Mistral wrote:

But that's still making an assumption that 'average' = 'normal' = 'good'. That's an assumption that _really_ disturbs me. I like variety, for a lot of reasons, not the least important of which is that people who make significant contributions to our culture and understanding are very often decidedly _not_ 'normal' (Einstein, Van Gogh, etc.)

But you're taking specific examples I stated and making generalisations out of them. I made it quite clear that I thought being miles away from the norm in some cases (eg on tolerance) was a good thing. The single example I stated where it would probably not be 'good' to be at an extreme was introversion/extroversion. And I stand by that. Anyone who scores 1 on a scale of 1 to 30 (introversion) is probably not going to be a happy, fulfilled person. Maybe they will produce great art that will please the rest of the world, but for _that individual_ life probably isn't going to be a fun romp overall. Likewise, any extrovert scoring 30 is going to have their own set of problems.

Louise