Microstory 2303: To Distract Myself

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You know how it goes, the company you work for gives out branded flash drives during their end-of-the-year party, but it’s not enough space, so you buy another. Then you lose it for a few months, so you have to replace it, but then you find the first one again. Then you make a large purchase, and portable storage is the easiest way to hand over all the relevant paperwork, instead of a big binder, or something. But the flash drive I found last night wasn’t just in a drawer of his desk. It was hidden in the little cavity for the electrical outlet. You may ask yourself, why would I go diggin’ around in there in the first place unless I knew that it was a hiding spot? Well, I’m gonna put this place up for sale at the end of the year, so before that, a lot of little things need to be fixed. I remembered seeing a box of cover plates in the garage, and decided that I might as well replace the one in Nick’s room, because the corner was chipped. Of course it wasn’t a priority, but I’m finding myself coming up with excuses to put off sorting through their stuff, and this was one thing I could try to distract myself. I’m glad I did, or some random stranger would have discovered it years from now. I was kind of expecting to find porn on it, but not really, because he was never ashamed to be a real human being. It turned out to be a folder with two main documents, and what appear to be accessory research files. One is an unnamed novel, but I don’t know what it’s about yet. The other is a stage play called Joseph and His Dreamcoat. It sounds familiar, but I searched for it online, and didn’t find any references. I’ll be reading them both this week to see what we’re working with. I would love to publish them posthumously, however that works.

Microstory 2135: Maybe it Changed His Life

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I’m feeling better today than I have in a week. I’m still not allowed to go into jail this evening, but I can’t imagine that I won’t be able to get back to our regularly scheduled programming next weekend. I’m still frustrated that I’ll have to extend my sentence because of my medical issues, but this is where procrastination helps. People all my life have told me that I should be more responsible, and to just get things done once I know that they need to be done, rather than sitting around, and putting them off. But that’s not always true, they just might not realize it. One time I had to replace my door in my house, and then I was left with this extra door that I didn’t wanna deal with. I put it by the curb, and waited for someone to pick it up. After a while, my mom started to nag me to bring it into the garage, so we could do something else with it, but The Walking Dead was on, so no. That sounded like a job for Future!Tav. Days later, a guy knocked on my door to ask if he could have the old door. I don’t know how important it was to him. Maybe he just broke it up, and used it for firewood for one day. Or maybe it changed his life forever. I’d like to imagine the latter. There have been other times when procrastinating has helped me, and I’ve felt lucky that I didn’t waste my time. Timing isn’t always about early versus late. It’s a lot more complicated than that, and no human is capable of fathoming the profound complexities of cause and effect. All I’m saying is that maybe it will end up better that I have an extra 64 hours of jail time. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, which suggests that there’s some god-like critter that’s moving us around like chess pieces, and trying to attain some goal, but maybe everything will at least end up all right, if only through 20/20 hindsight. While I wait, I’m just gonna keep doin’ my thang. I’ll see ya next week.

Microstory 2115: One Story at a Time

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In the year 2014, I started publishing my stories for all to see. Well, all on Facebook, anyway. And publish is a strong word. I was posting them at least. I wrote the first one on my phone, using a notes app. It was rather poetic, and not very much like my usual style. I don’t recall now what prompted me to start doing this. I suppose that I was tired of being rejected by literary agents, and ready for people to see my work, whether I was getting paid for it or not. Months later, I started working on my Blogger website, and ported all of the content from Facebook over. It wasn’t that much at the time, but it would become a lot soon. By then, I had come up with a long-term plan, instead of just writing something up day by day, and sending it off. I made a master list, and a rigid schedule. Sundays would be for my continuous main story, Saturdays for longer stories, and weekdays for really short bits. Then I had to start devising narrative ideas. The Advancement of Mateo Matic was already there. I thought of the idea of a character unwillingly being sent forward in time probably a year or two prior, but didn’t know what I would do with it, since it was before the site. I merged it with a preexisting title that was for a completely different series, and really started to focus on that. I had a couple ideas for the Saturday mezzofiction, but they wouldn’t last long, so that was a constantly evolving situation. The microfiction stories were the wild west in the beginning. I was still just coming up with one story at a time, which didn’t have anything to do with each other. It wasn’t until Bellevue Profiles later in 2015 that I started to see potential for complete series.

Okay, this has all taken me longer than I thought it would, particularly the post that I wrote for what will be yesterday for you, and I really feel like I just need to turn myself in to the police. I’m just procrastinating, and for what? I only have a few hundred followers at this point. I guess I’m only going to be scheduling two days out. That gets me through Friday, and I don’t post these on weekends anyway, so that’s practically four days. Maybe they’ll stick me in one of those jail cells with a computer and an internet connection. They have those, right? I dunno, this universe is unfamiliar to me. There’s more to get into about how my blog operates, so maybe I’ll get around to it later. When I finally do get internet access back—if ever—I’m sure I will have so much to catch you up on. I might have joined a prison gang, and gotten a tattoo. Or not. Wish me luck, or to break a leg, or whatever you people say around here.

Protector

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Now that you’ve seen a few of these personalities, you can look them up and find out where they come from. They’re used in what’s known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. If you read a few of the descriptions, they might seem familiar. That’s because it’s closely related to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is probably more famous, and older. Both of them do a great job of categorizing people into sixteen different types, however there are differences. I prefer Keirsey—not because he uses more creative type names—but because it focuses less on each bullet point for a given personality, and more on how those characteristics interact to form a whole person.

I’ve taken the test a few times and gotten different results each time. That’s why I ultimately created a seventeenth personality for the story I’m writing that involves these. I call it Consultant, and I will not be giving it its own entry in this series (partly because I don’t have the space). Basically, the Consultant role variant expresses personality traits from all other types. I don’t mean that they pick and choose a few traits from a few types; I mean all of them. After doing significant reading into these types, I noticed that I myself identified with a lot of them. I feel like a Supervisor, because I appreciate standardization and rules; but I also feel like a Teacher, because I’m creative and abstract. I don’t feel like I fit well into any category, but I’ve found that most people do. I know that sounds pretty  self-aggrandizing, but that’s not really what it’s about. This system works. Not one of the personalities is better or worse than any other—nor do they diminish the concept of individuality—but they are rather accurate and helpful in describing social interconnectivity.

I might be more like a Counselor than any other. Indeed; Counselors most closely resemble my description for Consultants, but I also tend to lean more towards the Protector variant. I have a deep, almost obsessive, need to protect the people around me. When I see someone crossing the street, I hope that traffic is slow enough to allow me to watch them, and make sure they get to the other side safely. I’ve developed a desire to learn medical skills, not so much that I could heal people, but so that—wherever I am—I know that someone can help alleviate a medical issue to some degree. Protectors do not necessarily contribute to the progress of society, they often let others handle that. What Protectors do is keep the world safe, so it survives long enough to enjoy social and technological change.

Still, there are other aspects of the Protector variant that do not effectively describe me. Protectors regularly perform other people’s jobs, and complete tasks that others don’t really want to do. Though I have a strong work ethic, if I don’t feel like a job really needs to get done, then I either won’t do it, or I’ll do it grudgingly. I kind of have a problem with motivation and procrastination, which makes me a little like an Inventor. Which in turn makes me more like a Consultant.

The Protector character in my story exemplifies all facets of the type. She steps up on her own accord to become second-in-command to the group leader, even though she was not selected. The two of them disagree with each other more often than they agree, but they both value each other’s opinions and perspectives. They have a great deal of respect for one another, and eventually fall into a healthy rivalry that supports the group’s efforts, because it promotes balance, and prevents closed-mindedness or tunnelvision. The Protector, however, is not as worried about the group’s mission, but is instead concerned for the people themselves. She always makes sure everybody has what they need, and schedules time to speak with each and every one of them so that she understands what their concerns are. She is always looking for ways to improve their situation, and I would say that she succeeds in her goals, even if only for a limited time.