving, we get mad at them (to varying degrees) rather than simply being responsible safe drivers of our own vehicles.
We will alter our plans because of inclement weather.
We don't want to be inconvenienced in any way, and we don't want to stray from our routines.
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While out hiking, we are shown or we see that we are not in control. Of the weather, of other hikers, of the trees that fell across the trail... mud, ice, wild animals - all out of our control. Sometimes, even our well laid out plans made by guidebooks or maps are sometimes dashed. So what do we do? We accept it and deal with it. We interact and/or bond with strangers in ways we typically wouldn't.
Many aspects of multi-day hiking trips differ so drastically from our previous notions of life, that I can't imagine it NOT changing us.
And no, I'm not under any delusion that a week at a time section hiker like myself gets the same life altering changes that a through hiker gets... these are just my observations.
correction...
"If you find yourself in a fair fight...your tactics suck"
WRT to MBTI, maybe the ability to change personality type is age related to some degree?
I had certain characteristics prior to my career that suited my career choice. After 40 years the type certainly became more ingrained. As time goes by in retirement I find that some aspects of my temperament aren't reinforced daily, and maybe I am changing.
When I was hired, there were no screening tests. Now there are cog screens of various types. I am not sure exactly what is being tested. I have heard of people not being hired based on those test results that don't meet a suitable profile.
Not being too familiar with the MBTI is does appear to be a blunt instrument. I thought I'd try the MBTI for fun.
Doing the MBTI, at times I'm "E" and others "I". I like socializing and my job required that. I enjoy long quiet times that hiking offers, yoga/meditation, and being on my own. Even at work there were hours of relative quiet that I enjoyed, and sometimes got irritated by people that filled up the quiet time with fidgeting or useless conversation. I liked the party time that was also part of the job when the time was appropriate. Probably an "E"
"S" and "T" are consistent.
"J" or "P"?, I like facts to make a decision, but sometimes rely on my gut. I make a decision but I'm willing to include other peoples opinions and input if that needs to be re-evaluated. If it's a critical situation I can be totally directive and lay down the law. I'd prefer input -- if it doesn't take too long.
The job required a structure and almost every aspect of it was described by a rule of some sort. I liked that, but I wasn't totally bound by the structure. I knew the rules and how to bend them when need be to make the best end result. I didn't like to work with people who were fixated on a method, idea or were hamstrung by avoiding all risk. I didn't like to deal with people who were to cavalier, fail consider the rules, a methodical approach nor consider risk. To the day of my retirement I worked at doing better at my job and told the people that I worked with to "keep and eye me because I still don't know it all!" Probably a "J".
Good read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwa.../#6e3788917a9c
Some Excerpts:
The brain is by far our most precious organ–others are good, too, but they all pale in comparison to the mighty brain. Because the brain works so hard around the clock (even while we’re sleeping), it uses an extraordinary amount of energy, and requires a certain amount of nutritional support to keep it going. It’s high-maintenance, in other words. But there may be misconceptions about what keeps a brain healthy–for instance, there’s little evidence that omega-3 supplements or green smoothies would do anything above and beyond generally good nutrition. So what does science actually tell us can help our brains? Here’s what we know as of now.
Exercise
Physical activity is pretty clearly linked to brain health and cognitive function. People who exercise appear to have greater brain volume, better thinking and memory skills, and even reduced risk of dementia. A recent study in the journal Neurology found that older people who vigorously exercise have cognitive test scores that place them at the equivalent of 10 years younger. It’s not totally clear why this is, but it’s likely due to the increased blood flow to the brain that comes from physical activity. Exercise is also thought to help generate new neurons in the hippocampus, the brain area where learning and memory “live,” and which is known to lose volume with age, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.....
Foods and Spices
The brain is a massive energy suck–it uses glucose way out of proportion to the rest of the body. In fact, it requires about 20% of the body’s energy resources, even though its volume is just a tiny percentage. This is justifiable since thinking, learning, remembering and controlling the body are all huge jobs. But the source and quantity of the sugar matter:....
Meditation
This connection is fascinating, because although there are thousands of years of anecdotal evidence that meditation can help a person psychologically, and perhaps neurologically, the scientific evidence for meditation’s effects on the brain has really just exploded in the last five or 10 years. Meditation has been linked to increased brain volume in certain areas of the cerebral cortex, along with less volume in the brain’s amygdala, which controls fear and anxiety. It’s also been linked to reduced activity in the brain’s default mode network (DMN), which is active when our minds are wandering about from thought to thought, which are typically negative and distressing. Meditation also seems to lead to changes to the white matter tracks connecting different regions of the brain, and to improved attention and concentration.....
After joining online hiking forums I've become more critical, cynical and hyper aggravated at times, but at the very same time have been satisfied, relaxed and energized. I'm fairly certain all this online buesiness is just another form of artificial intelligence...that is to say you're all mad, phone home.
I guess it was a dumb thing for me to assert. When I took the first of these assessments it was in a professional context and I was in land surveying working for engineering firms. My brain was all about trig, geometry, law, and deadlines. Since that time I have owned an art studio for almost 13 years and hiked the trail. The brain has morphed into another brain at this point. The response here is very interesting though, and I guess nobody has to ask....how does that make you feel? You are all very expressive!
Always amusing and interesting to ponder what draws people to walk in the woods, or take epic walks in the woods and mountains. Seems to me, at the very least, it entails a healthy ego (or call it self-confidence) combined with a sense of adventure. That's just to get to the trail head and start walking.
Very interesting post! I remained an IFSJ after my hike, but the percentages were a bit different, significant for a couple of categories.
Makes you want to thru-hike another trail huh? For scientific purposes of course.
Great blog site for new and/or female hikers! www.appalachiantrailclarity.com
No. ah ah ah. You, you are very impressive(good), you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-_KlKiMp38
That pretty much sums up my feeling about how my personality has evolved over the last 11 years and 12,000+ miles. I wish I'd read this thread before giving a presentation to 5 Senior high school English classes on the subject of "Planning a long distance hike" last Thursday. They had just read the book "Into the Wild" and in relation to that had an assignment to plan a long distance hike from the East Coast to somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. The inevitable question that always comes up was, "Why do you do this?" I explained that hiking keeps me physically fit. I could have added that it has seemed to make me emotionally or spiritually fit as well and I am probably a better person for it.....
Much of my own value system has changed as a result of LD hiking. I'm more sensitive to a greater environment than just my immediate narrow minded own, more patient, less judgmental, more free flowing, much less prone to consumerism and materialism, much more a critical thinker willing to question everything including cultural and societal norms and even my own long held beliefs, have a heightened sense of peace, heightened physical senses and another "sense, an awareness" which is hard for me to categorize, heightened concern of health in all it's aspects, I'm more conscientious, no longer governed by fear, solution rather than problem oriented, etc....
Handlebar
GA-ME 06; PCT 08; CDT 10,11,12; ALT 11; MSPA 12; CT 13; Sheltowee 14; AZT 14, 15; LT 15;FT 16;NCT-NY&PA 16; GET 17-18
I think, as some have said here, that it's true that introverts gain energy from long distance hiking, and extroverts gain energy by being with people. Of course you can do both these days on the trail. A few decades ago it was a much more solitary experience, you might see two people all day...
I tested out as the same sort of introvert as Amelia Earhart. We can't not do this stuff!
Time...mind-boggling...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...0561c9f043a79?
Excerpt:
“We do not experience stimuli and objects during their actual presentation, but much later when they are rendered conscious,” Scharnowski said. “Such a representation is akin to the answer to the question of how were your holidays: ‘We enjoyed the colors of the Tuscan landscape for three days, and then went to Venice for four sunny days at the sea.’ The response is a compressed post-hoc description regarding the temporal features of the trip even though the actual event was spread over a long period of time.”So how much faster is human vision than perception? Much faster.
“We can see the time difference when two bars are presented with a delay of 3 milliseconds,” Scharnowski said. “In contrast, conscious perception is much slower and can be delayed for several hundred milliseconds.”
This time lag is a good thing for perception, according to study co-author Dr. Michael Herzog, a professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne’s Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland.
“The brain wants to give you the best, clearest information it can, and this demands a substantial amount of time,” he said in a statement. “There is no advantage in making you aware of its unconscious processing, because that would be immensely confusing.”
If we don’t see the world as a continuous flow and instead process it more like a string of snapshots, human consciousness may not be as coherent as we’d like to think.
They seem much less rigorous. I'm a chemist, and my friend is a psychologist. His curriculum was much easier and less rigorous than mine. A key to this is math. If the major doesn't involve lots of math, it's probably not much of a science. It's inescapable.
You do have to take statistics to get through a psych major, and this is what trips up a lot of psych majors. When I was in school, many psych majors took their stats course at a local community college, then re-took the class at their own school.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. --Rumi
I'm a electrical engineer (retired.) My wife is a psychologist. Her craft doesn't involve a whole lot of math, but she knows a lot more about statistics than I ever needed to. For that matter there was precious little calculus or diffy-Qs once I got out school.
Psychology isn't STEM exactly, but it's a rigorous discipline nonetheless. I watched my wife study and sweat for her licensing exams, and that was after a PhD and years of internships.
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