Aggressive Me

When Dr. Janet Levalley asked each of us to take out a piece of paper, divide it into 4 sections and start doodling freely few seconds at a time, I never imagined that what seemed at first to be a simple, fun, relaxing, scribbling exercise, would turn out to be as interestingly insightful and revealing about my personality as it ultimately did.

A square, a half moon, an upside down triangle and a free space were the four areas that were at my disposal to doodle around. By the end of my doodling time, my paper had spiral patterns, carpet-like additions to the triangles, lightly but partly filled out shapes, curves, a mix of even lines and circles – my square turned into a Television-set like 3 dimensional object. My half moon (my friends all wondered why I didn’t instinctively proceed to draw a night sky or some stars around it like they all did) was instantly turned into one half of a smiling character’s costume as the half moon formed the jacket piece of an animated character-like person (that I hadn’t really seen anywhere before). I had drawn a very happy looking rabbit-like individual with patterns emanating from each half moon in equal wavy curves, shoes, a pair of trousers and a song-like curve proceeding from its smiling mouth. The fourth space which was filled with arrows and shapes like musical “sharps”, coloured vigorously outwards and the analysis of this doodle was one that not only brought a smile to my face but one that was amusingly funny for many days to follow after I completed this exercise in class, as it turned out to reveal a highly aggressive personality – a revelation that was not easily forgotten by my class mates who also smiled profusely, every time they associated my fourth doodle with what it said about my personality.

Dr. Levalley turned my piece of paper many time over in her hand and said that my doodles reveal that I’m highly creative, highly intelligent, well balanced, with an evenly equaled balance between my masculine side and my feminine side, with my drawings revealing symmetry, and a tendency to not just take a shape for what it is at face value but to turn it around and see the other side. She said that my lines were even, symmetrical and the manner in which I had left some shapes bare and only lightly filled them in here and there seemed to reveal that there were no strong obsessive compulsive tendencies in my personality. However she said that the fourth drawing revealed the personality of a psychopath! I know she was joking but she did seriously say that I could be a tigress if the wrong buttons were pushed in me. It was a relief to hang onto the one sentence in which she said that I probably have to be really pushed against a wall for it! But the “Incredible-Hulk” like aggression that she saw in my drawings and I know my doodle seemed to scream “aggression” to her in every sense of the word, was the funniest and most personally unforgettable part of the exercise to me.

Although I almost always feel naturally peaceful and my temperament has been consistently gentle and phlegmatic for as long as I and those around me remember, aggression and rage never even remotely being an issue for me, despite my smiles and extreme amusement, I made a personal decision to never disregard an analysis that had some kind of scientific basis to it however bizarre it was. And I know I’ll never forget the analysis and instant label “AGGRESSION” that Dr. Levalley had no hesitation in giving to me! That was the most surprising, interesting and unforgettable moment of the exercise.

All in all, I realized that doodles do reveal so much more about a person’s personality that I had ever given much thought to before our class exercise. Doodles give an insight into the hidden world of traits in a person that could be amazingly accurate in interpretation and I know that much of what Dr. Levalley said about me by merely taking a look at some squiggles were right about me specially with regards to the balance in masculine and feminine side as my friends always says that I’m sensitive and emotional yet rational and logical, while I did recall how friends always say that I do see all sides to something and am slow to rush to conclude based on what is merely presented to me and almost always difficult to prejudice on mere hear-say. High intelligence and high creativity were extremely “feel good” things to know about myself and it was nice to be able to also learn exactly what kinds of drawings reveal certain characteristics about a person as I learnt that filling in an area or square could be indicative of a leaning towards obsessive compulsive tendencies. Something I never really knew before this exercise.

My response to this exercise is that it was helpful in getting to know more about myself. Fairly accurate, extremely interesting to me. Apart from all it taught me about doodle interpretation being an amazing tool in getting to know so much about a person through an analysis of aimless scribbles, I know that because of its surprising revelation, this is one exercise I will personally NEVER forget for years to come.

© Slow Chills