The Big Five, Part I: Openness

"Openness is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience."

This is a trait often linked with liberalism/conservatism: the more open you are to experiences, the more likely you are to have liberal political leanings.  (As you may recall from the previous TED video I posted.)  In fact, I would (personally) prefer to stop thinking of things in political terms, and start talking about them in terms of personality traits and moral aspects: it seems a better approximation of reality.  And, for whatever reason, I think by using these characterizations would make me less emotionally involved in the topic.  ...which has been a problem for me, of late.

Where do I stand on the scale of Openness?  Well, I'm fairly open to new experiences, though that is often out-weighed by my appreciation of comfort.  For example, I would rarely choose, on my own, to go on a day trip to some new location.  If someone else suggests it, though, I will generally play along and will soon become excited about it.

Furthermore, I am very hard to shock. ...short of sadism.

That said, I must admit my sense of "adventure" is generally limited to fantasy games.  : )  ...I'm not sure what that says: I just see fantasy adventure as a "safe" way of satiating my curiosity.

I score very low on appreciation of emotion. It's just part of who I am: I admire stoicism.

On appreciating every other measure (art, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity), I think I'm not only "high" on the scale, but probably in the 95th percentile.  Put another way, I think I'm more interested in those things than any other given 20 people.  ...Actually, as I think of it, this may be closer to one in 50.

In more general terms, however, I would say "Openness" is the most dominant part of my personality.  It's certainly the first thing I think of when describing myself.  ...Or at least aspects of it.

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