DESCRIBING MYSELF
Let's begin with my personality (or temperaments). The Keirsey Temperament sorter would describe me as INFJ. . INFJ stands for Introvert, Intuitive, Feeler and Judger. It also describes me as having an "Apollonian" Temperament (or NF). The description of NF provided goes like this:
[The content that follows is taken from the book "Please Understand Me. David Keirsey; Marilyn Bates; 1984, p.57 ff.]
We encounter a special difficulty in attempting to put into words the nature of the Apollonians, the intuitive-feeling (NF) types. Where the others pursue ordinary goals, the goal of the Apollonian cannot be seen as other than extraordinary. Indeed, so extraordinary is his goal that not even the Apollonian himself can talk about it in a straight-forward way. It defies his description. Carl Rogers presents an excellent illustration of the tortuous and convoluted rhetoric seemingly required:
Becoming a Person means that the individual moves towards BEING, knowingly and acceptingly, the process which he inwardly and actually IS. He moves away from being what he is not, from being a facade. He is not trying to be more than he is, with the attendant feelings of insecurity or bombastic defensiveness. He is not trying to be less than he is, with the attendant feelings of guilt or self-depreciation. He is increasingly listening to the deepest recesses of his psychological and emotional being, and finds himself increasingly willing to be, with greater accuracy and depth, that self which he most truly is.
[Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961, p.176]
Although this passage is seen by other styles as at best speaking in riddles, and at worst sheer nonsense, that same passage is revered by the NF as elegantly expressing the Apollonian way- the search for Self.
The purposes of SPs, SJs and NTs (other types of temperaments) are understood by SPs, SJs and NTs alike, although they may not embrace them. But, none of these understand the aim of the NF, and in turn, the NF cannot really grasp the others' commitment to what seems to the NF to be false goals. For the NF pursues a strange end, a self-reflective end which defies itself: BECOMING
While others can go after their goals straightaway and at full throttle, the NF's search for self is circular and thus perpetual: How can one achieve a goal when that goal is to HAVE a goal? The NF's "truest" self is the self in search of itself, or in other words, his purpose in life is to have a purpose in life. Always becoming himself, the NF can never truly be himself, since the very act of reaching for the self immediately puts it out of reach. Hamlet wrestled with this same dilemma:
To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether it be nobler in the heart to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them... and enterprise of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.
The Apollonian's cross-purpose have never been expressed better. To act (to achieve, to become) is to destroy one's being, while "to be" without acting is sham and therefore nonbeing. ONE BECOMES ONESELF IF AND ONLY IF ONE DOES NOT. This paradox is the NFs burden throughout life, and his job, quite apart from his goal, is to resolve the paradox. Most do, some do not. The ones that do are happy and productive; the ones that do not suffer.
"How can I become the kind of person I really am?" asks the NF. He hungers for self-actualization, to be and to become real. To be what he is meant to be and to have an identity which is uniquely his. His endless search most often causes him guilt, believing that his real self is somehow less than it ought to be. And so he wanders, sometime spiritually, sometimes psychologically, sometime physically, seeking to satisfy his hunger for unity and uniqueness, to become self-actualized into a perfect whole and to have an identity which is perfectly unique, even though the paths in search of self are never clearly marked:
But where was this Self, this innermost? It was not flesh and bone; it was not thought or consciousness. That was what the wise men taught. Where, then, was it? To press toward the Self- was there another way that was worth seeking? Nobody showed the way, nobody knew it- neither his father, nor the teachers and wise men, nor the holy songs... They knew a tremendous number of things- but was it worthwhile knowing all these things if they did not know the one important thing, the only important thing?
[Herman Hesse, Siddhartha. New York: New Directions Publ. Corp. 1951]
To be a grain of sand lost on a beach with millions of other grains is to be nothing. To be lost in the crowd, to have the same meaning as others, to share a faceless identity is not to be at all. In order to make a difference and to maintain individuality, the unique contributions made by the NF in his roles as worker, friend, lover, parent, leader, son, daughter, homemaker, wife, husband, creator must be recognized. No matter how the NF structures his time and relationships, he needs to have MEANING. He wants their significance appreciated, or, at the very least, recognized as existing. Only thorough this kind of feedback does the NF know that he has unique identity.
Self-realization for the NF means to have integrity, that is, unity. There must be no facade, no mask, no pretense, no sham, no playing of roles. To have integrity is to be genuine, to communicate authentically, to be in harmony with the inner experiences of self. To be unauthentic, false, two-faced, phony, to be less than real is to lose self and live a life of bad faith.
Living a life of significance, making a difference in the world, satisfy the NF's hunger for unique identity. It is no wonder that he experiences life as a drama, each encounter pregnant with significance. The NF can bring to each relationship a heightened sense of meaning, lending drama to the events in those relationships. NFs are extremely sensitive to subtleties in gestures and metaphoric behavior not always visible to other types; he is also vulnerable to adding dimensions to communi-cations which are not always shared or perceived by others.
....The search for meaning as a necessary pilgrimage for ALL people is advanced by the NFs in their writing. Very often the other types are troubled by the thought that they ought to be pursuing these values, even if, somehow, the search for meaning and integrity does not beckon to them. This reluctance of the world to join the search for self-actualization is a great source of mystification to the NFs.
....Just as teaching appeals to the NF as an occupation in which to find himself, so do other occupations which have this as their goal. Work directed toward midwifing people into becoming kinder, warmer, and more loving human beings appeals to NFs. They tend to see potential good in everyone and often devote their lives to the cultivation of this potential. Some NFs are willing to make great personal sacrifices to help others find their way. The NF can be ruthless in making this come about for himself and for
others.
....The NF has an extraordinary capability to appear to his beholder to be whatever the beholder wants to see. And seldom does the NF find it necessary, with his power of empathy, to relieve the beholder of his illusions. Rather, the NF withholds his self-knowledge, except with those he cares for deeply. That the general public sees him as other than he knows himself to be is a matter of internal amusement. The NF is willing to let be whatever appears to be, if this is what the other seems to need and want.
Gillian turned from the mirror. The mirror, after all, couldn't reflect the most essential attribute of them all. Gillian walked to the bar, made herself a pitcher of martinis, sat drinking, naked in the Eames chair- cold leather against skin, nice. The major quality was something reactive, a chameleon quality that somehow enabled her to transform herself in the eyes of any man. She could become-and she had felt the process often enough to know its validity- pale of skin, full-breasted, intellectual, sexy, aloof. She could be whatever the man happened to be looking for at the moment. She could become any man's dream woman, and somehow accomplish it without relinquishing her own identity...It was a process of becoming. It existed not in mechanical tricks but in acute sensitivity; it took place not in her physical alterations but in the eye of the beholder.
[Penelope Ashe, Naked Came the Stranger. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1969, p.13]
....Indeed, NFs report over and over that they are subject to an inner voice which urges them to "Be real, authentic,meaningful." Always in the NF is that voce dialoguing about being whole, significant, and oneself. At once audience and actor, the NF is caught in a split in awareness; he is always in stage, and, at the same time, is watching himself being on stage. The irony of this consuming hunger for a sense of being oneself is that it condemns the NF to be ever split, standing to one side and watching himself be himself.
"I think you're too conscious of yourself all the time, with everybody," she said to her sister.
"I hope at least I haven't a slave nature," said Hilda.
Hilda drove in silence for some time after this piece of unheard-of insolence from that chit Connie.
"At least I'm not a slave to somebody else's idea of me; and the somebody else a servant of my husband's," she retorted at last, in crude anger.
[D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover. New York: Bantam Books, 1928, 1966, p.274]
....Perhaps because the work of the NF needs to give significance as well as provide service, often the NF has difficulty placing limits on the amount of time and energy he devotes to his work. Unlike others, the NF works toward a vision of perfection: the perfect work of art, the perfect play, novel, film, the perfect relationship. And, of course, once the work is done, once the creation is created, it never seems to live up to the magnificence of its conception.
....Although he is apt to be passionate in his pursuit of a creative effort, the NF can be an intellectual butterfly, flitting from idea to idea, a dilettante in his pursuit of knowledge when compared to others. The NF wants to taste all the abundance of life, but always wants his experiences to have meaning beyond the mere event. NFs tend to romanticize their experiences, their lives, and the experiences and lives of others, and they are apt to be far more interested in people-watching than in abstractions. he enjoys bringing out the best in others and speaks often of "actualizing the potential" of others and of himself. As with his perception of himself, so it is with the NF's perception of others: Whatever is, is never quite sufficient. The thought that the visible is all there is is untenable for an NF.
The Greeks, of course caught the spirit of the NF in their mythology in one of the most fascinating and complex of all the gods. Apollo, in Greek mythology, stand as a direct link between the gods and man, giving man a sense of mission, showing man how to continue in his search for the sacred even though he has known the evil of the profane.
Apollo was the self-appointed bearer of Truth, and he undertook the task of interpreting for men the will of his father, Zeus. Apollo symbolizes the duality of the Hellenic spirit: the urge to ideals, to truth, to beauty, to spirituality and sacredness, and the accompanying desire to plumb the profane, the ugly, the corrupt, and the fleshly. He stood for the Grecian ideal of purity of spirit, of dedication to helping others, of the bringer of therapeutic music and song. He represented the healer of mind and body. he was the giver of prophecy, spokesman for the gods, the inspirer and the inspirational, the divine and the incorruptible. The primitive and violent side of Apollo only erupted when his supremacy was challenged or when he was frustrated in his efforts to bring peace and happiness to man. Within Apollo the sense of mission, the cult of the individual. the search for identity existed side by side with untamed lust, the willingness to murder for a cause, the willingness to use priestesses in his rites even at the expense of their sanity and, ultimately the betrayal of his father, Zeus. In Apollo, side by side, existed the sacred ad the profane.
In Apollo the NFs find their prototype. Their hunger is not centered on things but PEOPLE. They are not content with abstractions; they seek RELATIONSHIPS. Their need does not ground to action; it vibrates with INTERACTION. As the NF seeks self-actualization in identity and unity, he is aware that this is a life-long process, an ideal toward being and becoming a final finished self.
Well, to a large extent, this description seems to aptly portray me, and to add further, perhaps it is this characteristic of mine that propels me to do what I am doing now: ie. BECOMING.
