On people

Introduction

It remains a controversial matter to categorize people into groups. After all, "we are all individuals". Still, it helps to categorize people based on a known behaviour, in order to find tendencies of an individual, as a rough estimate of what we can expect from that person. Exceptions to our expectations do exist and we should still watch out for them.

This will remain a continuously updated article upon further learnings and understandings of random individuals.

Intra-personal qualities

Tendencies when alone

We could roughly divide people into:

• introverts (those who prefer independence from others)
• extroverts (those who prefer to interact with others)

Introverts prefer to find peace by disapproving more unwanted interactions. One might even think of introverts as “alone-time hoarders” or even “relationship minimalists”. Introverts praise the technology of writing and the internet. These technologies allow them to seek entertainment without interacting with other individuals. They love asynchronous technologies like text messaging because those technologies give them time and space before having to respond.

Extroverts find comfort through more interactions with others. One might even think of extroverts as “interaction hoarders” or “relationship maximalists / extremists”. Extroverts praise the technology of the telephone because it allows them to seek other individuals more effectively and synchronously. Once an extrovert gets that phone call connection, he knows he has attention!

Of course, not everyone can fall neatly under the labels of “introvert” and “extrovert”: a person might feel very comfortable around a certain set of people, including strangers (e.g. random people at a bar after a few drinks). On the other hand, the same person might even appear abjectly shy around a different set of familiar faces (e.g. bosses, managers, world leaders)!

The important thing lies in the tendency of the individual, whether the person prefers to interact with others, or not.

Approach to the world's offerings

People also come in two other varieties:

• seekers tend to look for things on their own as a reason to exist
• receivers merely want to have life come to them from other people

Seekers might overlap with introverts while receivers may overlap with extroverts.

Introverts often “live alone”. They enjoy seeking stimuli on their own, without much outside influence. They love the internet the most where search tools provide the key to unlock vast amounts of entertainment.

Extroverts tend to become receivers, as they would prefer to enjoy what others enjoy. They prefer to have life "come at them". They feel that if they seek anything “unusual”, it would waste their time. (Why bother liking it if they can't enjoy with anyone else?) In that sense, they want "shareable experiences".

That said, in a pre-internet world, introverts would have preferred to receive! At that time, they had to ask others for more obscure material. Why would they do that when they could just watch television or listen to the radio, without interacting with others? In that same pre-internet world, extroverts would probably enjoyed seeking more exotic experiences through none other than others!

Inter-personal qualities

Some random lists which classify people based on their interactions with other people, or other people's interactions with them.

The degrees of approval

No matter how introverted or extroverted the individual, a person will react to an inter-personal interaction with one of the following:

• approve whole-heartedly ("shut up and take my money!")
• approve with conditions ("yes, but for a good price!")
• approve reluctantly ("yes, but only because I get paid!")
• disapprove ("no, I'm not paying for this!")
• condemn ("you couldn't pay me enough to want this!")

No matter the "-version" of a person, there will exist both approvers ("fans") and naysayers ("haters").

The levels of competency

• superiority : mastery of tasks both basic and advanced
• competency : decent at all tasks, mastery of the basics
• mediocrity : decent at some tasks, unwillingness to perform advanced tasks
• inferiority : decent at a few tasks, hesitancy to perform any tasks
• incompetency : dysfunction at all tasks

The hierarchy of society

Schools normally teach us about only the primary, secondary, tertiary and maybe quaternary “industries” but we could extend it further:

Some may even propose a "-1" "industry" that features those detrimental or non-contributory impact to society. Who belongs to that "industry" remains an exercise.

Summary

• Classifying people into groups can seem almost disturbing
  • we must treat this activity as a rough guide to understanding tendencies of individuals - "trust but verify"
• We can classify people based on their intra-personal qualities
  • the tendencies they have when they find themselves alone:
    • introverts enjoy it
    • extroverts hate it
  • how individuals approach life:
    • do they seek new experiences, or
    • do they want to receive new experiences from others?
• We can also classify people based on their inter-personal qualities
  • positivity or negativity with others
  • competence based on others
  • their role in society