A Freudian Food

The human psyche is to an avocado as:

Temperment is to pit.
Personality is to flesh.
Mask is to rind.

The temperment--we're to an extent born with it. It's us in our natural, diverse states. Personality is what develops as our temperments interact with our social environment and give us a self-image and a set of normal behaviors. Finally, our mask develops on the outside as a self-protective mechanism from specifically painful and wrong experiences.

Or at least, that's my take.

While it isn't so common for a sociologist to talk about tendencies we're "born with," I recently took something called a Temperment Analysis Profile that is mainly designed to help people see through the mask and the complications of developed personality into their more essential selves. The idea is that living in harmony and awareness of our natural temperment will make us most happy. The analysis uses questions that seem obvious and that you answer quickly, yet the profile assesment that comes back was, at least in my case, really personal and really revealing. So I guess I'm saying, I'm a believer.

Just don't tell my colleagues.

There is a freedom, though, in this that is so refreshing. Sure, there were things that came out that I wish weren't true about myself. But recognizing and accepting that they ARE true does wonders. Some things, I should work on. Others, I just need to embrace because there is truly nothing "wrong" with me. I recommend something like this for everyone who experiences regular frustration over certain of their own behaviors that they just can't understand or control. So often our immediate reaction is to try to change ourselves; yet what about the necessary process of understanding ourselves and what does and does not need to change?

So (get ready for cheesy wrap-up) next time you eat an avocado, think about that-- you are made up of several layers and they all have their own rationale.

Just don't try to extend the metaphor to guacomole.