{"id":20852,"date":"2015-11-27T15:20:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T20:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=20852"},"modified":"2015-11-27T15:20:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T20:20:30","slug":"help-me-learn-more-about-who-i-was-at-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2015\/11\/27\/help-me-learn-more-about-who-i-was-at-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Help me learn more about who I was at 17"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 10, 1974, I was wandering midtown Manhattan when I was approached by a guy who asked me if I’d like to take a free personality test. <\/p>\n

I was 17. I hadn’t yet started working for Marvel Comics, hadn’t yet met my wife, hadn’t sold any fiction, or done any of the others things that make me me. And in that moment, I had no idea that this was a opening gambit to get me to agree to learn more about Scientology.<\/p>\n

But I was intrigued, and had a few hours to spare, so I figured … what could it hurt?<\/p>\n

So I followed the clipboard-carrying street hawker to an office, where I rated 200 statements, indicating whether I agreed, disagreed, or was neutral about them. If you want to know my answers, here they are. Check them out! <\/p>\n

\"AmericanPersonalityAnalysis2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Doesn’t tell you much, does it?<\/p>\n

It doesn’t mean much to me either, I’d afraid—because I have no idea what questions prompted those answers. And the Internet has yet to provide me with any help, because a search on any of the identifying phrases on those sheets fails to turn up the specific questions which would go with the above grid.<\/p>\n

My answers, once tabulated, resulted in the following visual expression of my personality. <\/p>\n

\"AmericanPersonalityAnalysis1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you see that first pencilled-in dot on the line at the top of the chart, and how it’s closer to “Impulsive\/Dispersed” than “Oriented\/Self Controlled”? Because of that placement, I was advised I should start coming in once a week to be trained in Dianetics so I could become (or so I was told) less Impulsive.<\/p>\n

I explained I liked<\/em> being impulsive, and there was nothing wrong with that, but the tester insisted, no, no, no, don’t you see, we’ve got to get your dot further to the right. He seemed more concerned with the dot’s placement than with my actual life as it was being lived. <\/p>\n

We went back and forth on this for quite awhile until I realized the only way to get out of there was to agree to do as he suggested and come back weekly for lessons … even though I had no plans to do so. At that point, he asked for a donation, but being a teenager, I had nothing more in my pocket than a subway token and a few coins. So I gave him what I had—probably less than 75 cents—and went on my way.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside your opinions about Dianetics and Scientology—so please don’t fill up the comments section with them—do you have any idea how I can get my hands on that original questionnaire? I’d love to take the test all over again, compare the answers I’d give now to the answers I gave then, and learn how the arc of my life has changed me. I’ve tried to find a copy, but have been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

Will you succeed where I failed? Can you help me learn more about my 17-year-old self?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 10, 1974, I was wandering midtown Manhattan when I was approached by a guy who asked me if I’d like to take a free personality test. I was 17. I hadn’t yet started working for Marvel Comics, hadn’t yet met my wife, hadn’t sold any fiction, or done any of the others things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[716,715],"class_list":["post-20852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dianetics","tag-scientology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20852"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21057,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20852\/revisions\/21057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}