It’s your weekly personality type email that you didn’t ask for

Book illustration by Yaacov Epter 1922

The subreddits for personality type torture me because people who misstype themselves are always the loudest – probably because misstyping ourselves is not a faulty attempt at a test but rather a faulty attempt at wish fulfillment.

I couldn’t resist jumping into the ENTJ Reddit: “You are not an ENTJ stuck in a career as a watercolor artist because ENTJs would not touch that career. Maybe take a closer look at why you choose the life of an artist in the first place.”

I got banned in under fifteen minutes.

Then I started playing around with AI and personality type and I was shocked by how many times I had to lecture AI. For example, it mixes up INTJs and ENTJs a lot. Like, it suggested “ENTJs can pick a direction without complete information.” But it’s INTJs who will pick a direction; ENTJs will move full speed ahead without complete information.

So I became a crazy person taking it upon myself to train AI on personality type like I’m Gepetto talking to Pinocchio. So I did what I always do to re-establish connection to reality: I wrote.

Each type has it’s own super-size struggle and the more we understand that the more empathy we have for other people. Also, we all have strands of each others’ struggles, which is why personality type also helps us have empathy for ourselves.

Now there are personality type sections on my Substack header. When you look for them you’ll feel like a kid looking for the afikomen — unsure if you should keep looking or someone purposefully made it too hard to find.

If you don’t want to receive a weekly personality type email, go to http://penelopetrunk.substack.com/account and unsubscribe from personality type emails. It took me about three days to set things up so I could write that last sentence; you should read it twice so I feel it was worth it.

This is the first personality type email with my most recent post about each type. Future emails will not have a preamble.

INFJ motto: I’m not hiding, I’m just reading until you improve

INTJ: Stop trying to be supportive, you can delegate that as well

INFP: I wish I understood INFPs before I divorced one

INTP horror show: worrying about being illogical is illogical

ENFP: Stop forcing your sparkle

ENFJ: We need to talk about your followup texts

ENTJ on 9/11 and the cost of practicality

ENTPs leak influence, here’s how to stop it