do you see yourself as being a largely analytical person?
how does this play out if you do?
potential benefits and disadvantages of being rather analytical?
discuss, or something...
Very much so.
I'm not exactly sure how to answer your second question. I guess you could say that this means I always ask myself why and how. I like figuring out puzzles. Especially people, cultures and social dynamics.
Being analytical is my primary and first defensive mechanism.
If I understand it I can deal with it, I can work with it, rather than be affected by it.
For example, my father has a mild form of autism, which removes him from normal human interactions. Once I learned that, and understood that, his inability to deal with a change in his routine no longer was something that upset me.
When the whole family got together and people wanted to go out to eat and he refused to go, at first, and then once there, refused to eat anything, sitting there with a dark cloud of resentment hanging over his head because he wanted something very specific from someplace else nobody wanted to go to, I could feel compassion for him, rather than get upset that he was spoiling everyone's mood over something seemingly trivial.