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I've been having a think over the past few days as I've been reconciling being alone since the beginning of the year with the perpetually present want for a companion about what it means to be human (moreso than already was happening), and what a personality truly is.

Often times we say that something has a lot of personality if it's interesting or wild and free - like we could say this tree has personality, or that this house has more personality than this house. But is that a proper analogy to humans? Do we say that one person has more personality than another, or just that one person is more artistic or flamboyant or outgoing than another? So is personality something that one can have more or less of, or is it a fixed amount with different qualities? So if we had to define a general definition for what a personality is, how should we go about it? Merriam-Webster defines it as "the quality or state of being a person" which is fine on the surface, but completely useless for any depth because that boils down to the human condition, which is comically ill-defined. So let's try and garner a better definition for personality then.

Perhaps we could argue that it is a combination of the process by one comes to conclusions, and the external execution of those decisions? So we can capture the internal personality by following the thought process, and the external personality by how the person performs the thoughts thus displaying it to the rest of the world. Of course, if we're going to make the distinction between the internal and external, then there is a third force at play that mediates the two, if there is a difference in the first place.

Perhaps, and I'm writing stream-of-concious here, it would make more sense to leave the personality at a broader extension of the former where we focus on the process one comes to conclusions, and incorporate the latter where one decides how to act and present themselves. That almost makes personality the same as intellect then because that can be defined similarily as being the process where one makes decisions. Correlation does not imply causation, so it's unlikely that you can effectively measure one based off the other, but in a rudimentary sense, you may find more intellectually intelligent people being more introverted, whereas more emotionally intelligent people may be more extraverted, but this is merely armchair psychology, so take it with a lot of salt (we won't even mention that all of this is armchair musings).

In any case, while the definitions of intelligence and personality may be similar, the contexts in which they're applied I think make a larger difference. For intelligence, generally it comes from a logic standpoint, whereas personality comes from an action standpoint. So what is my personality? There is a saying that we judge others by their actions, and ourselves by our intentions, and while I do my best to remain objective, I will have significant bias about any topic regarding myself. I would say that my personality could be roughly summed up by the adjectives: optimistic, tenacious, scared, inquisitive, and dry - whether or not that is accurate is difficult for me to judge, however I think they fairly reflect how I make my decisions and act. What is your personality like?