I’m between the bedroom and the office, folding pants, and listening to this, about the deeper and deeper rabbit hole of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when my eye lit upon the brief moment in a film clip that I’ve now screenshotted and inserted above.

I used to take every personality test that came my way, back when it was safer to do so, probably hundreds of them in total over the years. I still remember the very first one, in a college class when I was seventeen. Among other things it mirrored back to me that I had almost zero need for what the test called "Order" in my life, and it was perfectly true. My life was disordered and I had evolved to handle that, and to sometimes even be happy, without any structure at all by societal standards.

The teacher, without mentioning any names, sniffed about that, saying that extreme low scores on Order were unrealistic, and probably falsified. I took silent umbrage–hey teachThing, I just took the test, and I answered honestly, and I think that score is an accurate representation of who I am. It was a moment forty years ago, and it’s with me still.

On most of these tests there will be a couple of questions that are hard to answer, usually because I don’t know the context a particular word is being used in. Am I energetic? Eh, sometimes. That, for example, is a label that doesn’t mean very much without reference to a certain place and time, a given situation.

But I can almost always answer most questions of this kind at a glance and with conviction, because I am (many days and contexts aside), a pretty extreme personality. I know what I like. I know what I want. I know who I am and I can say what that is from the gut at lightning speed.

"I have a rich inner world" is a good example of that kind of question. A pale smile will cross my lips as my pen or mouse hovers briefly, and I think, uh, yeah, baby, that’s Very Accurate. You have no idea how rich. Next.

But what caught me up about that screenshot was that I glanced at it and hesitated. It was instructive. I think my answer is still in the Very Accurate range, but I had to think about it for a change. What this showed me was that while all my life my inner life has been rich to the point of being a one-percenter, it isn’t quite as rich as it used to be–maybe because I’ve grown to need a small measure of Order, and spend a fair amount of time dealing with emails and on the telephone to try and get it.

I want an appointment at the naturopath. I want the guys at the garage to swap out my old battery on a given afternoon. These things take me out of myself. They’re about outer life.

On days when that outer life is predominating, my spill posts are short and dull. There are far too many such days.

The goal of all I’m doing is to get back to places and situations where my inner life can resume its rightful place in my psyche.

The short posts growing long.

The long post growing into books.

The ecstasy and bliss that was natural to me at 23, except with no sleeping in the rain.