Or is it just me??

I wouldn't have been doing this for 50 years if I was anything but an optimist.

Both negative and positive, otherwise the power wouldn't flow.

It would seem so from the postings here...

I hope not though.

I don't have another gig until 2 months from now, so maybe that's got me bummed out.

I've taking the Briggs / Myers pesonality test twice now, and both times they tell me that I am a INTJ i.e "intuitive introvert" which is they say, is 1% of the population..also known as a "mastermind". I rarely meet people like me, that could have me bummed out too.

I don't know.

I am always amused when people make claims lime Pakar just did.

When you read things on the internet there is almost no context. The tone is added by the reader. It is all about how you read things and not about how they are written. Many posts written tongue in cheek are greatly misinterpreted. So if so many are negative it might be more about you than others.

As for the claim it has not been my experience. I have never once paid for a magic or performance lesson. All of the mentors have just taught me. I do the same. Nothing negative there. Not by a long shot.

Logan, I scored "Mastermind" on the Briggs / Myers, too. Then just as I was planning my evil empire, I had to retake it as part of another project... and got a completely different score.

I'm not so sure it's as useful a tool as some people make it out to be.

Anyway, I consider myself a positive person, but don't have much patience for dealing with difficult people. So to some I would probably come across as fairly negative.

I have taken Myers-Briggs many times (psych major) and always score INTJ. I consider myself relatively jovial.

I think most magicians I've met have come across as likeable and happy people. However,sometimes "stuff" gets in the way and one might find themselves in a funk but hopefully see it as only temporary.

Also, it's interesting that you ask this in "Not Very Magical, Still," where everybody vents their spleen.

I get down sometimes from the clinical depression and overwhelmed sometimes by the OCD and migraines, but Yoga and meditation have helped me get better at compartmentalizing those problems when they happen. I'm able to tell myself when negative thoughts start pouring in that it's a trick that depression plays, and life isn't all doom and gloom just because that's how I feel at the moment. That usually helps me get out faster. So I think I used to be a very negative person but am mostly positive now.

I think the last time I looked (30 years ago?) I was an INTJ also.

If the criticisms here are accurate it seems fairly worthless as a serious tool: low validity and reliability; lack of positive studies other than in venues supported by the folks who put it out.

It's particularly useless in the business world (where it seems to be most popular) because it's too often applied by people with poor training, or the wrong training. In psychological assessments it's usually part of an overall battery of tests which are combined to show patterns. At least, that's how it was explained to me in theories of personality class. Luckily, I'm no clinical- so I don't have to do that stuff