David Blaine
So who else watched that David Blaine thing over the last week? Living in a fish bowl and then trying to break the underwater breath holding record?
I know, I’m weird, but I was actually thinking about how he would do on our EQSQ personality tests. For magicians have to be, and most especially illusionists which is what David Blaine is, systemizers of the highest order. The amount of preparation that goes into these stunts is prodigious and each and every step has to be perfect: otherwise the performer will die. There are stories about Houdini, for example, who would be locked in a trunk, chained, dropped into the water and so on. The actual way out was for him to take the tiny little lock pick, hidden under a flap of skin or a nail, pick the locks and get out that way. Which is great but think of the years of practice, the training: most importantly, remembering to pack that pick before every show!
But there’s another side to it all of course. They also have to be great showmen. This requires being able to read the audience, their emotions. People don’t actually go to see the stunts at all: they go to see the show. This means that the showman has to play with the audience, manipulate it. This in itself means that they have to actually understand, read the audience’s emotions, so that they know the appropriate time to make the next step. Very much empathy required there.
So, as I say, I’d love to see how Blaine would do on our EQSQ personality tests, find out whether he is in fact what we would call a “balanced brain”, equally systemizing and empathic.
Oh, and best comment I’ve seen so far has to go to Diane Ensey:
“…it’s getting kind of boring when he keeps living. I mean come on do we really need a happy ending that badly?” Is his survival a happy ending?
Cruel, but very funny.
[tags]personality tests, emotional quotient, systemizing quotient, EQSQ, David Blaine, Blaine, Magic, TV [/tags]
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May 9th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
While I agree that it would be interesting to get a look at David Blaine’s scores on a personality test, I have to wonder if an eq test might be in order. As much as I admire the dedication it must have taken for Blaine to even attempt his stunt, he did so at great personal risk. Blaine may have been unfazed by the thought of facing liver damage, but it’s hard to image that his decision to ignore the advice of his doctors and remain in the fish bowl did not affect his relationships with family and friends. It would be fascinating to look at the ways Blaine manages these relationships, which is a key factor in emotional intelligence.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:14 am
The first few times I saw David Blaine, I really liked and admired him. As his shows have gone on and his stunts have got more peculiar I have started to dislike him. Does that mean I’ve stopped empathizing? Maybe I’ve just worked out (systemized…) that he’s just a slightly smarter than usual con-artist.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
My personal take on the EI part is that he knows exactly what he’s doing. Whatever one’s views of a personality test I think that family and friends are going to be just fine with his making some tens of millions of dollars a year. That, to be very cynical, buys an awful lot of treatment for minor liver damage. Or so you can imagine some friends actually saying.
Erik, perhaps you should take the personality tests again to find out? More seriously, a great deal of magic is indeed the same as a con-trick. The techniques are all the same: the difference is in the motive. If that is entertainment (as The Great Randi always points out) then that’s fine. If it’s something else, then it isn’t.