To Admire

I’m not quite sure what to think of these “Famous People With Your Personality Type!” lists, but it can be kind of inspiring.

Annie Dillard, whose novel An American Childhood I am now reading and enjoying, is allegedly an INFP, and so was Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of my favorite series of books as a girl, Little House on the Prairie.

There’s also a list of fictional characters that are somehow placed within a certain personality type—even more dubious, I know! But—Anne, the protagonist of Anne of Green Gables is there, yet another favorite series of books from my girlhood. 

Fantastic. I feel like I am in good company here.

(Albert Schweitzer and Aldous Huxley, also INFPs! Oh my goodness!)

And so, yes, it is gratifying to see myself in good company, when it feels like so rarely people understand—or even like!—me. Everything about INFPs insists that they are natural artists and writers, which is true for me in some sense, and I like the little push that it gives me to create again. 

Bah.