Volvox or paramecium: which are you?

Are you a Volvox or a paramecium? Drop down and you’ll see pictures and a description of each below. Put simply, a Volvox is a colony of green algae. A paramecium is a unicellular organism. If you are a Volvox then you tend to be more social than a loner. If you are a paramecium, then you tend to thrive on your own (Not necessarily isolated though you do quite well as a loner) I’m oversimplifying things I know but my biology-based dichotomy makes about as much sense as some personality tests and the neat categories it sorts people into (e.g., extrovert, introvert, ambivert, etc.)

I appreciate and celebrate both the Volvox and the paramecium including their human “incarnations”. A world filled with only Volvoxes or paramecia would be impoverished and very likely dystopian IMO.

If you are a Volvox then you already know how well received you typically are. You are showcased and applauded in books, movies, games, plays, and so much more. Volvoxes tend to be the protagonists or heroes and heroines.

The paramecium — the loner — well, they tend to be portrayed as dysfunctional or at least not enviable. How many sci-fi movies can you name in which a lone wolf mad scientist or inventor is the antagonist or anti-social anti-hero? Nuff said.

Thankfully, there is an antidote. No, not to being a paramecium but rather to being misjudged and even vilified for being one: a book titled “Party of One: The Loner’s Manifesto” (2003) by Annelia Rufus.

Above all, be ye Volvox or paramecium…. or even a hybrid (Volmecium?)….you belong.

Description	English: volvox aureus colony (green algae) photographed at 400 magnification under the optical microscope in the dark field. SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
Date	25 January 2015, 16:43:41
Source	Own work
Author	Massimo brizzi

Description	.English: Paramecium aurelia. Optical microscope. Paramecium aurelia, the best known of all ciliates. The bubbles throughout the cell are vacuoles. The entire surface is covered in cilia, which are blurred by their rapid movement.
Date	10 October 2003
Source	Originally uploaded to the English Wikipedia, where it was made by Barfooz.
Author	Barfooz at the English Wikipedia.
Other versions	Transparent