Experiment: Psychoanalyze Me

I am not sure if this attempt at humor is desired. Nonetheless, does this describe you?

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.

It takes me 30 minutes to several hours of back and forth question and answer to do this with someone I've already trained to accept my questions as true questions and not statements or implications. My experience is that a text medium is very unsuited to the task.

You made this thread at least partly to flaunt your status as someone who can get away with making a thread all about themselves (on the main LW no less).

I agree, we should assume less ownership over our stated goals or stated beliefs. It doesn't matter who finds the correct answer, or an error, whatever the nature of the question. If someone points out that you probably don't believe what you believe you believe, or don't pursue a goal you believe (and told others) you pursue, this should be taken as a potentially valid concern, not a personal attack.

Although LW generally tolerates such questions better than people do on average, raising these questions still feels like an accusation, and even if the conversation doesn't derail, it rarely goes anywhere, for it takes genuine cooperation to figure out someone's thoughts in more detail.

Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.

I hereby extend an open invitation to LW: tell me, whenever my stated goals and/or reasons do not seem to match up with my actual goals/reasons, what you think they really are.

I extend the same invitation for myself. I'm always curious as to how others see me.

Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as prolific or insightful a poster as Wei Dai, so the opportunity for others to analyze me is much more limited.

I take it as a near certainty that all human behavior has a fountainhead that is greater than one is able to access consciously. Introspection is an art, and as in all art, some are more gifted than others, but most likely no human has the capacity of 100% insight. Further, and along the same line of reasoning, we humans have an interesting ability to assess another's siruation, (I see where you're at), and supply useful information to another regarding the other's behavior path. This latter ability seems also to be an art, and people have varied gifts in this also.