This is your sign that I’m a dork. I’ll try to find another meme to annoy you with soon.

Matt,

That profile pic is just way too funny.

Oscarandre,

It was sort of intentional. I looked at it this in “tombstone fashion.” That is, if we assume that there are going to be six words on my tombstone to sum up my life, what would they be if: a) someone analyzed my behavior and personality, and wrote the six words for me, b) one of my best friends wrote it, or c) I wrote what I hope people would have seen in my life?

Given that none of us can be truly objective about our own strengths and weaknesses, I felt like this gave three views, with the truth probably being somewhere in the middle. This was a bit of psychological triangulation, if you will.

In case I didn’t make it clear above, the standard description of an ENFP is pretty accurate about my personality traits. If you put that into a blender with parenthood, technology, and somewhat traditional theology, I’m what pours out of the blender afterward.

Here are a couple of snippets of me:

[Blogger's Note: This is an example of you catching me in a ridiculously introspective moment, so even though I've got tons of work to do, I have to get this stuff out of my system in order to move on and be productive at work.]

If I look into the night sky and can see the stars, I immediately realize that I am looking into the deep, deep past of the universe. It’s simply not possible for me to look at any star and not think about the light hitting my eye traveling for thousands of years from an unbelievably distant place. This takes the joy out of stargazing for many, but it’s what makes stargazing a joy for me. I can stare at the night sky for hours without being bored in the least. The vastness of space, in terms of distance, is paralleled by the vastness of space, in terms of time. This is a spiritual thing for me to do, and feels somewhat akin to looking into the mind and heart of God.

One of my more heart-wrenching moments in recent years was being in a foreign country, waiting to get through customs, and noticing a crowd of teenage girls who were waiting to board a plane, without any adults accompanying them. With a twinge I realized that they had each been sold, by their families, and were headed off into a future of forced prostitution and pain. However, none of them saw this… they simply saw the hope and excitement of a trip to another land. I was close enough to reach out and touch any of them, but realized with even more angst that there wasn’t a single thing I could do for them. I can still see their faces, their beautiful dresses, and hear their laughter. It haunts me.

Dates that I should remember, like birthdays and anniversaries, are forgotten so easily that it’s embarrassing. The only way I can remember which birthday is my wife’s, and which is my son’s (they are four days apart) is because I can remember how long we were engaged (on her birthday) before we got married (that date is engraved inside my wedding band), and I subtract that many days. Why would I not remember her birthday, given that our 25th anniversary is this Summer? Why, instead, do I so easily remember that we were engaged for 2 years, 2 months, and 7 days?

http://kylydia.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/me-shortly/