Personality

You’ve seen them. They present the local news and sports. They point out the weather H’s and L’s. Young smiling faces trying to make terrible announcements more pleasant.

They are personalities to your village or burg, but wherever you go, there is another identical group to take their place. They resemble what you’d like to think is the diversity of your community.

Young smiling faces you’d like to relate to your family or neighbors. As they grow older they will be replaced with another of the same. They are our personalities.

Our stars of the little screen with awards and directors and cameras and makeup and clean pressed clothing. They could be manikins of our nightly dreams but the next morning they will be back making bad jokes between commercial breaks.

If the personality decides to go beyond the normal local volunteer activities, a ‘celebrity’ might bring a televised colonoscopy. Now the person can be reported on in the tabloids with no makeup bad swimsuit shots and other paparazzi photos and other gossip.

Unfortunately when a celebrity gets too old or wrinkled or fat, a new one will have to replace the curious public still accustomed to their friendly local personalities.

So where did you get your personality? A personality doesn’t come with your DNA but is learned along the way. Personality is defined as the set of habitual behaviors, cognitions and emotional patterns that evolve from biological and environmental factors.

The study of the psychology of personality, called personality psychology, attempts to explain the tendencies that underlie differences in behavior including biological, cognitive, learning and trait based theories, as well as psychodynamic, and humanistic approaches.

Whichever personality you decide to project may not be what others perceive.