Following links from the peripatetic Dave Winer, I stumbled on the ptypes weblog and associated ptypes website devoted to elucidation of personality types. A few years ago I took the Keirsey test and came out ENFP, which the types site categorizes as vigilant. About the time I tested ENFP I joined a mailing list for other NFP folks, which was quite interesting for while (though I didn't have time to participate fully). Seems to me there's quite a bit of wisdom and insight to be found in personality types research.
As always I find art (especially music) to be a soothing influence in difficult times. In the days after the terrorist attacks I listened to just about all the keyboard music of Bach, which always helps to clear my mind. Last week and this evening I listened to the complete string quartets of Shostakovich -- beautiful in an angst-ridden way, and peculiarly in tune with these times. Now I've moved on to the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven.
Speaking of the arts, on Saturday night Elisa and I attended a performance of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. I'd seen a performance of this play (one of my favorites) a number of years ago at the Monmouth Theatre near my hometown in Maine. It's a great play -- high Romanticism that verges on over-the-top but never goes over the line, held together by the character of Cyrano. Saturday's performance used a new and quite fine translation by director Nagle Jackson; I hope his translation will be published, since it holds up well against the classic but now aging translation by Brian Hooker.