I fell behind on my blog posting here recently for two reasons: first, I came down quite sick with a cold that became bronchitis. I’ve been much better this week, though a bit of a cough still lingers. Second, I’ve been immersed in two other challenging pieces of “creative writing”: a freelance writing résumé and an online dating profile.
These are both ultimately about marketing yourself in a light that’s simultaneously positive and accurate. Both require introspection, reflection on your past, and consideration of your future goals. And I finally got down on paper something I had realized about myself in the last year:
My greatest gift is a talent for Integration, in almost every sense of the word. I can do mathematical integration (an operation on functions in calculus), analytically or numerically. I can integrate mechanical devices, electronics, and computer hardware and software into unique experimental systems. I can integrate disparate writing fragments into a coherent text. I can integrate an array of ideas into a unified synthesis. And perhaps most importantly, I can integrate into groups of people, going from the newcomer to “a regular” or even to a leadership role exceptionally smoothly and quickly.
This probably won’t make it verbatim onto either a résumé (no obvious place for it) or an online dating profile (a bit too heavy really, and also might lead to too long a profile), but it’s certainly a useful and profound underlying principle.
Libra Fitness
Interesting… and sounds kind of familiar. I learned early (around the time I learned that I have no real fine art talent!) that I have an ability for (what I think of as) ‘collage’. I seem to recognize easily what will work together: colors and design styles especially (hence my career) but also in other ways. I am often a proofreader, but not much of a writer… I can generally recognize compatible personalities and love introducing friends to one another when they have things in common… though I’ve learned never to play matchmaker in a romantic sense!… and since I’ve started cooking, I’m finding that I seem to intuitively match flavors pretty well, too. The only place it really breaks down is aurally; I have no ‘ear’ for music and I am mostly tone deaf…possibly a result of chronic ear infections at the point in my development (infancy into toddler-hood) when the brain ‘learns’ to recognize pitch and such. Of course, that deficit may have allowed other parts to function *better*, but I’m venturing well into speculation here.
In any case, and just FWIW, I think of it as an enhanced form of pattern recognition. It’s also (among many other things) what makes me think I’ve got a touch of Asperger’s. I tend to see/recognize some things other people don’t. It seems too abstract of a concept for your “is this normal?” series, but it took me a while to realize that not *everyone* does this well.
I’m a huge fan of writing a personal ad as a path to self-discovery. About 15 years ago, I started brainstorming words and phrases to describe myself and the partner I was seeking. After a couple of years I finally took two full pages and narrowed them down into 15 words about me and 15 words about “him” and actually got up the nerve to run my ad. (This was back in the print days when a 30 word ad would run for 2 weeks for free.) That ad led to about 50 messages, about 25 phone conversations, about a dozen dates, and one kinda-sorta-boyfriend for a while. That experience got me to be much more comfortable meeting people, and realizing that if I didn’t click with someone it was not a personal failing on my part.
The irony is that I met my husband-to-be about 6 months later. Although we did NOT meet through the ad, when I looked back at it, it described him perfectly! It makes me think that, maybe, after I figured out who I really was, and who I was really looking for, the universe said, “Oh, NOW I know who you mean. He’s over here. Come on and I’ll introduce you.”
This was something I had realized before while thinking about careers, but I had never gotten around to writing it down so clearly. The personal profile prompted that. I think I’ve gotten the self-description down well, but this site’s structure didn’t lead me to describe what I’m looking for so clearly. At some point I’ll have to do that for a site with a more traditional format.