#extraTypology

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #4 - Masterpost

In this series, we will look at “The Neuroscience of Personality” by Dario Nardi.

Entries in this series will be linked here as I get around to writing them. Subdivisions may be subject to change..

Generalities about the Book

Your Brain as a Toolkit

Compiling the Case Studies

[kendrixtermina]

FINALLY!

Look what just arrived! Finally I shall have all the DETAILED MECHANISTIC KNOWLEDGE!!!!! My favorite thing in the world *.*

But fear not, I will share any new knowledge I gain with you guys for the good of humanity!

That said I kind if expected it to be much thicker from the picture, I hope this wasn’t overhyped the materials I’ve read always gave me the sense that there’s much more…

We shall see. We shall also possibly find out wether I haven’t just been an oddly shy xNFP all along or something, there’s always a chance. I still say I’m pretty sure I’m Holographic-Panoramic. 

[kendrixtermina]

So, this intelligence Center Thingy

It was something included in one of the 12gram books as a qualifier/addition to your 12gram. 

I did not detail it in my initial series because I did not think it added terribly much or had particularly unique distinctions but at some point I added my classification to my description more for completeness’ sake (maybe one day a person familiar with it will come along?) and some people (namely  @jerdle) got curious as to what was meant by “Queen of Diamonds”, so I guess now you can decide for yourselves. This cost me a day, slightly a token of friendship but mostly mysself being ridden by my completionist urge. I hope one or two people appreciate it.

Reviewing it here has actually made me think of how it perhaps does add some dimension not otherwise captured.

The Theory

The whole thing is based on yet another idea of a “Soul Anatomy”/ Subdivision of the psyche and the idea that certain parts are more pronounced in certain people, that we have what they term a “center of gravity”. a part we default to unless we’re paying attention. 

Unlike the 3 in the classic enneagram, this theory subdivides the mind into 4 intelligence centers:

The instinctual center. The inbuilt software and base drives, as it were. This is also what allots all higher functions their energy, hence why ppl often commit to more than they can actually do once they feel worn out. (Indeed i wrote this sentence right before interrupting this article for a lunch break. Lets nom some leek gratin.) 

The moving center - Learned skills and reactions. Rule of Thumb: If a baby can do it, its instinctual (though babies can do alot more than ppl assume), if it has to be learned or trained, it’s moving. A baby knows to suck, look around for things to nom and cry if none is available, but they need to learn to hold a bottle or spoon. This seems somewhat analogous to Jung’s Sensing function(s). 

The intellectual center - NOT strictly mbti Thinking since it also involves abstract thought, symbols and concepts. 

The emotional center - Your FEEELINGS, including both basic emotion & sophisticated social and ethical processing in the sense of Jungian “feeling”. Aesthetic distinctions are also here.

Each of these has a “positive” or “negative” part or a central dialectical contrast (relevant later if combiined with either postivistic or negativistic Essence types)

For the intincstual center, thats comfort vs discomfort, pleasure or pain. For the moving center, it’s moving vs rest, for the intellectual, it’s yes/no or true/false, whereas for the emotional center it’s like vs dislike or right/wrong.  

Depending on their dominant center, a person may describe the same events in different ways or pay attention to different aspects of experience - 

Picture, for example, four people at a restaurant. An instinctually centered person will notice the quality of the nom stuff, the temperature of the room, the ratio of price to portion size, wether the chairs are comfy etc. A Moving centered person will notice the spatial positions of the tables, how easy it is to maneuver between them for the waiters, funny background events, what various people are doing & with how much skill,(eg. a clumsy waiter balancing things wrong) - meanwhile an emotionally centered person would pay attention to the people most of all & notice stuff like bored children, couples arguing etc. & focus on keeping their conversation partner engaged, all the whiletheir intellectually centered spouse blabbers on about some article they read, say, about the relation between currency exchange rates and political unrest.

According to the author you can easily pick out someone’s dominant center by hearing them talk, at times easier than it is for the person themselves, who, after all, sees their usual PoV and way of operating as simply “normal.”

When asked to tell you their life story, for example, a moving-centered person might tell you all the places they went and used to live, and recount activities or sensory impressions, whereas an emotionally centered person will phrase things in terms of relationships and their reactions & feelings about things

the instinctually centered folks are usually determined by principle of exclusion (or thatr’s what the author did) as they simply don’t communicate as many preoccupations & perceive things more as sensory images than semi-verbal judgements.   

In addition, each of these can be further subdivided into a “mechanical” part, an “emotional part” and an “intellectual” part - And out of a given center, 

“the mechanical part” represents actions that can be taken without paying attention, because they have become learned/ automatic

“The Emotional Part” is in charge when your attention is held by an external object or stimulus that you react to. This part is emotional about the center’s functioning, whatever it happens to be, & thus the seat of enthusiasm. 

“The “Intellectual part” pertains to behavior/ actions done when you sustain attention through deliberate effort beyond where your whims would lead you

These which may or may not roughly with the classic eneagram’s instincts but it already doesn’t match in my case so yeah, not equivalent.

“Dominant Center + Dominant Part” would then be your full typing possibly tacked onto whatever your 12gram/ Essence type happens to be.

Because spelling out stuff like “The emotional part of the emotional center” gets clunky soon (& uses the same word to mean different things) and because these esoterics ppl are all so damn extra, they refer to your classic western card game for terminology: 

Mechanical Part: Jack

Emotional Part: Queen (I know, I know... -.-)

Intellectual Part: King 

Instinctual Center: Clubs

Moving Center: Spades

Intellectual Center: Diamonds

Emotional Center: Hearts (no shit sherlock)

So you can comfortably replace the afore-mentioned clunky term by “Queen of Hearts” - and yes, the book did make the obvious reference/joke. 

The idea is that the mechanical parts can be, and often are doing completely independent things, whereas the ‘Queens’ can influence each other and the kings can consciously cooperate, and functionality/enlightenment can be seen as a measure of how much your centers are in alignment, doing the same thing rather than goin on autopilot (here we find some overlap with the classic enneagram philosophy wise)

There’s also a concept of ‘process’ here in that new information usually catches the attention of the ‘queen’ where interest is generated, then the ‘king’ must put in effort to understand & master the thing, until it is eventually stored in the mechanical part so that the ‘jack’ can now do it at any time.

One exeption is the instinctual center whose ‘mechanical’ part de facto consists of inborn biological programing and is a hardware limitation, so to speak, although i suppose epigenetics could have some influence.

BTW: the author briefly mentions mbti at one point and says than an intellectually centered Lunar would get INTJ... which i can see for some INTJs but mine are, as it happens, both Mercury-Saturns in the 12gram. IDK about this thing, gotta think & introvert about it. 

The Types

Jack of Clubs

Here we find the mantaining of basic homeostasis and largely unconscious body functions, the stuff we don’t normally think about unless we are cold, hungry or sick. We may note sudden fluctuations such as an adrenaline spike but usually what we’ll pay attention to is its cause. 

A person centered in the jack of clubs will not necessarily be a hypochondriac (though they can be), but they’ll automatically look out for, and invest energy in their wellbeing and comfort without needing to be reminded - This is also the friend who may not have the most exciting stories (as they tend regard adventures and explorations with mild alarm and don’t hugely seek out novelty for it’s own sake), but looks out for your welbeing & comfort and can give great advice on such matters that can be of huge practical use in everyday life & help you free up energy for other things through a new diet or napping regiment or something that helps you chill. 

Speaking of chill, their concern with homeostasis primarily generally makes them even-tempered, mellow and cogenial folks without much drama potential, though some might wish for more stimulating companions. They’re placid, unobstrusive everyman types who go through life without much fuss or bother who prefer the familiar and wholesome. If they do travel, they might be fussy about what to bring in order to fulfill every possible need & be comfortable. 

Others might find them a bit mysterious because they don’t seem all that concerned with, and certainly aren’t constantly ranting about,  abstract ideas, activities or other people’s business. They are often good at their jobs but not overly invested beyond a level of detached competence. 

Queen of Clubs

These are basically the Appetites - the emotional part of the instinctual center is emotional about sensations. It’s the process of taking in stimuli through the five senses and deciding wether they’re pleasant or unpleasant (not necessarily the same as wether they’re actually good for your survival - see suggary food. ) - It evaluates the stimulus itself more than its context so this is where we can be lead to indulge cravings or bad habits. Usually the ‘stimulus’ or ‘object of attention’ is something more benign tho - like when you are tired and keep thinking of sleeping, or when you’re hungry and see a delicious Pizza.

People who are centered in the Queen of Clubs will naturally be more aware of pleasant and unpleasant sensations, so they will try to create comfortable and pleasurable environments full of nice things to appeal to their senses - pretty furniture, nice smells, rich fabric etc. They’llbe inclined to be a bit of a gourmand, connoseur or aesthete and might even turn this into their job, for example as an interior designer or someone who sells handmade ceramics. 

They’re often considered very attractive regardless of their appearance (often without being aware of it or thinking it a big deal) because of their natural sensuality and “animal magnetism” - besides, their interest in pleasure and comfort usually extends to others, or as a bonding activity: They want their friends to be well-fed, comfy and enjoying nice things. This totally extends to their sexuality as well - they frequently have an “If it feels good, it’s good” attitude & might not be the world’s most responsible people, as they tend to be focussed on things that hold their attention. This none-too -disciplined, impulsive quality is the whole basis of consumer culture - people will have their attention occupied by having better/more/shinier until they get gratification & then the fun begins anew.

Despite this, they can also have a pronounced maternal quality & strong caring/mentoring instincts - after all mother instincts are crucial for the survival of the species which ppl can seen as being the same as one’s own survival in an evolutional sense.

The thing with all the queens (and a crucial thing to know about people centered in them) - is that since they’re all about these strong “good/bad” judgements, they have a lot of those and their can chance and fluctuate as the person becomes more or fed up with whatever held their attention so they’re not the most reliable or steady folks. If you date on of these be aware that they’re a package deal - you can’t have the liking & vivacity without the revulsion and dislike. 

King of Clubs

While the emotional part of the instinctual center is rather liberal with expending it’s energies, the intellectual part is cautious about preserving it for when it might be needed to sustain one’s life - It is the cunning and perceptive animal mind, the fight or flight instinct, something that strives to observe & keep track of its surroundings & the other processes the person is doing without being all too detectable itself- as such, it can ever seem mysterious, even a bit sinister. 

Unlike the other intellectual parts it doesn’t have its attention directed by the person, but is a background process type of thing, which, for most people, kicks in in exceptional times,the exceptional awareness, preseverance and reaction speed of high-adrenaline situations - sudden alertness, time slowing down, pain being blocked out until later, small unatlethic parents lifting heavy objects to save their trapped children, that sort of thing. 

A person centered in the King Of Clubs, then, is someone very in touch with their strong, pronounced survival instincts and likely to seem formidable to others - they’re not really approachable or comfortable to be around unless one has come to know them quite well, and that only occurs if and when they wish for someone to know them well -  They can be intimidating when they want to, at times verging on seeming brutal, almost as if they could errect an invisible wall to repell unwanted advances.

With the survival calculations everyone does in the background much closer to their conscious awareness, they can be quite suspicious, perceptive and exceptionally aware of their surroundings, and calculating about many things in life. Some of them can also have or develop great charisma and exert much influence over others. 

As it represents the highest developed part of our animal nature, it’s probably no coincidence that, as an archetype, this sort of personality is often found in movie villains - or think the archetypical gunslinger.

Jack of Spades

This is your repertoire of learned movements, all manner of complex procedural knowledge, from how to catch a ball to using a keyboard, driving a bike etc. all of the complex movements we do everyday which we once had to learn but can now do without thinking - like when you are walking and thinking mostly of where to go or typing and thinking of words, but having little awareness of your actual feet or fingers - this is never more clear than, say, when one walks or drives the wrong way out of habit. 

 the same time this unconscious procedural knowledge often does actions more efficiently than we would if he had to figure out every step (See the centipede’s dilemma - ppl confusing themselves & having a hard time getting back into the rythm of an action after thinking about how they’re doing it/ when paying more attention. There’s a reason why all those meditation audios tell you not to listen “while driving or operation machinery”)

A person centered in the jack of spades is usually a creature of habit: steady, down-to earth, efficient and consistent in performance with great tolerance for routine or repetitive motions that would bore or tire others beyond endurance - as such they make perfect employees for a great manner of jobs from everything to repair, data entry, farming, accounting or warehouse stock control - and luckily enough it’s a very common center of gravity, humanity as a whole does seem suited to taking care of the various stuff that needs doing.

One way to identify one of these for sure (as opposed to ppl who just do automatic drudgework because they have to, as all of us do) is to watch if they resort to repetitive motions in time of stress - people cutting up vegetables, agressively cleaning or mowing the lawn after an argument with their spouse, for example, perhaps leading the spouse to wonder how they can be concerned with such banal, mundane things at a moment like this - They’re not being insensitive, it’s just their coping mechanism, they’re doing the best they can to deal with their emotional pain in a constructive manner. People are, in general, much more likely to revert to their ‘default’ center when under stress.

Sometimes you have to make the diagnosis by principle of exclusion - relatively steady, don’t seem overly concerned with emotions or ideas, etc; while the intellectual part of the moving center will lose interest in something after it’s fully mastered, these folks don’t mind doing the same job all their life or living in the same neighborhood. 

Queen of Spades

While the Jack of spades is characterized by its steadiness, the queen is dintinguished by a lack thereof - as with the other emotional parts, it gets the feels about this particular function (in this case, movement) and has its attention held by a particular object, in this case an action, movement, kinesthetic experience or spatial problem - its the part that enjoys sports, or watching sports (though the patience & rigor to become exeptional - indeed seeking thrills can end in the hospital instead)

Here lives the need for speed, the enjoyment of fast cars, video games, amusement park rides, action movies and physical comedy, and if we consider how much cash we as a species spends on such things you get an idea of the moving mind’s importance. 

A person centered in the Queen of Spades is often flashy and extravagant in their movements, moves more than necessary for a given activity. They like novelty and can flip from obsessively practicing a new activity to losing all interest in it once they get bored - as such it should be little surprise that they like traveling, often to new unusual places rather than the hugely monetized tourist hangouts. 

They might be the sort willing to make do with very little and lead a bohemian vagabond hippie lifestyle in order to escape the ghastly fate of working a boring repetitive job and staying in one place for too long, chasing cool & worthwhile experiences such as mountainclimbing, wild water rafting or karate lessons in more of a breadth than a depht approach. 

King of Spades

The kind of physical action that requires sustained attention - such as operating heavy machinery where one moment of inattention can end in severing an important water pipe or power cable, or losing a finger. This part of the moving mind operates much slower and more deliberate than the others - the domain of careful, intentional movements. 

As such, it is inextricably linked with tool use, crafting and technology, the search for finding better, easier, smoother and more efficient ways to do all manner of physical tasks - it is also what we use to figure out objects and how they work - you may be able to assemble an ikea chair, lego or a tricycle all on your own just by looking at the parts and how they fit together - or you might resort to reading the manual for a little help from the intellectual center. (It’s worth noting that procedural knowledge is indeed in a wholly different brain region than abstract knowledge or biographical memories - you could have complete amnesia and still know how to fix a bike or learn gardening.)

It is of little surprise that people who have this as their primary center are in high demand in our current technology based economy - not only are they neede to invent, refine and improve all sorts of devices, they are needed to fix them for the technologically challenged. Such people are capable of greats effort of sustained attention when trying to solve a particular problem, be it to break new athlethic records, design video games or new techniques for animaztion or to improve some vulnerable part of an engine, they can focus their attention on the problem for days, months or years until it is finally solved. 

But while they find great satisfaction in problem-solving, they easily lose interest once the basic question has been solved, at times leading to a trail of unfinished projects or more endurant people perfectingtheir new techniques for them. 

Movement in the strictest sense isn’t their only province, but also an understandng of spatial relationships and composition - meaning, this is a kind of skill than an architect, engineer or surgeon would need. 

Jack of Diamonds

As with the other centers, this is kind of the “memory” where already acquired knowledge goes to be recalled -  Information on facts or cause and effect relations as simple data. This is where you keep all the basic information you need to function in the world, and when you think of it it’s quite amazing how much of that even relatively “dumb” humans contain - At least one language (in some areas you need way more), knowledge of abstract systems like money and numbers, some idea of what one needs to purchase so they and their family can live, where to get a cheap deal, the history & mythology of where the live, some  trivia about their favorite, and a bunch of politcal opinions for which they might be willing to shoot their neighbor, so yeah - 

This is where we return to the adage: “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit Salad.” The Jack of Diamond is more like the mind’s file clerk, it retrieves data with a “true/false” label attached upon a certain trigger - like a question or related topic, leading to many a mental or conversational wiki walk. Rote memorization obviously has its limits, especially where discernment needs to be applied or many contradictory factors need to be considered, or where Data needs to be updated and there’s a danger with sticking with the first information you got “filled” with as the only correct one.

If you challende a person who has their center of gravity in the Jack of Diamonds to a pop quiz or game of trivial pursuit, you will lose - They are always in the process of acquiring all kinds of raw, exact information and can recite a lot of it very quickly, often to the effect of impressing nearby people and garnering a reputation. The death & birth dates of celebrities, the ingredients in food, any funfacts about historical events... they stockpile it all just for its own sake, if perhaps in what others may consider a dry or dusty manner. 

They are not necessarily overly enthusiastic or exited about the information but they kinda take it in for completeness’ sake. This is more the sweatervest nerd than the passionate one, but they do pretty well in academic disciplines that require rigor, attention to detail and turning raw data into publishable work. , doing statistical tests or methodcal analysis (Including in literature/ the humanities)

Queen of Diamonds

As with the other Queens, the queen of diamonds is marked by animation and enthusiasm, though it can be as transient as an object keeping your attention - in this case the objects are ideas, theories, facts, ways of thinking and ways of thinking about thinking, but non indiscriminately or all at once - rather there’s a pattern of changing “current obsession” - In other words, this is the seat of curiosity and fascination and “exiciteable” nerds. 

A commontrait for ppl centered in the Queen of Diamond is owning a stack of books they bought because of interest in the basic concepts but then they don’t always  get around to reading or finishing them because something else occupied their attention. 

Even so, they’re often sought out as friends and companions because they provide stimulating conversation that might distract you from your instinctive or emotional quagmires - who doesn’t like some nerd humor or interesting debates?

More a breadth than a depht of knowledge here, they might be too exclectic for the rigors required of scholars, but make good generalists, enthusiastic teachers and good science-related communicators, though they might have a problem with staying on course or doing the repetition expected in a teacher’s role one they grow bored of something. 

King of Diamonds

This is where the fruit salad comes in, or rather, study time! Sustaining attention to intellectual matters even when it seems like drudgery, and ultimately a necessity for functioning in academic settings, even in matters one is reasonably enthusiastic for to reach understanding &  pass exams, one must study even on you ‘off’ days and even the less exciting topics - on such days, attention needs to be explicitly focussed through sustained effort, and that is where the King of Diamonds comes in. 

It’s one of the slowest moving parts of the human mind - in contrast to the quick, repeated answers of the Jack of Diamonds, this is a long, laborious process that comes with the understanding that we cannot have all the answers because there’s still much we don’t know - rather than applying quick good/bad or true/false statements, this part understands the relativity of context and how a precept that may be helpful in one situation may be inappropriate or even criminal in another - rather than seeing the facts and ideas as individual data points it tries to fit them all and their connections together into a whole like a precariously balanced house of cards. 

People with their center in the king of diamonds tend to be quiet and wait long before speaking and so, might ironically be mistaken for dullards (Doesn’t help that this type is supposedly fairly unusual.)    - they are so tentative and careful about ideas that it can be hard to tell that they are, in fact, quite absorbed in ideas - it’s the part that knows that it doesn’t know. They are hesitant to make assertions unless they are certain - while knowing that you can never fully know - indeed if you asked one of them what their center of gravity is, they’d most likely answer that they don’t know. 

Jack of Hearts

So, let us think. What would be an ‘automatic’ or ‘memorized’ response in regards to... social processing? (as if I had to read through/eat the author’s anti-intellectualism again, I get to stress that as much as they are as sophisticated as abstract reasoning and all parts of a whole, social processing & value judgements  =/= emotions)

Well, this would be “politeness/manners/habitual pleasantries”, automatic responses we produce in relation to others - this is also where cultural sensibilities and attitudes are encoded, deeply rooted and difficult to observe - but all to obvious if we spend a while in a different circle or culture and find that the responses we have taken for granted are no longer appropriate - volumes have been written about the various subtle differences in the way that people from different cultures handle things like time, personal space, relationships to family members and strangers, business transactions dining andmany others complex interactions of social life. 

We learn these mechanical responses by imitation when we are very young, long before we even realize that we’re learning anything - and often those differences in responses can be recognized very early on in toddlers and babies - no wonder we don`t always realize that they are learned. These responses can produce many of the same emotions we find in the ‘queen’ of hearts, but compared to those, they are much less intense & ebb away once our friends and relatives lose interest in the matter, since they are merely being imitated. - This mechanism is also what’s responsible for “crowd emotions”, huge groups of people being swept up in fervors ar concerts, sporting events and political rallies... or after tragedie, crimes and disasters, mass hysteria etc

Wether restrained or violently demonstrative, this automatic imitation of the group’s emotional tenor is one of the most characteristi manifestations of the jack of hearts. This part of the psyche can be sentimental and affectionate, but just as easily cold & rejecting, depending on the stimulus - Loyalty toward one group can turn to violence against the other, prejudice may be absorbed alongside otherwise helpful socalization, there’s a risk of us vs them thinking & sheeple groupthink - Though in its proper context when balanced by the other parts of the person, the Jack of Hearts has an important function to perform in providing the social lubricant necessary for unfamiliar people to interact within the same society and offset initial instrinctual-level suspicious (exactly what is sometimes missing between members of different cultures, allowing those latent suspicions to take over) - this is also how ppl pick up their culture’s aesthetic sensibilities and tastes. 

A person centered in the Jack of Hearts will usually have a friendly and gregarious demeanor (unless they were raised by total bigots, or had very negative experienced growing up, which might lead them to meet others with a lot of fear and suspicious) - typically, though, they are cheerful and positive in most social situations and appear caring and warm in most relationships.

This type is very attuned to the little social conventions of friendship - expect lots of birthday/christmas/aniversary presents, thank you notes for any favors or gifts, get well cards for any illness and condolences for any misfortunes. They know the appropriate attire for every occasion, so ask them if you’re ever in doubt.

However, these conventional, reflexive ways of showing concern are kind of how they do it and beneath this some of them can seem, or actually be somewhat shallow and insensitive - since the jack of hearts operates by imitation, they might only be aware of the surface manifestation of emotion and to mimic the general emotional tone without deeper awareness of what is occurring - this part of the emotional center is automatically oncerned with people and relationships and is fond of gossip without awareness of what harm might be done by talking indiscriminately about others. 

Their tastes are also likely to be conventional - sentimental movies, love songs, stuffed animals, soap operas & mass-produces decorative objects appeal to this type and will be found in abundance in their surroundings - men will make lots of jokes, be loyal to their favorite sports team and have a favorite tavern where he socializes with a few good buddies. When functioning from the negative half of things, the same person can then turn spiteful and petty with a tedency for jealousy, vindictiveness and cruel remarks disguised as humor, like subtly insulting nicknames

Queen of Hearts

The emotional part about the emotional center is emotional about, well... emotion (they keep using that word...) but what all this actually means is that this part of the human mind enjoys emotion for its own sake and values those impressions and experiences that create emotion - preferably intense emotion, be it positive or negative. Where the jack of hearts likes or dislikes, the queen hates or loves passionately. Where the jack may be pleased about pretty easthetics, the queen is gonna be ecstatic and where the jack’s programmed reactions are relatively consistent, the queen is prone to dramatc moodswings and changes in opinion. This is where we fall and love... and also what fuels axe murders pretty much. Anytime we’re experiencing strong out-of-control emotions, we’re probably in Queen of Hearts mode, having our attention held by whatever we’re emoting at and since the emotional center is first and foremost concerned with interpersonal relationships, it’s likely to be another person.

It s the part of us that identifies with other people and can be liable to lose sense of our own worth in concern of what people thing of us - or what judges others. This part is greatly interested in what others are doing, especially in their own relationships, and wether others are living up to the tenets of moral behavior - and if they’re not, it’s what wants them punished and creates outrage, be it about celibrities or public figures, or in personal life where it can lead to possesiveness or jealousy in its extremes.

However, it’s also what allows us to enjoys intense emotions in fiction genres such as horror and drama (At this point, I shall risk the claim that her majesty is also the part that writes most fanfiction - IDK why the author thinks dark art is a negative, cathartic fantasy is about the safest outlet there is for anything. Or rather I know why but I don’t buy it nor the premises it stands on, but FYI they see it as a masturbatory thing somehow or that’s their reasoning)

- and also the seat of noble and altrustic emotion, charitable and philanthropic impulses as well as religious fervor (or course you wanna be careful with that one and the author actually agrees with me though they mght not  recognize their flavor of woo-woo as ‘religion’ or ‘belief’)

If this is your center of gravity, you probably have a lot of feelings - since the queens grow bored easily & may change opinion relatively quickly (and none more than this one because of the intense energy involved in Feelings(TM) ), you may experience them mood swings and have an affinity for the extremes, moving between exstatic enthusiasm and bleak despair, seldom finding a moderate middle ground. 

Having the attention hel by an object and that object being emotional, this would be the type of person who would rather feel anything, no matter how painful, than nothing.  - sometimes, they might pretty much provoke an emotional exchange in order to feel something. They always find someone to love or hate, sometimes that’s the same person for reasons that have more to do with their internal processes than what the actual person did - they might also apply the same fluctuation inward, alternating between grandiose self-love and self-loathing - all this often attracts people who are more repressed or subdued themselves and look to experience a little of the intensity for themselves, though they might fail to realize that whole “if you can’t handle me at my worst you don’t deserve me at my best” deal.

This storm of feels does, however, command a huge amount of passion & energy that can be put in the service of great things if the person knows how to channel it (just think of the feats of endurance or foolishness we can perform for the ones we love)

King of Hearts 

Ya did not honestly think we were escaping the obligatory alice in wonderland reference? Well apparently one poignant way to explain the ‘King of hearts’ is to look at the infamous royal couple from that book, including its less memelicious half - the angry queen who wants everyone beheaded and the mild-manared little King who walks after her and pardons everybody.  

Forgiveness is a good example of a process that is without doubt emotional/social/ethical in nature but also takes work & might require a person to get over themselves, the parts that require continous effort.  These tend to be emotions that are more quiet & contemplative rather than loud & demonstrative - compassion, empathy, consideration, patience, humility, and the drive toward self-improvement and growth - effort levels are not the same for all people & I still think there’s some ideology lodged here but at the same time they’re not completely off with the “true love/care” business & how it requires sustained concern and comitment - this is where we consider whats best for another rathen than freaking out about what they think of us, where we dont just want to be understood but also to understand others, where we dont just want to be loved but to actively love, the constant effort to do right.

If you believe in that sort of thing this is also where you would supposedly find the door to all that spiritual enlightenment/salvation mumbo jumbo whatever your preferred flavor is - or perhaps those are just names we give our ideal selves not understanding that they’re just part of us. In any case, artistic discernment of a more relative kind also lives here & this is the point where it goes beyond like or dslike and you can appreciate that there’s different things for different contexts. 

People who have this as their center of gravity are less apparent in being emotionally centered, because they can seem relatively even-tempered or even detached (in a zen kind of way), able to examine possibilities with compassion but without immediate identification, to understand that appreciating one thing doesn’ equal putting down another or praising it to all heights... 

(I would now say that I don’t think to flatter Mari but that she may well be one of these, in case she’s reading this,  (if she’s not a queen of Spades but she seems way more humble & considerate than adventurous),but then I remember that Mari does not have internet right now because she is currently having a ValuableLifeExperience(TM) on a tropical island, no doubt exercising her deep thoughts & aesthetic discernment to its fullest and being all sweet & considerate to everyone.

I miss my sisters, they moved across the country, gotta visit them one of these days. ) 

[kendrixtermina]

I am probably purchasing the Nardi book next month after finding a less expensive offer somewhere. If it works out, there will eventually be an “extra typology” series on it. 

[kendrixtermina]

‘Extra Typology’ Masterpost

To make things short this is a series where I read, review, summarize & extract the insigts from books on the topic of personality typings. 

Everything linked here can also be found on the ‘#extraTypology’ tag. 

Vol#1 - Essence Type/12 Type Enneagram (Source 

#1)

Vol#2 - Essence Type/12 Type Enneagram (Source #2)

Vol#3 - The Oldham Styles

Unplanned Entry Re: “What is this Queen of Diamonds thingy?���

Vol #4 -  On “The Neuroscience of Personality” (MBTI)

Comming soon: What I learned from Riso & Hudson’s “Wisdom of the Enneagram.”

[kendrixtermina]

The “Extra Typology” link in my menu no longer links to the tag but to a masterpost. 

It’s becoming too much material for ppl to just sort through & i plan on adding more soon. *pats half-read enneagram book on desk* 

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part , A: 13. - The Mercurial Style (Basics)

The “tempestuous romantic type”, perhaps comparable with a sx 4 in the classic enneagram or perhaps sx/sp in general depending on the person. 

For people of the Mercurial style, life is a roller coaster of intensity, from the peaks to the valleys, and they want others to come along for the ride - Mercurial individuals yearn for experience and will jump into a new love or a new lifestyle with both feet, without even a glance backward - No other style, including the Dramatic, is this ardent in its desire to connect to life and with other people, and no other style is so capable of enduring the styles in emotional weather that such a fervidly lived life will bring. 

The Six Domains

Relationships

Mercurial individuals are never casual about the people they care for - they tend to immediately feel a magnetic involvement or even a powerful sense that the relationship is destined, and it can quickly go on to become the center of their lives and the heart of their beings - they are  emotional, insistent and very much life’s natural romantics (indeed, think Romeo Montague) and they pursue their relationships with an intensity unlike any other style. 

A love afair, or even a friendship with a mercurial individual is unforgettable - they put their lovers, friends, and even co-workers on a pedestal, worship their perfection and thank the heavens for blessing them with such a person - They’ll feel the urge to talk to the every day, sometimes several times a day, must know everything the other person thinks, does or feels, and will take them everywhere they go and introducing them to their at times numerous friends at pursuits; Their partners may find that they get drawn closer than anyone else ever wanted them to be - and if they’re not into that and resist, the fury & hurt that the Mercurial individual may mount just as quickly and they can swiftly turn angry and critical or the same people they were idolizing just a while earlier.

They can have strong, all-or-nothing opinions and, if displeased, change them pretty quickly; With their shifting moods, incessant demads and the ease with which they can become dissapointed, they can be considered difficult to deal with and perceived as arrogant and grandiose by some, but their cutting, outspoken opinions can also make them interesting and they do have a tendency to encouage those in their good graces to aspire to new heights, and there’s little that they wouldn’t do for their friends and will finght to hang onto someone they feel might be slipping from their grasp - this is the sort of person who will, say, pull a grand romantic gesture to win their ex back. 

In a way they can be open to anyone in that if someone strikes them like they should belong to their lives, they will try hard to bring them in, though they can be sharply critical and unforgiving if an individual isn’t interested in the offer - and obviously, that level of intensity and ceaseless activity might overwhelm those with more moderate needs for emotional closeness - it doesn’t help that Mercurial folks are, for all their many enthusiams, given to brood and often the sort of people that might take a request for more space too personally.

On the plus side, they’re the most generous, focussed and attentive partners you’ll ever get. In a healthy individual with a well-balanced pattern, these traits can contribute to a powerful, lasting romantic love of the sort that songs, poems and stageplays are about (indeed you may have noticed that everything about this style is basically song lyrics tropes incarnate), but if the dominance of the Mercurial style is more extreme and other emotionally volatile styles (like say, Dramatic) are present, you end up with a needy, emotionally unrestrained person with a limited capacity to stop and think and such enormous expectations that few people can adequately fulfill even if they love the very Mercurial person in question dearly, for few can offer the same constant intense passion and attention - by and large, they tend not to be all too skilled at patching things up with others - they tend to feel that they are the ones who give the most (and more often than not its even true), and some may even feel justified in manipulating others into giving them more attention.

 They may have trouble recognizing the ways in which they may have contributed to relationship difficulties, in part because of a tendency to view the relationship colored by their later feelings if it blew up in anger & conclude that it must have sucked to begin with and/or that they were merely fooled or blinded by their feelings. 

 Individuals in which this style is extremly pronounced may have difficulty actually sustaining the relationship in the long-term but because they thrive on romantic love, they will throw themselves completely into the next relationship before too long, so they will end up going through a series of passionate entanglements rather han one single lasting relationship. 

A sad truth with some extremly Mercurial individuals can be that sometimes, they are the last ones to recognize how much they mean to the people in their lives because of their impossibly high standards and a tendency to feel hurt  and abandones when others simply assert their needs. 

Emotions

Mercurial people are driven by their emotions - what moves them is what counts to them. Even with only a moderate amount of this style, and individual will experience all their emotions more intensely than other people - they are all heart, and everyone and everything leaves an impact on them. They laugh and weep easily and openly. They can feel hot fury and ice-cold rage, and they experience profound sexual excitement and passion, encountering little inibitions in this or any other emotional aspect of their lives. 

In brief: They have a lot of feelings. Emotions drive even their thoughts - when you listen to a Mercurial expressing their conviction, a strenght of feeling will be apparent. They’re anything but wishy washy and let you know exactly where they stand, hold nothing back and take nothing lightly, especially when it comes to people - after all, as we’ve previously discussed, relationships are the focus of Mercurial lives - all their relationships, from lovers to friends to relatives to co-workers. They react to everyone, finding emotional significance in anything another person does - as a result, they are easily flattered and pleased, but just as easily devastated, disillusioned or dissapointed.

As it’s so central to their lives there’s a good chance that they idealize emotion, not just in a 19th century romanticist sense but in seeking perfect romantic love - they may find it, too, but they can’t necessarily grasp it for long - perhaps no one can, for the idealized lover exists only as no flaws, however minor, are seen. A strongly Mercurial person may prefer to remain infatuated with their beloved and thus bland to the real human imperfections that might spell a dreadful disapointment, a calm, quiet life with a “regular” person would sound like boredom to them. 

Because their emotions are their primarysource of experience and meaning, Mercurial individuals - at least those who don’t have a more ‘head’-heavy style to anchor them - will be subject to rapid, sometimes unpredictable shifts in moods as they react to the unavoidable changes in their environment. 

In moderate, well-adjusted individuals with balanced personality patterns, this can represent a gift for experiencing the fullness of emotion but in the extremes, especially as we approach a degree of disfunctionality, they might find that they lack a consistent emotional center and find themselves at the mercy of their internal states and prone to overreactions.

Self-Control

Appetites exert a huge force on the Mercurial life - propelled by their powerful emotions, they are hungry for and thoroughly responsive to pleasure, sensation and experience, which may also serve as distractions from hurt and pain they may be unwilling to acknowledge.

They are curious and interested, love to taste and experiment and are alive in the moment, finding it difficult to pass up any spontaneous gratification - if they get a craving for Pizza in the middle of the night, they might well end up dragging all their friends to a fancy restaurant in a rented limousine - Unafraid of risk, they are intensely motivated to have a good time and experience new things and will try anything once. Often they drive like demons, spend their money as soon as they have it,  and feast with little thoughts of cholesterol and the like - Like dramatic and Adventurous people, their skill is in living in the moment, with the corresponding drawback of being reluctant to plan for the future. 

For people with this as their dominant style, this can reach levels of reckless self-indulgence and some may end up self-destructing despite all their talents and abilities. Of course it needn’t come that far but even a fairly well-adjusted Mercurial person will need to make a continuous effort to keep themselves from overdoing it - of course, having more commonsense-ey styles in one’s pattern helps. 

Self

Their characteristic willingness to try anything once extends even to the Self domain: Mercurial types tend to be extremly open-minded and curious about other ways of being - their sense of who they are is rarely concretely fixed to any particular identity or lifestyle, and sometimes not even to a culture - Mercurial people have a talent for moving into new lifestyles and fitting right in whereas others may seem out-of-place and uncomfortable at first and may easily learn a new language, assimilate into a new location or social group, cultural movement, or adjust to a new career or role - Some Mercurial people in whim the trait is especially pronounced may immerse themselves in the lifestyles and even identities of new friends or lovers. 

This ‘’fluid’ sense of self may also mean that the Mercurial individual isn’t always absolutely certan of their own identity, and thus bring some downsides with it - A given Mercurial person may, for example, have a hard time figuring out what they want to do in their lives, have a bit of a complex or identity crisis about it during which they may struggle with feelings of emptiness, or resort to imitating people or groups to archieve a sense of certainty. 

In any case, the self-image (or images) of a Mercurial person - whatever it happens to be - is likely to be painted in strongly contrasting colors. They may be changeable, but they always stand out. 

Worldview

To a Mercurial person, the world is an intense and powerful place that is often chaotic, and at times rather dark - this is a fire-and-ice personality style, inside an out. 

Work

At work, Mercurial types can be bright, outgoing, enthusiastic, energetic, original and creative - characteristically, they become intensely involved with their co-workers and take everything that happens in their work relationships personally - They can be passionately interested and involved in office and intrigue. 

They often put their bosses on pedestal an expect them to behave with perfect judgement and compassion, which, of course, can lead to dissapointment - but as long as the boss manages to mantain his idealized image, the Mercurial individual will work extremly hard to make a good impression - but they’ll need to be recognized and rewarded for their hard work as the ‘special’ relationship with the boss is essential to the motivations - Mercurial people do not become selfless drones, and if all their intense efforts go unnoticed, and the boss acts as if they are just one more employee, they’ll quickly lose interest and their effort will peter out - Mercurial types rise to the occasion when they are admired, needed, depend on and idealized. 

They can be as demanding at work as they are in other areas of their lives, but their insistence on being treated well can serve then in this domain - their sense of entitlement will keep them from being ill-used and underpaid, thought in some cases their usual difficulty with being realistic can cause this t backfire, leading them to insist on being treated as way more important to their employers than they actually are - this, combined with their tendency for strong emotional reactions, may interfere with the progress of their careers - that said, this may be different in creative fields, given the sort of reputations artists get. 

Life Choices

Leadership

The Mercurial style does not generally come with a gift for leadership, largely because the Mercurials loathe to establish the necessary managerial detachment from their subordinates - they like to become intensely involved and they end up, as always, idealizing relationships. 

They expect extraordinary personal dedication and perfect performance from those who work with them and when subordinates do not meet their expectations, they tend to feel personally let down - plus, they’re moody & emotional. They often split those around them into an in-group and an out-group, although affiliation among the favored few is never guaranteed for long. Moreover, they haven’t much ability n planning, organization or dealing with money. 

A little touch of the Mercurial style, however, may well aid a manager in inspiring their subordinates to give their all, and Mercurial individuals are sometimes capable of brilliant ideas - with a solid, non-competitive second in command of a more common-sense-ey style, such a semi-Mercurial manager may be able to both fire up the spirit and make sure that the work actually gets done. 

Job Recomendations

To be happy and productive in your work life, you need a career where your emotive ability can work for you, for example in a creative field - You likely have good critical skills and enjoy sitting in judgement - consider becoming a critic. 

However, avoid technical, solitary, detail- or number oriented work that requires rigorous cerebral preserverance and pick something where you’re somehow involved with others - You’ll need the discipline of a structured work setting, too, as you might have a tendency to lose focus & get sidetracked by your pesonal whims that may prove fatal in slor or independent work. 

Consider acting, be it professionally or simply as a hobby. Considering your style’s comfort in an idealized role, you may also thrive in teaching or helping professions - if you can avoid overinvolvement with students/clients and deal with or offset your generally high impatience and low frustration tolerance. 

Stress Sources

The greatest sources of stress for a Mercurial person tend to be relationship problems; Likewise, it is important to them to be recognized and treated as special, and if that doesn’t happen - of if the other prson tries to establish  some distance - they might feel threatened. 

As one may expect, they react to such stresses very intensely - often they’ll throw themselves into a powerful, passionate experience (sex, music, drugs, booze etc.) to distract themselves - or, they’ll step back and act like it isn’t happening, which can seem a little strange. But unless the stress itself diminished, sooner or later they’ll react full force, often feeling that rejection is tantamount to the end of the world. 

If their outbursts of emotion fail to influence the other person, they may cope by suddenly turning their backs on that person and becoming intensely involved with someone else, perhaps itself a distraction from the pain. They hate being without love and do not stay that way for long.

Parenting

Mercurial people can make wonderfully fun, entertaining, interesting energetic and involving parents - when they’re in the mood. 

They greatly enjoy the emotional intensity of parent-child relationships, especially while the child is small, but they can be imontionally inconsistent in all their relationships and might have difficulties dealing appropiately with the child’s emerging autonomy and it can be hard work for Mercurial parents to allow a teen their idependence and distance. Also, if the child becomes contrary, the spouse may have to help with the patience and forbearance, and since this is an impulsive style, they might not be the most qualified people to teach their kids to control their own impulses and appetites.

That said, a Mercurial parent - especially if moderate and relatively well-adjusted - can encourage emotional depht, generosity, creativity,courage romance and spirit in their offspring. 

Romantic Compatibility

The stronger the Mercurial streak, the more difficult it can be to sustain a long-term relationship beyond the honimoon phase - Mercurial types require hot intensity but the heat they need usually burns itself out quickly. They need partners who are interesting, strong, exciting, passionate, romantic and yet fully responsive to their demands - basically Prince Charming, which is precisely the problem in the long-term, as their expectations of an idealized perfect unions might be just plain unrealistic - They might still find fulfillment and intensity in memorable if brief short-term relationships though. 

If you’re a Mercurial who’d like to find a lifetime partner, you may have to learn to appreciate a partner’s more low-key, steadier, less romantic qualities.

Theoretically, a sober, steady and responsible Conscientious type might make a good match for the long haul, but unlike a predominantly Dramatic person, a strongly Mercurial type  would get bored with such a person in no time,  if the Conscientious peson didn’t get overwhelmed by the fireworks first

Adventurous types often prove highly attractive to them - they are not good at fulfilling Mercurial demands, but they’ll be compatible in the passion and excitement department, at least for a while

Similarily, two Mercurials may have a similarily exciting affair, but fly appart dramatically eventually if there’s no further stabilizing influence

Dramatic partners usually need too much attention to themselves, but this, too could be good and fiery over the short term

For a more long-term match, Vigilant qualities may help, for you can share your mutual sense of being somewhat separate from the rest.

For similar reasons, an Idiosyncratic partner could prove a real find as long as they’re not too involved with their own little world - you two are different from the usual mold and may be able to build a truly unique relationship  (My inner emo fairy says yes, but the reality of my strong introversion probably firmly confines this scenario to elaborate fantasies full of badboy appeal. Maybe it was an internet/long-distance relationship? Sounds like it would be worth the experience even if it’s likely to blow up. Still, I could definitely see it work for other idiosyncratic people, especially if both partners share interests. I think actually wrote something roughly like that pair in one of my first attempts at semi-original fiction works)

Also, a match with a Sensitive person could surprise you both with its longevity - Sensitive people can be strong, tolerant, feeling mates who need you to open them up and make the world of other people available to them - and both of these would coincide with a Mercurial’s particular strenghts. 

Watch out for a strong Serious tendency in anyone you might be attracted to, there’s a good chance that you two will bring each other down in no time. 

Specific Issues

A changeable Nature

Unlike most others, Mercurial individuals tend to be intrigued rather than put off  by other’s differences  - to begin with, they tend not to categorize people and be open to all manner of relationships and experiences, with the corollary that they themselves easily experiment with new lifestyles, roles and identities without seeing themselves as fundamentally changed (and they may indeed the implication that they were somehow inauthentic before or are so currently)

Disambiguation (Mercurial vs. Dramatic)

While the Mercurial and Dramatic styles resemble each other in the emphasis on passion and feelings, and although both styles can and often do coexist within the same individual, they differ in important ways: 

Dramatic individuals are other-directed. That means that they will be attentive to you and learn what you want to in order to win your love and become the center of your attention - they can be deeply intuitive & sensitive to the needs of others and orchestrate their own behavior to draw you to them - 

Mercurial individuals are much more intense and demanding and won’t be content simply to dance in the light you shine on them - they’ll need you to step in there with you and will want to fill up their whole world with you and dream of being with you throughout eternity - Generous and outgoing as they may be, they will be far less inclined to moderate their behavior for your sake or to adapt to anyone else’s ways of looking at things. 

Addition: Though not discussed in this book/ present the initial version of the system, another type with which there might be disambiguation potential is the Artistic one, as both can be described as having “changing moods” and engaging on many new pursuits based on impulse - but you’re working with a whole different energy there: The Mercurial “alternates” between high intensity wanting and high intensity anger but is still nonstop high intensity whereas with the Artistic the poles are more between positive, enthusiastic excitement and apathetic, low-energy melancholy.

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part 15, C: The Aggressive Style (Pitfalls, Warning Signs & analysis)

As the old adage goes, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’, and when the former isn’t tempered by the later, capriciousness, sadism and intimidation reign free - 

And at the unhealthy extreme of this naturally dominant types we find individuals so twisted that merely competing & ruling over others isn’t enough - they end up humiliating & terrorizing others to assert their superiority, ie, pretty much your basic bully if they aren’t outright abusive. 

Warning Signs:

Drastically controlling behavior toward family members, subordinates or anyone else dependent upon them in their work, enforced through threats, intimidation and humiliation

Little if any empathy for people they dominate or control - so it’s easy for them to hurt those people, they may even relish it

Malicious slander or gratuituous hurtful lies 

Harsh punishment for the most minor of errors or indiscretions

Disproportionate anger galore

Physical or psychological violence, and/or abuse of power

However, such people don’t just terrorize anyone and may even put on a bening respectful face to those who are in authority over them. They terrorize specifically their dependents and close relationships, where they feel entitled to enforce their dominance through maltreatment - especially if anyone rebels or threatens to leave

Inner Mechanics:

Pretty straightforward; Sense of entitlement + out of control desire to prove one’s superiority & dominance = using people as punching bags (wether it’s an overcompensation for poor self-esteem or not) 

Though there’s always a bit of controversity as to where dysfunction begins and plain assholery/immorality ends, on the one hand one wants to understand and stop/prevent what is clearly deviant behavior, on the other, no one wants to give abusive assholes some excuse to hide behind and deflect legal responsibility. 

Suboptimal Environments:

These awful outcomes are usually due to bad examples, such as having a parent who was themselves tyrannical or outright abusive or simply witnessing said parent mistreat their spouse or other family members and getting away with it perhaps creating the  idea that one is entitled to do such things in a relationship or a pattern of terrorizing others to relieve one’s own sense of powerlessness.

Needless to say such individuals tend to have work, marital & legal problems and may be suceptible to addiction. 

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part , A: 11. - The Idiosyncratic Style (Basics)

This would be the kind of people who always seem to be a little bit in their own world, the dreamers and eccentrics of the earth. 

These are decidedly unconventional people who march to their own, distinctive beats, regadless of what everyone around them thinks or believes, sometimes with the result of standing out like sore thumbs, or ending up with unusual beliefs (such as being into esoterics) - in any case they tend to be fairly oblivious to established social norms and conventions and believe in following their own feelings & opinions regardless of what anyone says about it. 

This is one of the rarer styles; In other systems it may correspond to 5w4/4w5, Extroverted Intuition (especially the auxillaries) or the Lunar type.

The Six Domains

Worldview

This would be this style’s key domain (along with the “Self”), the only one  for which that is so, at least among the ones mentioned in this book. THe authors open this with a passage about a sucessful author who believes the odd noises in her huge old timesey mansion are caused by a ghost, but only tells her closest friends because they might think her crazy. 

Idiosyncratic individuals don’t all necessarily believe in, say, ghosts, past lives, ESP  and the like - and I’d add, nor are non-idiosyncratic ones immune to odd unreasonable beliefs - just take trickle down economics or organized religion; The human ability to tell the shit from the shinola is simply imperfect. 

The difference is more in that the idiosyncratic individuals do not feel compelled to accept everyone else’s explanations of what is going on in the world and try to make up their own mind about it, with as much or as little sucess as anyone else - so they end up seeing the world a tad differently from everyone else and may in some settings  be viewed as weird, eccentric or even heretical (as were those Puritanians in early Massachusets who did not believe in witches)

The minds and imaginations of idiosyncratic individuals range far and wide, and they might be willing to consider anything as possibly real - The open-mindedness of this style is often a boon to creative and intellectual exploration and at times accompanies intellectal or artistic genius (Einstein, Newton, Gould, Dali, Caroll...)  - People like them perceived something different out there because they were not locked into the accepted explanations and interpretations that seem unequivocally true to most people (A/N: again, Oldham’s words not mine ^^°)

Genius or otherwise, Idiosyncratic people are creatively curious - they’e always asking “What if...?” - that said, they are by no means oblivious to what other people think and believe. They know few people believe in, say, UFOs or chakras - I doesn’t matter to them what other people think and their own understandings tend to come from inside themselves, not from other people, books or newspapers - they are true noncomformists and find themselves driven to live their lives according to the sensations, feelings and ideas that spring from inside them.

Self 

The greatest reality for idiosyncratic types derives from their internal worlds - If they believe in something, or if their experiences suggest something, then it exists and they don’t need external proof. They heed their inner voices, not those of other people - Unlike Conscientious or Sensitive-style people, their self-esteem is not based on following protocol or being correct from someone else’s point of view - Thus, an idiosyncratic artist can break with tradition without worrying what the public, the dealers or the critics may think - With sufficient talent or genius, this artistic vision may be a huge groundbreaker - or it may offend throughout history, but no matte which it will be, an artist with this personality style will follow their inclinations.

Ideosyncratic Individuals tend to have odd habits and to build strange, eccentric lifestyles... and to be judged by more conventional types to be slightly or substantially strange. There is no end of stories about Ideosyncratic individuals and their unorthodox solutions to everyday concerns; They’re indifferent about what others may think about their habits and don’t try to fit in - indeed they wouldn’t even know how. 

And yet somehow, many live, work and suceed, sometimes phenominally well, in the same world we all live in, only they do it their own way - still, predominantly idiosyncratic individuals may find acceptance by others difficult and depending on where they live, they might be subject to ridicule, though the degree to which this may be a problem depends on the setting, the prevailing culture, their sucesses or talents and the degree to which they need the warmth, support and acceptance of other people - In the sixties, alternative lifestyles were “in” but neither then nor now would any ideosyncratic person have an easy time on a military base or in corporate culture, where proper form and procedure are everything - The fact is, the number of settings where highly indeosyncratic individuals fit in are few - One may be able to find their niche as an actor, writer, musician, intellectual or psychic healer, and with great talent, archievement or wealth such individuals will be courted by others no matter how bizzarely they behave, but the quirky ideosyncratic individual  who has nothing extraordinary to offer to mainstream society may find the going rough if they cannot find a welcoming or at least tolerant environment(A/N: Ouch. But undeniable.)

Moderately ideosyncratic people, especially if they have a more dominant conforming style (such as the Conscientious) usually find it easier to accomodate to traditional expectations while keeping their beliefs and ideas to themselves, but even so, in extremly “straight” environments they may seem a bit unusual - refrshingly original to some, a little “off” to others. 

Emotions

The idiosyncratic is a powerfully thinking and feeling style* - how these individuals feel within themselvs is as important as what they think is going on out there - Like Dramatic individuals, they seek emotional experience in life, the difference being that Dramatic emotional expression has so much to do with other people - not so for the Ideosyncratic, for whom emotions are felt in all their intensity for their own sake.

The emotional responses of Ideosyncratic types may be based more on their subjective experience at any given moment than on what’s happening around them - which may make their behavior at times seem strange and inapropiate. Extremly ideosyncratic will often start to laugh in public because something inside them strikes them as funny.  (I do this all the time. So this merits the abverb “extremly”? Im not sure if huffish-lowkey-offended or guilty-oleasure-proud.) Sometimes they seem kind of ‘spaced out’ because they’re tuned inward, not outward toward others. They express their feelings  and thoughts in their own way, because conforming is no motivation for them - Still, they may become anxious and self-conscious  when they have to be around others who dwell securely in the “regular” world - They know they’re different and that people don’t always respect or appreciate them for it and they can display quite a temper around rigid, narrow-minded people who insist that their idiosyncratic way of life is “wrong” and who try to make them mold themselves to ‘normal’ behavior standarts.

*Aww finally something gets this. Indeed I often feel personally victimized by the 19th century idea that thinking & feeling (which they conflate & equate with intuition anyways) are somehow antitheses. No one would have believed such a thing in the renaisance 

Self-Control

These individuals seek mental, emotional and spiritual expansion - they crave new experiences to send them to new peaks of feeling and wareness of their inner being - to archieve this, many Ideiosyncratics will experiment with varities of intense experience, from primal scream therapy to fasting, t long hours of mediation or psychedelic drugs, to hours & hours of deep thinking or listening to music. Since they tend not to be constrained by convention and will experiment with the forbidden, others may view them as out of control - ideosyncratic individuals test the limits of emotional and spiritual experience. They seek rapture. They are also eager to explore their inner darkness and generally give priority to their inner experience over what others may consider to be external, objective reality - no one’s gonna tell these types what they feel isn’t really happening. 

Work

Two key factors in the quality of idiosyncratic lives are, first, wether they can find an accepting environment and second, how far they can go to adapt to other’s explanations. Not many work settings tolerate eccentricities of behavior - unless the eccentric in question has a great deal to offer by way of inteligence, talent or skill. Still, the rent has to be paid; Like most people, ideosyncratic types have to work. Those who can keep their eccentricities to themselves do best - Some ideosyncratics can do well with one ear tuned into their own little worlds  and one outwards to what the boss expects of them. Others, however, have a hard time accepting or understanding authority. 

Frequently, idiosyncratic types are not ambitious or competititive in the conventional sense and can do well in routine work  that doesn’t much interest or challenge them as long as they can play by the rules - they are often capable of intense concentration and can “tune out” and still accomplish a day’s work well.

Relationships

Remember the writer with the haunted house mentioned above? She has a husband who loves her, takes care of her, caters to her eccentricities and is willing to adopt her ghost as his own (if not her idea of fighting mosquitoes with house-bats) - her emotional intensity ecites him and he feels that she gives him an experience of life that he could nevr have created on his own. He can’t imagine life without her, but he knows that she could probably do without him if she had to - when she protested, he asked her what she’d do if a little geen man from mard showed up and offered to abduct her but not him. She said she’d have to think about that.

The fact is that ideosyncratic people do not necessarily need other people, and certainly not to give their lives direction, definition or meaning - they go their own way, with or without relationships and have no need to be like other people; Thus they do not team up with others just because it’s expected of them. It is not uncommon for very ideosyncratic individuals to remain unpaired throughout life, with few or no attachments. Some become downright reclusive - their withdrawal from the world may have much to do with the pressures that may be put on them to drop their ideosyncracy - in effect, to become someone they’re not. Under such pressure, ideosyncratic people simply can’t live in the mainstream

(A/N Admittedly both Mom & grandma thought I , which they only told me fter I acquired my current boyfriend)

Life Choices

Leadership

Ideosyncratic types are rarely interested in managing others, certainly not in any traditional way - they’re not very efficient at the day-to-day requirements of a supervisory roles and they’re not neccesarily tuned into other’s feelings. However, with competent people to whom they can delegate the routine matters of running an office and instituting disciplined practices, they can often inspire others and bring a fresh view to work - don’t expect the usual sorts of meetings, process reports and overall concern for form, though. 

Job Recomendations

Issues of security, benefits and daily structure do not mean much to people with a predominance of this style - Freedom from rules and comformist expectations. If your patterns includes some get-ahead, ambitious styles such as Self-Confident, Conscientious or Vigilant, your prime requirement  will be to seek out a challenging work environment in which your idiosyncracy will be accepted or in which it is not too stressfull to keep it to yourself. Even if you are very bright and talented, you will not be able to contribute in setting in which everybody is expected to behave similarly, such as the corporate world. 

Even if you do manage to produce, be aware that in traditional settings - including, perhaps, the family business - you may be an irritant to others and may not be politically sucessful no matter how much you can contribute.

Seek out creative work environments, which are generally more tolerant of individual eccentricities provided the work gets done. In professions such as medicine or law, you may be able to find a niche for yourself in your own practice or in partnership with those who are similarily freethinking. Consider, perhaps, a career associated with one of your hobbies or concerns - you could for exaple sell new age goods or work in some capcity for some organization or cause that interests you. 

For those of you who are not especially ambitions in the work domain, or who need to earn money only to support your personal interests and endeavors, find a nondemanding job that provides stability & freedom from economic worry. With good concentration, idiosyncratic individuals often make skilled word processors, typists, secretaries, baggage handlers or postal employees - work in which you can keep your mind to yourself and still perform.  Ideosyncratic individuals often thrive as part-timers or temps, free of the pressures of performance evaluations and nine-to-five expectations. Consider freelance consulting work as well, if you have a skill or talent you can market - clients are often more tolerant of unusual personality styles as long as you can do the work and deliver it on time. 

Stress Sources

Freethinking has its limitations - Idiosyncratic types’ rejection of standard explanations & conventions plus their reliance on their inner experience alone can lead to doubt an uncertainty - It is characteristic of this personality style to question & wonder - Among the “What Ifs?” that an ideosyncratic individual may ask is “What if there’s another way to explain things?” - 

And when their personal systems begin to rearange themselves into new worldviews, ideosyncratic types may experience anything from mild confusion to a full-blown existential crisis. Many ideosyncratic people are constantly reinventing their universe in search for reality and truth - they are looking for a worldview that can satisfy them emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, but their self-styled systems may be in constant flux - As natural seekers, they will always be looking for something else, something more, something better - And usually that’s fine with themas the quest itself is a source of joy and fulfillment.

But in times of difficulty, it might sometimes be easier to have a fir & established belief system to make sense of things - if nothing in their understanding of the universe can explain what is happening in their life, they may lose faith and become deeply dispirited - Thus, ideosyncratic seeking is often accompanied by doubt and dissilusionment. They, along with having to conform to someone else’s reality, are this personality styles’ most significant souces of stress - 

But inner strenght is also characteristic of this style and so they will often find a suitable metaphysical explanation for their crises of confidence and then move on to embrace a new belief system, or at least solace themselves with music and art. If, however, the stresses come from the pressures of a conformist society, idiosyncratic types may find it easier to cope by withdrawing from the mainstream. 

Parenting

Having ideosyncratic parents can be difficult - children usually model themselves after their parents but at the same time, once they enter school they tend to go through a conformistic phase, needng the acceptance of their peers and a chance to do the ‘normal’ thing - if a parent is highly unconventional and leading a lifestyle highly different from that of the other kids’ parents, they may begin to feel ashamed of the parent and guilty about harboring such ‘bad’ feeings - and a highly ideosyncratic parent may pressure the child toward an unconventionality with which the child is uncomfortable.  Similarily, ideosyncratic parents often push their children to be more creative and expressive than they may be by nature. 

The ideosyncratic parent needs to be sensitive to the child’s own personality and tolerant of the ‘outer world’ that the child must negotiate and be willing to bend a little for the child’s world.

Now for the bright side: A mildly or moderately ideosyncratic parent may encourage creativity in a gifted child and provide a wide range of experiences  for them. Most importantly, such parents often teach their children to accept themselves in all their individual uniqueness, which is a strenght that they carry with them all their lives.

Romantic Compatibility

Ideosyncratic indivuals do not, as a rule, adjust to other’s needs - Therefore, they will not match well with anyone wgo is primarily Self-Confident, Vigilant, Adventurous or Aggresive. Ideosyncratics need to find matches who will accept them for who they are, let them be, and perhaps act as a liason to the regular world

Individuals with Devoted or Self-Sacrificing styles have these characteristics. 

A little Dramatic style helps too, for sharing or at last appreciating the Ideosyncratic partner’s emotional experience of life.  (A/N: I don’t see any of these working for me - perhaps b/c of the Solitary tendencies in my specific case - but it seems amusing to me that oldham would apparently concurr with socionics on the ESFJ/INTP pairing. I can see these working for ideosyncratic ppl in general though.)

As always, a bit of the Conscientious contributes to a sense of responsibility which keeps the bills paid  and the ideosyncratic life on track, but if there is too much of the conformist Conscientious style and  the mate will be horrified by the oddities. (I’ve experienced both, got the “You freak!” treatment from my father and that one ex, and the “Sweetly cared for” one from my current SO.)

Leisurely is another possibility

Two Ideosyncratic individuals, should they find each other, can sometimes build a tight little world together with the conventional World rarely intervening (Had this too with my major teenage crush/kind-of-girlfriend. Would recomend. Also great for friendships!)

Although the Serious personality style resembles the conscientious in terms of responsibility  and hard work, this style’s preference for routine and avoidance of novelty does not match up well with ideosyncratic creativity, curiosity and openness (A/N: Mixed patterns can be less party-pooping tho. I for once buy the Lunar/Saturn pairing. )

Specific Issues

A New Age Pesonality Style?

Almost by definition the Idiosyncratic style is an uncommon one (says oldham and/or morris, not me), but there are still places & environments in which one can find them in great abundance - many people of this style may be involved with the New Age movement, as it provides a forum and setting for their unconventional beliefs and their personal spiritual seeking - An indiosyncratic individual can attent a workshop on past lives or shamanistic healing, or spend months meditating at an Ashram without fear of being thought peculiar - individuals with this style are very aware that others think them rather strange so they often seek out the company of like-minded others in order to be comfortable in life - This doesn’t mean that anyone who identifies with the New Age moment is necessarily of the Idiosyncratic personality style or that all Idiosyncratic people participate in new age activities - People come to new movements for many different reasons: Because the beliefs appeal to them, because their old beliefs no longer work for them, because they need a person or cause to lend structure to their lives, because they have a strong need to affiliateand be accepted and so on...

However, idiosyncratic people are not “joiners” - They do not affiliate or conform, no matter who’s in charge, nor are they inclined to accept or espouse anyone else’s principles or beliefs - their quest is entirely personal, their belief original.

(A/N:Personally I would add that the Cosplay and Gothic subcultures (which I’d identify with a lot more with than new age) are likely also full of idiosyncratic folks  - These are also thoroughly individualistic, against comformism and would rebuke anyone who told them their feelings & views aren’t valid but there is less of or association with exploitative woo-woo moneymaking shemes or neccesarily antiscientific thinking. Perhaps we are just subculture people in general and my preference here has more to do with my age group and growing up in the 90s and 00s as opposed to the 70s.

Perhaps out of some refusal to be lumped in with the antiscientiic elements of the new-age crowd, I went through this chapter thinking that “Hey, I’m not THAT weird” , probably the first time that thought ever occured to me in my life. Then, of course, I remembered that for most of my childhood,  I insisted on randomly singing or talking to myself out loud, repeatedly arguing that there was no logical reason not to do so and that the other children & teachers really ought to mind their own business.... and I did go to a naked meditation ritual thingy earlier this week. Hey, I brought my boyfriend, and you only live once, right? ...right? XD)

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part 17: An Overview of Strenghts and Weaknesses

Since the main/extensive articles on the types were written with the intention to extract, present & popularize as much of the info in the book as possible they may have gotten...rambly as it is probably a general flaw on my explanatory writings. So here’s a summaizing overview in a form that people seem to tend to appeciate. 

This is largely based on those neat little summarizing texts the authors conveniently placed before the life advice sections though I will attempt to fill in for the additional styles in some of the expanded versions of this system while I’m at it.

It’s worth mentioning (& you might recognize this pattern in the advice they list) that the authors generally suggest that you try to use your strong points (be they organizing, imagination etc.) to compenate for your weak ones and gently ease into the edges of your un-comfortzone. 

Conscientious

+ You are Great Oganizers & List-Makers & can be expected to have work related things figured out + You are trustwothy, grounded, dependable and mature - may not know how to relax & hence incur stress-related health risks - may benefit from broadening their mind, Pov and personal life

Self-Confident

+ Your ability to strive for sucess & your neve to boldly go after it set you apart from all other personality styles + You are probably quite aware of your capabilities & know what you’re worth - To ensure that your character works to your advantage, you may need to develop a more realistic sense of your own shortcomings - Beware of myopic outlooks particularly overlooking dissatisfaction in other people as this may bite you in the ass

Devoted

+ You know how to love & how to give & are keenly aware of other people’s needs + You are diplomatic & like to promote harmony - You might benefit from turning your attention to yourself, see what you can do on your own behalf and let others know who you are and what they can do for you - You may tend to agree with those who are important to you, perhaps stiffling your own opinions; You may run the risk of appearing less interesting to those whose approval you wanted to win in the first place

Dramatic

+ You know how to see & find the exciting & colorful in everyday life + You are very intuitive about people & know how to lead even more reticent fellows to open up to you - Your sources of Self-Esteem lay outside yourself, which may make your inner life unsteady; finding sources inside yourself will ensure some inner calm  - Simply avoiding the unpleasant and boring pats of life doesn’t always work. Try not to let them pile up in an overwhelming manner

Vigilant

+ Your mind & Senses are always on, monitoring the environment, other people and the local power structures; Because of that, little escapes your notice + Though reserved, you are likely a good and observer of people who remembers details & sees though subtle motivations - Always being in such a state of aler can leave you physically ad emotionally tense; Try to unplug from that once in a while - Also beware of false positives - Sometimes things simply go wrong because of tragedy & misfortune without a clear cause or culprit

Sensitive

+ Your love of the familiar allows you to built a comfortable personal environment in which you know everything about the places, activities & people you deal with + You are likely to be likeable, friendly, warm, loyal, imaginative & kind. Aww~ - However, your adherence to the familiar could alo get you into a rut so try to change things up & venture just a little outside your comfort zone once in a while - Your ‘Danger-alert system’ is extremly sensitive so you might be worrying over nothing occasionally

Leisurely

+ You know how to be contented & happy just by doing the things you like + You don’t let anybody push you around, know how to enforce your own priorities and know that you have as much of a right as anyone else - You tend to look more inward than outward, so it might help to try & focus/ notice what is important to those around you & what brings them pleasure - Beware of Procrastination hell

Adventurous

+ Your strong points include  your spontaneity, strenght, fearlessness, ability to act and experience pleasure + You have a natural tendency to live life to the fullests, fill it up with worthwhile experiences & life in the moment - If you run into trouble, it’ll likely result from impulsivity & lack of forethought; For your own benefit & the sake of those around you it may help to work on these so you’re not hampered by unexpected consequences - Try to put at least some thought into what you want for the future

Idiosyncratic

+ You are likely to be interesting, original, possibly very spiritual, maybe even highly creative and gifted + You are no slave to bogus or limiting aspects of social convention& go your own way - Because of your insistence on doing things your own way, you may pay a price in your personal and professional relationships - You may not realize just how diffeent you actually are, that is, fail to pick up what is expected in any given situation. 

Solitary

+ In your ability to be comfortable alone, you have no peers. You don’t get lonely easily + You can probably entertain yourself seemingly endlessly & relish your activities just as much by yourself & go about your own pursuits without distraction - You may want to improve your elationships with people,even if it’s only to go about your self-determined business more easily - You may find it hard to relate to others or “speak their language”, & your different social needs can make it difficult to keep a friendship or partnership going

Mecurial

+ Among the strengts that infuse your life are an ability to life & feel to the fullest and a temendous appreciation for interpersonal relationships.  + You throw yourself into your pursuits wholeheartedly & have an unique ability to adapt to new places, social groups & lifestyles - To feel more fulfilled & sucessful in life & your relationships, work on developing some detachment & restrait - Be aware that you tend to have very high expectations that may sometimes veer into the unrealistic

Self-Sacrificing

+ You are a naturally unselfish, generous, helpful & giving human being capable of adapting to, accepting & getting along with almost everyone. w00t! + You work had to please even when no one asks or thanks you for it - You may deny your own needs & pleasures more than you realize - Work on establishing a firmer balance of give-and-take by being more cicumspect in giving and more assertive in taking

Aggressive

+ Congratulations! You likely have enormous potential for sucess, especially in your professional life.  + You run a tight ship & are exceptionally good at getting things done as a leader - To make your home life as rewarding as your professional one,  it might help to smooth your sometimes over-bosy side as it may cause conflict for you at home.  - You may have a bit of a temper, especially if others defy your authority.  Try not to overreact to the healthy self-assertion of others

Serious

+ You are a hard worker who preseveres in all tasks, no matter how sour + You have a measured, realistic outlook on the world - In oder to protect yourself from stress, enhance your relationships & to preserve your strenght for truly difficult times, you may need to develop some flexibility - You may have difficulty putting yourself forward in social situations, when seeking employment or on the job.

Inventive

+ You’re probably interested in social climbing & have the eyes & sensitivities for doing so & getting into the good graces of high-status people + You have a variety of interests, are innovative & are diven to cultivate many talents. Cool! - You are sensitive to how others ptreat or perceive you and may have a hard time coping with social embarassment or humiliation; Remember that it’s not the end of the world - You may be so focussed on attaining what gets recognition that you become caught up in superficial things or out of touch with your very own wants & feelings

Exuberant

+ You are not just active, gregarious,and an appreciator of beauty, but also highly productive& invested in being skillfull.  + You value & tend to seek out pleasurable & intense experiences and novelty - You may have a tendency to splurge or otherwise be given to occasional excesses or be flakey in relationships - On the other hand there might be a risk of being so absorben in your pursuit of the day & the search for esciting experience that you neglect to take care of yourself and flake out on your loved ones

Artistic

+ You’re likely very creative, subject to rushes of inspiration & given to experience the beauty & meaning of everything in life through your heart + You tend to have a gasp on many different corners of the human experience & therefore have a nuanced understanding of different viewpoints - You dislike routine & tend to make decisions based on your current mood, which may sometimes lead to less-than-thought-through decisions or jeopardize your relationships - Both your productivity & confidence may be somewhat unsteady and subject to ‘seasonal fluctuations’

Carefree

+ You are naturally young at heart, charming, refreshing, unabashed & not overly bogged down by inhibition + You take an uncomplicated, straightforward view of things & relationships - You may be somewhat scattered & might benefit from working on handling everyday responsibilities - You may find it hard to act sufficiently mature when others rely on you

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part , A: 14. - The Self-Sacrificing Style (Basics)

A style with a humble, magnanimous and altruistic disposition, perhaps comparable to a 2w1/1w2 or a Jupiter type. 

The way they see it, their needs can wait until other’s are well-served, and knowing that they have given on themselves they can feel confortable and at peace, secure with their place in the scheme of things.

The Six Domains

Relationships

This is, without question, they key domain for this style: Individuals with the Self-Sacrificing style derive their meaning in life through giving to others and go out of their way to anticipate their desires - 

In that sense they may appear similar to the Devoted style (and they can coexist), but while Devoted individuals center their lives around their principal relationships that they depend upon, Self-Sacrifers help & give to anyone they come into contact with and take the ‘nurturing’ role themselves, prefering to shoulder their own burdens in life rather than turn to others for support - and no matter how much they already have on their plates, they find it hard to turn anyone away. They are kind, gentle do-gooders and helping others wherever they go is an inbuilt feature of their internal value system - to some extent, they tend to take the nurturing part in all their relationships, and they don’t seek rewards for their helpfulness. 

These people may well sacrifice their own needs in the act of service and take on a heavy workload, but they don’t experience their actions as self-renunciation: To do a good turn for another person makes them feel right in the world, and that’s what counts. Anyone with a prominent streak of this style will find meaning in laboring to make others’ lives better, and they might become philanthropists or missionaries, give to charity, take in sick or disabled foster children and dedicated stay-at-home parents - they are drawn to creatures in need whose suffering they will do anything to alleviate - They labor long and hard, happy to lose sight of themselves in their helpfulness to a cause or person, often to the point of going far beyond what society or their loved ones would ever ask of them - and after a hard day’s work, they will fall into bed with a calm, contended inner equilibrium, certain that their rest is earned.

Self-Sacrificing people are active, vigorous, energetic, highly motivated, even dilligent - but without any more ‘me’ focussed styles in their makeup, their efforts will always be for someone else, indeed, they routinely deflect attentions away from themselves - It’s not just that they are modest, but that they do not enjoy taking full credit for what they do - They don’t enjoy the attention and it does not feel right for them. 

Some may be so wellpracticed in dodging the attention that the important people in their lives may stop noticing their extraordinary efforts and take them for granted, or even to take advanate of their good natures - And what does the Self-Sacrificer feel, fater insisting again and again that they don’t want to be thanked, credited or noticed and finally being taken at their word? Well, pain. 

They may not want to be lionized for their efforts, but like most people, Self-Sacrificers need to be loved and appreciated. They love to giveand they hate appearing prideful or pushy, but they’re human, and to have their contributions ignored and get treated as a non-person can cause an unrecognized Self-Sacrificer much pain, confusion and dissapointment - after all if the others don’t even care, what have they even been laboring for? 

Work

Work is a comfortable domain for this personality style - for through their work they perform the service of others. In a way, they resemble Conscientious types in their competence, loyalty and dedication to their work... and their reluctance to relax and enjoy themselves. They also share their respect for those in authority. 

Give a Self-Sacrificing individual a task, and if need be, they’ll work all nights and on weekends to complete it. They can handle drudgery and routine and can adapt to many work situations and jobs, and they don’t complain when something falls outside their job description - if it’s important to their children, spouse the cause or their employer, they’ll get it done. 

This altruistic patterns operates on all levels of work, from service to manking to work for hire - Many extremly talented Self-Sacrificers are content to spend their entire lives as ghostwriters or secretaries - lucky for their employers. Regadless of what careers they chose, they tend to make steady, liable undemanding workers - 

Some individuals with mixed patterns may be less satisfied and would like to advance their careers, but may not realize how their reluctance to take credit for anything has been hampering their efforts. 

On the other hand as the style grows more pronounced, pure and/or extreme, you get a person who hates to ask for favors and may have difficulty taking advantage of opportunities for their own advancement and feel compelled to stand back for their colleagues instead of competing - indeed they may react to the realization that they actually want a promotion deep inside by “atoning” for their “greed” by leaving the post to their co-workers. 

Self

The extent to which hey seek their identities through acts of service may serve as a litmus test for a given Self-Sacrificer’s self worth - Would they still feel good about themselves if they were stranded alone on a desert island? Can they feel at peace with themselves if they’re not trying to do something for someone else?

Some Self-Sacrificers may feel unworthy and undeserving of love, attention and pleasure - therefore, they are always running themselves ragged trying to justify and earn it. Others may have a pretty good sense of who they are and what they want underneath it all  - but they may feel that they shoul not indulge their “selfish” desires but instead tend to the needs of others. 

They may work exceedingly hard, but unless they have ab ambitious style in their personality pattern (the Self-Confident for example), they will not be powerfully career-minded, and neither will they be as demonstrably sucessful as one might imagine considering the amount and quality of their work - This personality style is not marked by outward ambition and the value of the work itself, or the person for whom they work, is far more important to Self-Sacrificing types than their own personal gain - they may work tirelessly towards the candidate’s victory, the patient’s recovery or housing for the homeless, but won’t be inclined to stop and think, “Hey, what’s in this for me?” What counts more is the satisfaction of the principal others involved with the work. 

Emotions

Self-Sacrificing types are natural pleasure-givers but not so much pleasure-takers: But they can be far more capable of the full range of satisfying emotions and appetites than they may seem. Emotionally, they can feel quite positive and full, especially when they’ve previously done something for someone.

Nonetheless, Self-Sacrificing individuals can be prone to sadness and depression for many reasons - they may be weighed down by a sense of neverending, unfulfillable obligations to others and the inner guilt that might result from those, and they may not know how to express their anger at the people they care for or even how to aknowledge that they have such feelings - others, in turn, may simply not be able to “lighten up” and cut loose. 

For these and other reasons, Self-Sacrificing people often come across as long-suffering - but also, always, as emotionally strong and capable of shouldering whatever burdens come their way in life. 

How they express their personal suffering will depend on the other styles in their personality patterns - For example, a predominantly Self-Sacrificing person with a Dramatic or Mercurial streak may loudly fuss and complain about the number of ungrateful people in their life. With Conscientious or Solitary influences, they may keep their resentment private, leading to a chronically stiff upper lip and with  considerable Serious influence, they will be cynical, pessimistic, critical and resigned to what they see as the inevitable dissapointments of life. 

Self-Control

As for their overt pleasure, the key is privacy: In the presence of others they immediately feel compelled to give up their comfort in order to provide for others, to cook while others sit etc.  - In bed, they may attend to their partner’s needs rather than their own. It’s the way they are and they’re good at, but since they are other-directed people pleasers they might not find it easy to relax their strict self-control in order to cut loose and have a good time - In extreme cases, some strongly Self- Sacrificing individuals may seem stiff, stern, uptight and no fun at all -  The more pronounced the Self-Sacrificing style, the more time they will spend worrying over what they need to do for others might have overlooked to give them.

If no one else is around, though, these same individuals may find that relaxation and self-indulgence come quite easy and that they’re quite capable of relaxing in the comfortable chair, binging on ice cream or watching a racy movie. They’ll indulge their own pleasures only when no one is looking, as if they have something to feel guilty about - So why they may not want overt rewards nor mind giving, one would do well to remember that they do enjoy and need their me-time. 

Worldview

Self-Sacrificing individuals see the world as a hard, tough place; To them, reality is a painful thing, and their mission in it is to make things better for other people. 

Even people with more mixed/balanced personality patterns may end up far more exposed to the pain, misery  and misfortunes of human existence though their altruistic efforts to help the needy, so this can be a self-reinforcing thing - they more they seek out the things in the world that need fixing, they more they’re confronted with how much still needs to be done.

They will not see life as pleasant, just or easy. 

Life Choices

Leadership

Generally speaking, Self-Sacrificers avoid becoming managers - they like to work for or on behalf of others rather than be responsible for overseeing other people’s work and behavior. 

They may, however, end up in middle-management positions by virtue of their good workloyalty and devotions to their organizations and/or bosses - in those cases, they may have trouble delegating work or insisting that it be done on time and end up seriously overworked, or they may be overly solicitous of other people’s problems and go out of their way to help them, and then feel that these individuals are not grateful, and/or angry when they continue to underperform. Other Self-Sacrificing managers may display a somewhat tyrannical side, expecting their subordinates to similarly sacrifice themselves completely to the job. 

Job Recomendations

Look for work in which you can take care of or satisfy the needs of others. Consider any of the helping, ministering, serving and facilitating professions, including medicine, psychology, nursng, social service, the clergy, charitable institutions, volunteer work, secretarial and administrative assistance work, daycare, homemaking, housework and being a librarian. 

Avoid careers that are big on public speaking or otherwise require you to be the “front person” or center of attention, and, unless you have Dramatic or Mercurial tendencies, the performing arts - if you do have some creative bent, consider writing, editing, songwriting, commercial design or advertising. 

Stress Sources

There are two principal sources of stress for Self-Sacrificing people - First, that they take on too much, willingly giving up their leisure time to care for others - As a result, they might find no time to kick back and put their feet up unless they dare to “steal” a moment of indulgence - And they find it difficult to accept help from anyone else. Thus, they may work themselves into poor health. 

The other key stress for this style is resentment, which occurs when they begin to feel that others do not understand, appreciate or love them despite all that they do. 

But Self-Sacrificing types are strong - They can take up other people’s burdens as well as their own. “Such is life, wether I like it or not I can deal with it” say these stressed-out individuals - unless they are in a complete state of collapse, they’ll roll up their sleeves and restore their emotional equilibrium by helping someone out. 

Parenting

Sucessful parenting requires the ability to sacrifice for one’s children and to expect little for oneself in return - to a point. Individuals with a moderate self-Sacrificing style give of themselves naturally and happily, providing their children with a strong sense of security in life. 

In extreme cases, however, they may assume the role of Martyrs and lay a burden of guilt on their offspring, working themselves to the bone and suffering extreme dissapointment when the children appear ungrateful or when they grow up and go their own self-determined way. The very Self-Sacrificing parent who “went without so you could go to medical school” may not take kindly to the child’s decision to pursue a career in rock music - “But mom, I never wanted to be a doctor. I never asked you to give up new clothes or a new car for my sake”

As role models, Self-Sacrificing parents may have to remind themselves to set good examples of self-assertion for their children - that it’s okay to stand up for oneself and ask that one’s needs be met. They may also have to practice setting limits, expressing their anger directly and saying no at appropriate times.

Romantic Compatibility

Self-Sacrificers get so tuned into what others need and want that, like the Devoted and Mercurial types, they can become involved with almost anybody - similarily, they may not be sufficiently discriminating in chosing an appropriate mate: They run the risk of hooking up with people who might take advantage of their helpful, gentle, giving and submissive natures, and because Self-Sacrificers are so forgiving and tolerant, they might continue in hurtful reationships. 

If this is among your primary styles, you’ll obviously do best with those who enjoy being taken care of and lavished with attention - but it’s precisely the more dominant/assertive/ “Top” styles that may warrant a double-checking because you might be deceived and abused if you happen to come across a less than well adjusted specimen. 

Be especially cautious with predominantly Aggressive or Adventurous mates so you don’t run afoul of antisocial fuckbois or dictatorial drill-sergeants. 

Self-Confident folks also warrant caution, realism and self-awareness - They will be all too glad to take what you give, but they will not naturally be inclined to notice your needs and may turn out to be big dissapointments

Otherwise, you will probably be able to match up well with any other personality styles, depending on the other influences in your personality pattern. 

Specific Issues

A note to the Boss

Be sure to thank your Self-Sacrificing employees for all their untiring efforts on your behalf! Because Self-Sacrificing types step into the shadows and demand little for themselves, you may forget that these individuals are there - Now that you’ve noticed these dedicated sould, give them a raise - they might be reluctant to ask for what they deserve.

The One-Way Street

To varying degrees, all Self-Sacrificers share a discomfort with positive attention - they don’t feel right standing on a pedestal, and feel awkward (albeit flattered) when someone says “Let’s concentrate on making you happy for a change” - They are in their element when they are giving pleasure or assistance to others, but they aren’t comfortable with themselves - 

This discomfort may resemble guilt, as if deep down they don’t feel entitled to so much attention - someones even if they also have attention-needy styles like the Dramatic! In milder cases, they may simply believe that humility is important and that it would be “frivolous” to “wallow” in “selfish” attention. 

Self-Sacrificers would rather give than take, but when it comes to get their own needs met because they can’t get their own needs met, they cannot accept love easily - and if they can’t work this out, they may end up driving away partners who would give back to them in favor of those that might be inclined to take them for granted - or even those who would take advantage of them. Even partners who might be powerfully attracted by the Self-Sacrificer’s attentiveness may be turned off if their reciprocation isn’t well received. 

In extreme cases, they might be gifted lovers but become uncomfortable when their sexual partners try to touch them back and unable to find sexual satisfaction in reciprocation (and if you’re picturing a stepfordsey housewife here, consider that a preference for “topping only” is supposedly not uncommon in some circles of butch lesbians - there’s more than one way to be “supportive,providing” partner given that self-sacrificers do project an image of emotional strenght. A male of this type, assuming he’s hetero,  might brand this as “gentlemanly/chivalrous” behavior & the book gives many examples of dudes with this style, though society’s harmful messages about female pleasure certainly do not help)

Others in whom this trait is extreme, however, may indeed run from one all-take-no-give selfish asshole to the next without understanding what keepts them from finding a decent partner, or piss others off with unwanted let-me-do-this-for-yous and putting an unwelcome burden of obligation on them, or come off as ingratiating. 

Self-Sacrificers are wired to seek acceptance through giving and may have a hard time understanding that their spouse might want to cuddle them rather than have them work themselves to exhaustion, or to comprehend that those they love may prefer it if they gave a little less, or in different ways. 

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part , A: 12. - The Solitary Style (Basics)

The sort of person who might have wound up as a monk or hermit when those were still a major thing.  The stoic, spockesque loner-by-choice, unmoved by the madding crowd, liberated from the drive to impress and please, remarkably free of the emotions and involvements that distract many others - what they may give up in terms of sentiment and intimacy however, they may gain in clarity of vision.

In terms of equivalents... well this is rather extreme in a way, even for moderate amounts of this, anyone other than enneagram 5 IxTxs and cosmic horror writers need not apply.

The Six Domains

Self

Solitary individuals are self-contained, that is, they are their own truest, most trusted companions, providing the most important ressources they need. They require no one else to guide, admire or entertain them, share their experiences or to provide emotional sustenance - 

Though they may marry and otherwise become involved with others at heart they remain separate and they find greatest comfort, reassurance and freedom alone with themselves - and this desire for solitude is not an apparent reaction or avoidance. While some Sensitive people may avoid others because they just can’t be themselves around them and some idiosyncratic folks might seclude themselves because they can’t conform to conventional rules, Solitary types simply prefer their own company - They like to be alone and certainly don’t need anyone to buttress their self-esteem or rescue them from their boredom - They can be remarkably free of loneliness. 

One telltale sign that this style is present in someone’s pattern iis when a person can’t figure out why others cannot do things alone, or what bringing someone else to an experience, such as a theatre play or a trip to a foreign city, has to do with one’s enjoyment of it - If others lament that they have no one with whom to do activities, they might not understand why they don’t go alone or even think that such concern don’t make any sense - they don’t understand people who always need to be in relationships, in groups they keep to themselves and stand aside and on tours or museums they might walk off to explore on their own while everyone else clusters around the tour guide. At meals, they may well be friendly and responsive if surrounded by people but they will be perfectly glad to dine on their own even in places like school or university cantinas, and they may do stuff like buy single opera tickets or ear out alone. 

Emotions

Many Solitary individuals aren’t really natural romantics - they’re not big feelers or emoters and can generally be counted upon to deliver dispassionate observations. They can be quite impertubable, seemingly not experiencing emotions  as intensely as most others on this planet, and strongly Solitary individuals have very little need of emotional intimacy, though individuals in which the trait is more moderate may feel frustrated with their inability to connect to anyone on a deep feeling level. 

this doesn’t mean that Solitary people are necessarily unhappy - as long as others don’t demand more of them than they can give. People are often pushing Solitary types to reveal themselves and express their feelings, trying to get a rise out of them, as if (like som Conscientious people), they are keeping them hidden and not sharing what is actually there - but for many Solitary people who have no compensating emotional styles, the repertoire of feelings may truly be small - or at least, they do not really speak the language of emotions, which may be hard for many to comprehend. 

Solitary individuals are, in a word, dispassionate, and in some ways they may be richer for it - They may not be feelers, but they are doers and watchers and, free of the passionate desire for others that often clouds our minds, they can stand back and watch the courious things people do and observe the world around them in strikingly clear focus - Gifted Solitary individuals can be highly creative (if reclusive) poets, scientists and intellectuals. 

They can be superb observers of nature and even of relationships between people because they do not identify with their feelings, and as they do not become lonely, they can do as they please and say spend days working on a book or mathematical formula, or go off into the mountains by themselves - in any case, books, notebooks and food are generally enough to sustain them for a prolonged time, are comfortable with Silence and feel Satisfied just watching everything around them, taking notes and learning. 

Self-Control

It’s hard to tempt a Solitary person to overindulge in their visceral appetites. Impulses, hngers and delight in the pleasures of the flesh are all driven by spontaneous emotion which is not this type’s strong suit. 

They may also discover a high tolerance, or stoic disregard for pain or discomfort, being able to work through injuries or harsh conditions through sheer force of will. They would seem to be protected from the usual excesses and weaknesses of the human condition by their very nature.

This might be different if they experiment with potentially addictive substances to help the relate or intensify their emotional experience, or if they have a competitive streak of a pleasure-seeking or emotional style such as Dramatic or Leisurely... or idiosyncratic for that matter (that would be me) - In that case, sorry, no superhuman discipline for you, you’re just very, very introverted. 

Meh. I suppose i can deal. 

Relationships

Without other-directed pesonality styles to offset the Solitary tendency, the individual will be more or less indifferent to the emotional ties that bind others together - Extremly Solitary types will not be likely to pair up or involve themselves intensely with others, not even as friends. While they may have a rather detached interest in people, they will not be naturally responsive to many of them or wish to draw them intimately close. 

It’s not that Solitary people don’t like them humans - They’re not hostile or angry ar anyone. They may enjoy the company of others in many of their activities and some, especially those with a mixed personality pattern, may even marry - but they will need much time for themselves in their relationships and there will always be a wall of greater or lesser thickness between them. 

Some may be quite content with arrangements infrequent meetings & separate homes, but those can end in drama if the other person wants more or perhaps suspects some nefarious agenda such as having something withheld from them or being used, if if the Solitary partner is doing the best they can. 

Some predominantly solitary individuals may eventually commit to marriage because they think they should, for pracical reasons or because of family pressure, especially if they’re women. Although it may not prove easy for these individuals to feel emotionally connected to their mates, they may grow attached to their marital responsibilites and roles and, as long as no one expects fireworks or a social network around the family, these unions can survive.

Work

Solitary types can function very well in the work domain - they get down to work, concentrate, don’t waste time with personal calls and concerns, and are not easily bored. Characteristically self-contained, they do no require a lot of feedback and can take criticism - the setting is the crucial factor for their performance, however -  Extremly Solitary individuals are not team players and do not relate well to the public - It’ not that they are uncooperative, rather, they can be clumsy with the give-and-take necessary to mantain most types of relationships and don’t tend to be sensitive, diplomatic or responsive to subtle and indirect forms of communication.

But when left alone to do their work (and this goes for leisure time activities as well) they can put their mind to it without any distraction and, say, fix cars, write poetry, deliver mails, or study for exams with eqanimity, and their previously mentioned ability to observe and collect information would seve them well in a lot of undertakings - and they can be sent far away to do their work and be expected to cope with repairing a offhore oil rig, manning a remote lighthouse, watch for forest fires or dig for ancient artifacts without feeling lonely, bored or isolated. Or they can retrat from society and work productively without much thought of recognition. 

Worldview

In a way, the Solitary individual may feel like they have been transported awy from their home planet - In their ideal world, there would be very few people who go about their business without bothering one anoher. But the actual world is regrettably overpopulated with intrusive aliens who spend the majority of their time impeding each other’s progress - So, Solitary folks try their best to create little pockets of Solitude around themselves and try to spend as much time in them as they can. 

Life Choices

Leadership

.Solitary individuals have little patience for office politics - as managers tend not to understand their subordinate’s personalities and usually can’t hande personal problems - they may be brilliant at their work, but sucess and promotons may elude them because they cannot deal comfortably with the political framework, besides, the more one wishes to take on in their career, the more people they may have to deal with, and they might find themselves forced to decide between small projects they can do basically by themselves and larger ones where they are to lead many others... and prefer the former. 

This can be the sort of tough decisions that may come with this syle; Ultimately they may be far more suited to freelance careers than being a boss. 

Job Recomendations

Unless you have other-directed styles like Dramatic in your pattern, avoid careers that involve you deeply with others than you have to be responsive towards - Do not hesitate to remove yourself from the fray - Reroute yourself towards autonomy & work from your own home, ofice or lab. You may be able to work with clients who expct nothing more than the service you provide - as an accountant for example. Freelance Careers my also work. 

Your ability to concentrate in solitude and be completely comfortable in your inner sanctuary can also come in handy - in creative & scientific exploration, reseach, technological & mechanical work, or security jobs in which you are paid to watch and wait.

Stress Sources

Even moderately Solitary people may not intuitively comprehend other’s feelings or respond to emotional cues. They might find their partners lamenting that they don’t love them, as they may not express themselves in the same ‘language’ that is often expected in classical romantic relationships - but the more the partner pushes for emotional reactions and a depth of intimate feeling, the greater will be the stress on the Solitary partner and the Solitary person’s coping mechanism will often be to  retreat. 

A person with a more mixed style may feel frustrated and in conflict about their relationships, being motivated toward people on the one hand, but still having so strong a need to protect their solitude as to prevent any deeply immediate relationship. 

Parenting

The birth of a child is one of those extraordinary life experiences that can trigger a person’s unrealized genetic potential - especially for the mother, once bonding occurs, love comes and the is forever changed. Without pairing up, the Solitary individual is of course unlikely to have this experience, moreover, many Solitary individuals are not interested in having children.

However, Solitary individuals who do become parents often dicover a path to emotionl experience and “togetherness” that they never perceived before - Not that they will cast off a lifetim of personality patterns and be ‘reborn’. They will continue to experience at least some difficulty in meeting and responding to the child’s many emotional needs. The other parent may be able to fill in what’s missing. In any case, Solitary individuals with the usual autonomous competence, will be reliable and can be expected to privide at least for the material needs.

(My mom does tell me that the hormonal reprogramming will kick in but personally I think that sound kinda creepy. )

Romantic Compatibility

Relationships are difficult for predominantly Solitary people - they do not naturally gravitate towards or stick with others. If you have this style in your pattern you will need a partner who is high on acceptance and forbearance and low on emotional need. 

A Conscientious person will likely be your best bet considering that style’s lack of emotionality & high regard for marriage as an institution

Some moderately Self-Confident people may be attracted to your sel-containment and competence and may be able to tolerate your aloofness. (A/N: a combi of these two is currently working fine enough for me, not that I don’t experience difficulty - people who work a lot in genera may lower social needs a feature instead of a bug, at least some of the time, it has to be mentioned that these types kinda care about being presentable)

But stay clear of types that are highly emotionally driven, emotionally needy or sociable, including the Dramatic, Mercurial, Adventurous, Devoted, Leisurely  and Idiosyncratic. (Dats like half of them, thanks genetic lottery. Some of these don’t interest me anyway but my Artistic side finds some of these appealing as a concept, but at the same time I don’t see how it could happen to be / be made to work IRL, we’d probably share each other away.)

Sensitive types may seem as unsocial as you are, but they need mates that make it easier, not harder, to be with people. (Pity. They’re cute.)

You might be attracted to a Vigilant person but you’re probably not the type for them - Vigilant types need mates who stay within their watchful eye and you need to go your own way. (They’re a mixed bag anyway I suppose. Like the wokeness not so much the jealousy)

Two moderately Solitary types would be able to respect each other’s privacy (Tried that. Only time I met a person more reclusive than me IRL. Would recomend.)

A match with a Serious person may last in a dull, uninspired, don’t rock the boat way (But does he actually mean “boring” or just “drama free”?)

Specific Issues 

The Pleasures of the Flesh

While they may appear quite confident & competent when in their element, they might be far less comfortable when faced with, say, a passionate person with a random crush on them who perhaps saw them once, liked their butt and suddenly feels they should start a relationship, putting them of the position of having to be the reasonable ones & tell the other person that they might not be compatible - they’re human beings and will be sad when relationships don’t work out, but may find the demand that others place on them in a relationship even worse.

Regardless of orientation or preference, sex is not an overwhelming force in their lives even if they’re run-of-the-mill heterosexuals - they may enjoy it but they can generally do without for longer periods of time,and their need for closeness and intimacy (be they physical or emotionally) is just substantially lower than most people’s, and this disparity in needs can make relationships difficult - Some might end up not even want relationships, others may stick to ONS, or may lament that no one wants them as they are but, in their usual stoic manner, they won’t be overly preoccupied with it.

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part , A: 16. - The Serious Style (Basics)

Remember how I introduced the Solar type as “Like a four but for optimists”? Well, here’s a label for all the people who are gloomy, but realistic and not necessarily head-in-the-cloud escapists. 

This is your classic “knight in sour armor”./ Tall-dark-and-snarky, sort of the more somber, low expectatations type of “gloomy”/”negativistic” person. People of the serious style suffer no illusions - they don’t hitch their wagons to a star, count their chickens before they’re hatched or don rose colored glasses - Even when things are not so pleasant, they see them as they are. 

Of course, since our current culture favors individuals who “think positive” (BLERGH!) Serious-style individuals may be misunderstood, but they don’t expect to be popular - what they sacrifice in silver linings, they gain in an ability to carry on in even the worst of circumstances. This is a no-frills, no-nonsense, just-do-it personality style whose strenght in hard times can help everyone survive. 

For this one it generally helps to remember that there’s a difference between negativity (a value judgement) and negativism (a mode of perception; Notcing the absence of things), though both can of course coinincide. I can’t think of a hard equivalent in other type systems rn, though I do get what is meant by this - cynical first person smartass narrators anyone? 

The Six Domains

Work

For predominantly Serious people, work is truly the metaphor for existence: Life is work and work is life. Be it in the workplace or during personal time, everything is a series of chores. It’s hard, it may even be a grind, but you do what you have to do tu survive. 

Serious people see no choice in this approach to life and they do not expect to find pleasure in it, or to archieve som possibly hidden creative potential. In this way they differconsiderably from people with the two other personality styles in wich work is a key domain: conscientious types, who find a sense of themselves and a meaning to their lives through their efforts, and Aggresive individuals who experience positive fulfillment from the wielding of power. Their expectations are relatively low instead of relatively high - 

The serious personality style is especially adapted to adversity, and people with it have the strenght to keep on doing their duty, which can be a particular asset to their families and to the community, but though they might be an inspiration to others in their seemingly thankless travails, they take no pride in it - They see it as drudgery, not heroism, and typically feel that this is simply their lot in life, albeit a sour one; They may complain, but they see little romance to their labors, seeing it simply as they way life is: You’re born, you work, you die.  Picture the stereotypically dour farmer of times gone by who does what they can to make ends meet.  Although serious individuals press on where others would give up, they get no thrill from it the way an Adventurous person would after surviving a frightening challenge, and neither do they get any particular gratification out of doing things for others the way Self-Sacrificing people do - Serious types are normally cautious and avoid risks but when their path is strewn with hardships, they’ll keep on plodding. 

But regardless of wether or not their personal circumstances are extreme, Serious types see life as hard work - they do their duty as they see it  but the doing may feel to them like toiling on a treadmill - they presevere regardless wether or not they like what they are doing or wether they are rewaded for their efforts - what it feels like is irrelevant for them - A trait that’s easy to take advantage of in a modern workplace. They’ll do the job responsibility no matter what; They may gripe about having too much work to do, but they’ll do it. They’re not activists and do not assert their rights as others might see them and unlike the Self-Sacrificing person who works just as hard with similar humility, the Serious individual doesn’t long for the appreciation they fail to insist on. 

Without any ambitious, self-promoting styles in their makeup, people who are dominated by the Serious style will not map out their careers as a series of stepping stones toward the big price - it’s survival, and for that they’ll singlemindedly work to stay in place rather than to conquer new challenges. The Serious type’s ability to endure discomfort enables them to tolerate routine, tedium and prodigious amounts of work. They are steadfast, loyal, trustworthy and take their jobs extremly seriously, though they may lack the overt enthusiasm some employers prefer. 

It’s not uncommon for them to be cynics who are pessimistic about other and the future and likely to be dissapointed with themselves, but in moderation these traits can contribute to a sucessul career and produce accomplishments that benefit others without necessarily lightening their own burden.

Emotions

Emotions represent the second of the Serious style’s ruling domains - in particular, they’re characterized by a relatively low base mood/ energy level, leading these individuals to envince a sober, unspontaneous emotional style - Their seeming joylessness is inherent, not a cover as it may be for Self-Sacrificing people whom they may resemble - they’re not downplaying their enjoyment out of guilt, their levels of relish & expressiveness are just naturally moderate. 

They’re the quintessential “glass half-empty” kind of people: They see the dark side of life in sharp focus and are constitituonally incapable of coloring it with a positive brush, at least not by default - mind you, they are just as accurate in their description of the container as those who insist it’s half-full, even if contemporary culture accords extra credit to those who thinks positive - and surely it is impossible to completely avoid pain and loss in life. All 14 styles (and presumably the others if you include them) have their own way of reacting to that reality - A Mercurial person may try to escape into pleasure, a Dramatic type will want to shift their eyes to the bright side immediately, a highly Slitary person may not feel much of anything very strongly etc - 

In the case of Serious people, they tend to stay with the dark side even when the intense, acute agony has faded. This style is incapable of the self-sustaining delusions that many others require in order to keep their chins up. While, say, a Self-Confident person will trust that things will work out even when that may not necessarily be true, the Serious person will believe it when they see it; They are realists by nature and when continually confronted with the harsh realities of life, they can’t, as it were, flip the channel to take their mind off it - As such, irritability may be common and even a perfectly well-adjusted Serious person will display a certain pessimism regardless of their capacity for emotional heights from time to time. 

Almost invariably, upbeat, optimistic people see the Serious emotional darkness as wilfull, as if they can and should snap right out of it and lecture them about how they are making themselves miserable - but often, they wrongly assume that the Serious person must be unhappy, mistaking a lack of over hapiness for its opposite. But the Serious person themselves may be quite satisfied with their dark view of things; And they may believe, perhaps accurately, that they’re more tuned into the rough terrain of the world than most people are. For them, the best medicine is reality - when they want to relax and take it easy, they read or watch the news, always finding their view of life affirmed by the latest unemployment statistics, reports of disasters, accusations of political corruptness and the like, and though these subjects may not be very relaxing or cheering to most people, Serious individuals expect such events and find them interesting or curiously reassuring. 

(A/N: It may do us good to remember that the optimism in some optimistic people can be just as ‘inbuilt’ tho. Naivité & condescening presumtion are ovsly bad, but much of the time the 7s and 2s of this world don’t mean to be insensitive or invalidating, but are simply saying the sort of thing that would help them. )

Relationships

Predominantly Serious people bring the same virtues to their personal life that they demonstrate in the workplace: They are dependable, trustworthy, steady and predictable in their relationships. 

They are not socially outgoing, which may cause some difficulty in finding potential partners; Once they find a mate, though, they’ll invest sincerely in the long haul. They will provide for their families and perform all neccessary responsibilities to their daily lives, and they’ll remain faithful even if a partner is not.  - They do not expect a relationship to be perfect, if anything, they expect a rocky course and surrender in advance and when it comes to other’s flaws, they’re more likely to resign themselves to them with a sour, cynical musing about human nature rather than confronting them and insisting on better behavior - and although some may think that the serious activity to accept the worst in others is harmful to themselves, this realistic attitude toward human fallibility may prevent them from breaking off a relationship that might eventually have stood the test of time at the first difficulty.

But wether or nor they assert themselves in their relationship or face confict creatively, Serious types tend to be critical of their mates, simply as a logical extension to their ‘glass half-empty’ approach to life - like Vigilant people, they aren’t blind to what is off or not right about any person, situation or relationship, but unlike them, they’re not overly suspicious - the flaws they see are real, though they might still miss part of the picture by overlooking the prettier realities. 

At times, this can become stressful to their mates who might justifiedly insist that their qualities and actions are not being weighed on a balanced scale - they are not hypocrites however, and iif they should be accused of an unkindness, a Serious person will suffer greatly. Though people with this style might be limited in expressing positive feelings, they are in fact very dependent on their loved ones and don’t get any kind of self-righteous pleasure in finding fault - When they recognize that they have caused pain, they tend to become very remorseful and readily take the blame. They often chalk up others’ as well as their own shortcommings to the imperfections of the world, and they trudge on - So you might as well try to let go of your hurt and trudge along yourself.

Self

Serious people have a clear sense of who they are: Limited people in an imperfect world. They work extremly hard since they see the world as harsh and hard work as a necessity just to stay in place. 

Their self-critical humility can be appealing - they do not struggle to present a better face, to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, to improve themselves or to fit an image. Perhaps because they don’t resort to such defense mechanism, their sense of self can sometimes become vulnerable in times of high stress, or when the Serious style becomes extreme; In such cases, their self-esteem can hit rock bottom and require some shoring up. 

Self-Control

In keeping with their dour, dependable and somewhat cheerless tendencies, Serious types think everything through before acting and remain undistrated by impulse or passion. They do not tempt fate by taking risks and they don’t escape into pleasures or appetites - extremly serious people may take too little initiative & inadvertedly provide themselves with good cause for feeling limited in life, but generally, the sober and dutiful actitude to life tends to pay off  - 

Contrary to popular belief, at least some long-term studies show that cautious realists tend to live longer than happy-go-lucky optimists. Granted, the risk-taking optimists would probably think it’s still worth it, but to each their own. 

Worldview

To a Serious person, the world is a forbidding, inauspicious place. 

One way that these individuals come to terms with things to to frame their past failures or helplessness in the face of forces beyond their control: If only they’d been born differently, if only they hadn’t sold that stock etc. Often these thoughts run through their minds repeatedly and they can have tendency to dwell on past misfortunes. 

Another more adaptive way to deal with the harshness of reality is to continually prepare for the worst and, in doing so, prevent other potential calamities - and in this they can take great satisfaction. Often they will take measures to prevent recurring worries and as a result, never actually experience the doomsday scenario in question. 

Finally, another precaution they take is to eliminate the potential for unpleasant surprise by adhering to routines and keeping their noses close to the grindstone. 

Life Choices

Leadership

Predominantly Serious people are not eager for authority and thus are unlikely to seek management level positions, though they may be promoted to lower or middle management positions because of their productivity and years of service, though this is more likely for a moderately Serious person with another predominant style. 

The serious manager will expect others to take a great deal of work regardless of wether they like any particular assignment, but they won’t shirk their own responsibilities, and while the atmosphere will not necessarily be upbeat, personally encouraging or even supportive, but for the subordinate who is self-motivated and does not require inspiration from on high, a lot can be learned from such a ‘doer’. Serious managers can be quite critical of those who work for them, but it may help to know that this is just general complaininess/negativism - They don’t usually get out of shape about it since they don’t necessarily expect things to go right.

Lacking in political skills, the manager may not be able to fight for the subordinates’ rights when necessary, but wether they say so or not, they will appreciate the steady, reliable worker who shows up & does their job day after day

Job Recomendations

Because you are so responsible and hard-working and can put up with routine, you will do well in virtually any work that does not force you to continually demonstrate initiative, problem-solve, or deal with people in an ever-cheerful way. For many serious people, civil service, government and union related work offers the opportunity to work hard without having to compete to stay alive (although the competitive will always go father in these or other settings; But such is life.)

Alternatively, a moderate amount of seriousness often enhances other styles to put your personality strenghts to work in investigative journalism, research, law, accounting, secretarial work & health care (ie. everywhere where a healthy scepticism and frustration tolerance help.)

Avoid sales & public relations, whch will require that you manage interpersonal atmosphere more creatively than it is your style. Consulting work is a possibility, but be careful that you don’t underprice yourself.

Stress Sources

If there’s one think Serious people can’t stand, it’s the pressure that other people often put on them to change - Loved ones commony insist that they look on the bright side, as if their point of view was somehow not authentic. 

Or, others may have higher expectations for them than they may have for themselves and therefore attempt to push them to be more assertive: “Be more ambitious, you could totally get a promotion if you really tried!” 

In the face of increasing stress, the natural Serious pessimism ma< turn to gloom and eventually to true despair, but most of the time, their very cynism helps them to cope, overcoming any unsettling wistfulness - and as mentioned earlier, just because they’re Serious doesn’t mean they’re unhappy. 

Parenting

Serious folks make for responsible, cautious parents who try to make their children aware of life’s inevitable hard knocks. Whereas a Sensitive parent may try to control a child’s word in order to make it safe (”Wear extra layers in winter so you don’t get sick”), Serious parents teach the not to be surprised  by misfortune (”Sometimes you get sick in winter even though you wore extra layers.”) - like Sensitive parents they will not encourage their children to take risks, but they’re not likely to overprotect their kids and won’t fight their battles for them - their children will not expect an easy ride and have a role model for how to cope in adversity, but they may benefit from a non-Serious parent from whom to learn  that a person can actively change things for the better, not just how to deal with difficulty. 

Like Conscientious and Aggressive parents, Serious parents will inculcate the value of work, but they must take time to allow for activities other than homework an chores. The other parent, one hopes, will impart the benefits of fun and the joy of novelty. 

Romantic Compatibility

Serious people require mates who are highly accepting and will let them be

Some of the best matches are with moderately Devoted or Self-Sacrificing people, who are very eager to please (A/N: the author recomends these so often I’m beginning to think that his own spouse must be one XD But there is something  that popular “gentle girl, brooding boy” romance trope, though of course there’s no reason it has to be that particular gender combination)

Conscientious types have a similar work ethic and strong sense of responsibility, which will prove comfortable, but beware of the conscientious need to be “right” since Serious people have a very definite point of view

Serious-Serious matches can work because both partners will have a common understanding of the world, though some may prefer to pair up with someone who can socialize  with greater confidence and drag them into activities that they might find find themselves enjoying despite themselves. 

Among the less suitable choices are types who are drawn to risk and/or may respond poorly to having someone rain on their parade, such as the predominantly Adventurous, Mercurial, Self-Confident and Dramatic (come to think of it, the same probably goes for Inventive and Exuberant as well.)

Specific Issues

Serious ft. more Outgoing and/or Dynamic emotional styles

Remember ‘Dramatic on the Inside’? Well a kind of reverse also exists, and it is actually fairly common for the Serious style to coexist with more outgoing, emotionally expressive styles.  While the more purely/predominantly Serious will be relatively somber, a mixture with a more dynamic style tends to produce a person with emotional dynamicity but still with a ‘darker’, negativistic coloration to the spectrum of feels  - the effects of that may be subtle, for insance, a Dramatic-Serious person wuld probably be able to act more emotionally engaged than they really felt inside  and wouldn’t be as credulous or startled by misfortune as a purely Dramatic person would. A Serious-Mercurial person would be both drawn to and frightened by risk and would probably be especially moody, or, if they’re unlucky, especially prone to depression. 

(A/N:  Maybe these combinations of serious + emotionally dynamic style might produce what we’d call a 4 in enneagram speak, with the same mixture without the Serious “overlay” (that is the idealistic-creative-feelsy elements) resulting in a 7 or Solar type. This would mean that fans of “dark fantasy” and the snarky cynics popping their bubbles actually have a comonality!  Not sure what a ‘purely’ Serious person would be in the classic enneagram(though there’s avariety of possibilities), but the range of the Lunar or Melancholic type might cover both dour and ‘dynamic’ Serious types, though we might also call this a Saturn if it occurred in a Te user & might also show up in a Phlegmatic person; Again it has no clear equivalent which would be an example of how the oldham system has useful distinctions. )

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part 12, B: The Solitary Style (Advice)

Getting along with the Solitary Style

Let this person be. The most common mistake that people make in dealing with Solitary types is trying to push them to be like everybody else - but Solitary types are who they are. They may not mix much in the external world or react strongly to you, but they are probably competent and responsible, and their inner worlds can be very interesting

Do not assume that the Solitary person is uncomfortable or unhappy because they are alone - indeed, for many Solitary individuals, it’s a life filled with people that would be hell, and some of them may even pity you for your social  and emotional needs

Do not assume that the Soliary person in your life is uncomfortable with you because they prefer to spend much time outside your presence - or just sitting quietly instead of interacting with you. This person will be quite comfortable with you if you don’t try to engage themm insist on filling the silence with chatter or try to smother them with togetherness

Learn to look for signs of caring that are different from the standard ‘I love you, I want you, I need you’s. The fact that this person sees you on a regular basis to begin with alreafy says a lot about their attachment to you, considering that Solitary individuals can do so well without others

Ensure this person plenty of alone time - Anyone with even a mild amount of Solitary style requires time to themselves to feel sane, well-adjusted and productive. Try not to consider the Solitary person’s private time your enemy - but if this is at variance with your own strong social and emotional needs, be honest with yourself in admitting that this relationship isn’t going to work out

Take up hobbies or find activities to occupy yourself while the Solitary person is off on their own.

When you need to work out a problem with a Solitary person, appeal to logic instead of emotion - A Solitary person may have a good head on their shoulders. Speak to it. 

Life Tipps for the Solitary Style

Observe Emotion. Watch how people express their feelings in their interactions with you and one another. Look first for obvious emotions, such as joy and misery. After you get good at spotting those, look for the more subtle, delicate expressions of feeling. Accept that feelings are very important for most people and that they can get hurt very easily

Search for your own feelings. In you comfortable privacy, stand in front of your mirror or sit with paper & pencil and seach for what you feel at the moment. If you are at a loss for an emotion, think about the last time you had difficulty with someone - For example, if a companion pressured you to spend time with them, of a colleague gave you a hard time at work, did you feel frustrated? Angry? Sad? hurt? Misunderstood? Annoyed?

Now express a feeling. Pretend or act, if need be. If you think you are, or were angry, yell. Sad? Pretend to cry.

Practice endurance. Instead of retreating when you feel pressured by people, tolerate your discomfort a little longer. If you are in the city & want to escape to the country, just hang in there for one more day; If your companion and want to be by yourself, stay one more hour. If you are in a meeting and you just want to go off and do your own work, stay until the meeting breaks. Be your usual stoic self about it and tell yourself that you can handle this discomfort - the point of this excercise is not to make you do things you don’t want to do, but to extend your flexibility and expand your freedom of choice. If extending your involvement with others in this manner makes you anxious, try anierty managing techniques

Negotiate with others to find a way for you to do things your way without affecting the cooperative effort. For example, make a deal with your Spouse to reserve Saturday for alone time, but declare Sunday for family activities. Try telling your boss that you don’t function well in meetings and that you’ll contribute extra in some other way if they will excuse you from those. It might not work but it can’t hurt to try.

Talk about it. Don’t expect other people to understand you automatically, and don’t expect you to understand them. Others may assume from your behavior that you do not care for them or do not wish to cooperate with them.  Tell them that your need to be alone has nothing to do with them. If you run into difficulty with others in your work,say frankly that you are used to working on your own. If others are not straightforward with you and seem to be sending emotional messages instead, ask them to explain what’s on their mind

Learn to say things that please other people. Even thought you may be immune to compliments or praise, many people need to hear them - For example, tell whoever cooked dinner that it tastes good, even if you’re not used to expressing yourself in this way. Tell your lover that you care. Refer to the above mentioned list of feelings.

Remove the blinders. If time after time you refuse commitment because you think the right person hasn’t come along, realize that you Solitary personality style may have something to do with why you can’t find happiness with one person. Think about how much you hold yourself back from other people

Take a leap - Share something deeply personal about yourself with someone.

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part 9, A: The Leisurely Style (Basics)

This would be the quintessential “Type B” individual - sure, they’ll fulfill their obligations & put in whatever share of work is needed to have a solid living, but once that is done, they feel that they have the right to their personal pursuit of hapiness & see that as the area of life where the “worthwhile” stuff happens - That this is where life is & that the other part is the drudgery you do for the sake of your life.  

They feel that they have a right to their “me time” and while they might fill it with anything from plain chillaxing to hobbies to creative pursuits, it’s important to them that they are guranteed this opportunity, and though  they are generally easygoing, they will vigorously defend their right to do their own thing & have their time & space.

This seems to be vaguely 9w8, the Phlegmatic Temperament or the Ne-Si axis.

(Funnily enough I never thought of this as any sort of distinct trait, perhaps because it’s the most common one in my makeup - I always just assumed this is simply “everyone to some degre/default/common sense/normal people” which, in hindsight, seems to hold the implicit assumption that type A people are “weird” Sorry.  ^^° Well, at least I am now less stupid than I was before reading this book so yay for this book. Guess this just shows how we’re all vulnerable to & should be on the lookout for that type of thinking, as we’re all ordinary or unusual in some ways.)

The Six Domains

Self

The first priority for the Leisurely style is the inviolable independence of the self - The implicit idea that they have the intrinsic right to be who they are, to feel good, and to pursue their own pleasures and concepts in their own way - and that no person or institution has any business “meddling” or taking those rights away from then - They can be said to have a more fluent connection to the basic, default value of human existence. 

If a Conscientious person will define themselves & others through their work, Leisurely people are more likely to see their indentity as related to their hobbies and, as a corollary, will tend to ask others “What are you into?” instead and believe in their inalienable right to use their personal time however they choose. 

Unlike some of the more emotional “scattered” types they can operate quite well within systems such as the family, the workplace, the community... indeed those outer complexes are necessary to fulfill their needs, but they do not identify with or feel a need to cater to any outer authorities and generally don’t have a pronounced superego or any of the associated heavy self-critical burdens. - They’re aware of their obligations, but after meeting them - including those to their family - the Leisurely person will turn to what they see as “the things that really matter”: The pursuit of their private pleasure in life, be it sports, art, contemplating nature or watching TV with a beer in hand. 

Unlike, say, Self-Confident types who feel that they are inherently special, better and closer to the center of the universe than most others, Leisurely people perceive that, along with everybody else, they are small cogs in the cosmic wheel - and that’s okay with them. Leisurely folks are usually comfortable with themselves - but even small cogs are entitled to lucky breaks - which is how Leisurely people perceive the diference between the have and the have-nots. 

Most of all, they feel entitled to be happy and claim this right vigorously - Leisurely individuals will not enslave themselves to anyone or anything, or substitute anybody else’s values for their own - they might have a role to play, a job to do, services to perform etc. but they are individual and separate, subject to their own dictates - they’re willing to do their part, but beyond that, they reserve the right to feel good privately. 

Relationships

This same central attitude extends not just to work but also to their relationships, with the result that these can only work under a premise of “You don’t own me.” or contain a certain ambivalence -  Don’t misunderstand: People who have this as their dominant style are deeply entwined with other people - they’re family oriented and comfortable in groups. They like or even need to be taken care of and enter into relationships easily. 

At the same time, they are, like Vigilant types, vaguely suspicious of others, especially people in authority - Leisurely types lowkey  expect others to ask too much of them. But while Vigilant people stand emotionally clear of people until they are certain their autonomy is assured, Leisurely individuals have a much greater immediate need of companionship - as well as a foolproof defense against being ill-used: If anyone asks them to sacrifice their self-determination, they’ll simply refuse -  they are frequently skilled at saying no and will always be protective of their individual freedom.

They’re not the sort to change themselves or a lifestyle they are satisfied with for the sake of a relationship, and if that means the relationship has to stop, they can generally accept that, seeing little sense in trying to win back an ex-partner who has clearly proven incompatible with their life an not likely to be happy with them - that said, they do care about their relationships & are likely to experience emotional pain when their desires conflict with those of their loved ones - they’ll usually go their own way in the endbut not without a lot of soul-searching in the end. 

It’s not uncommon for people with this style to be read as lazy by those who don’t share their values, but that’s a misunderstanding: Not too different from archiever-types they’re dividing up their time according to what they want but what they want isn’t recognition or fancy stuff but to have a significant portion of their time to use as they please without outside encumbrance - they’re generally not rebels, mavericks, angrily defiant indvidals or anything of the sort: They won’t yell  or argue when asked to do something they consider far beyond their duties - they’ll simply refuse. 

They might simply not want or value the same things as their type A friends/partners & not find it as important that this or that is done - sometimes with the result that the other person feels obliged to do it & ends up comlaining about having to do all the work when the Leisurely person never asked or expected them to.

Work

To a Leisurely person, work and moneymaking are generally a means, not the end. They’re the sort to look at their employment as “just a job” rather than a career or vocation. 

Because they generally work not for fame or sucess, but simply to pay bills, get a pension, finance their pursuit of pleasure and maybe have fun, they generally won’t take work home, don’t worry about it after hours, won’t do work that they see as outside their responsibility & won’t do more than what is asked of them to please the boss or feel better about themselves - they feel just fine. 

They can be good, cooperative workers & are quite capable of fulfilling the requirements and taking pride in what they do, but they don’t find the meaning of their life in their work and won’t let themselves be pushed around by someone who does - However, they might not necessarily see how their apparent lack of ambition might account for receiving less approval, encouragement or reward that their coworkers who do go the extra mile and may resent another person’s success as unjustified.

That said, individuals with a mixed pattern containing traits like Conscientious or Self-Conscious do manage to find pleasure somewhere in the workplace - some may be able to mix pleasure and business, which is probably the easiest to accomplish in creative work - others may enjoy some aspects of their work and procrastinate on others, or find something incidental to their work that they actually enjoy (such as the office sports team) - they can do very good work and stand a lot of tedium but the job is rarely going to be the central focus of their lives. They work slowly & comfortably and won’t rush to beat the clock, or to make an unreasonable deadline.

This may annoy the occasional supervisor or boss because people in authority generally expect their employees and subordinates to share their values & dedication to the project even though they ‘ll be getting a smaller share of the rewards, but the Leisurely person may reply that they’re not paid to photocopy bills or work past five, in short, that whatever extra stuff is being demanded is “not their job”, and they will certainly resist being exploited - 

Leisurely types are at least mildly suspicious of authority in the workplace - they expect that the boss will want more than they are willing to give - which often proves true, especially when the job has no precise description, or when the boss is highly Conscientious, Self-Confident, Agressive or Serious. Leisurely individuals attempt to fulfill their obligations, but might feel ill-used if their supervisors or colleagues do not accept this as sufficient - if the boss asks them to do more or to work faster, they might begin to feel that they are being treated unfairly - in general, Leisurely individuals are very aware of their rights. Fair is fair, and anything else is exploitation - as such, they won’t hesitate to make use of such rights (like take off all the days they’re allowed to) and, for that, may be

While the promise of extra pay is usually not enough to tempt them to stay longer, being compensated with extra free time later on might actually do the trick - and if a Leisurely person happens to be self-employed, they’ll have much the same attitude toward authority and won’t let their clients make unreasonable demands of them. 

Emotions

In terms of emotional dynamics, Leisurely individuals often fall into the phlegmatic temperament (or possibly SanPhleg if extroverted), or, as Oldham puts it, reminiscent of Lizards basking in the sun: They’re placid, patient, slow-moving, mellow and not likely to get upset. 

Even when they’re angry, (usually because of real or perceived unfairness) they tend to be indirect about it and avoid head-on confrontation - instead they’ll sulk, assign blame elsewhere, act grouchy & sullen and half-heartedly neglect the tasks others want them to do, or act all scattered & procrastinatey until... ooops! The deadline has passed, basically doing a bad job so that they won’t be asked to do it again. 

Self-Control

 As a side effect of the above orientation toward chill, they tend to avoid things that might disrupt their “flow” - which might lead them to put off onerous tasks such as word deadlines, taxes, bill paying, christmas shopping etc. to the last minute. 

Apart from that though, their self-control is actually fairly good (just used for their piorities) - a halfway healthy individual is not driven to excesses, though many little indulgences can backfire by adding up, leading one to damage their health out of sheer habit from too much sugar, booze etc. 

Worldview

To people in which this style is predominant, the world is a fairly straightforward place, if populated with a lot of folks who claim authority over others and would have you working all the time on unimportant tasks - Leisurely individuals have a built-in immunity to these claims because they can see that work is only a part of what there is in life. 

They protect their identities by keeping a low profile, fulfilling only those obligations to the system that they must, wishing for a stroke of good luck (to which they feel as entitled as the next guy) and then concentrating on what they really want to do with their time, or, as they call it, the real life. 

Life Choices

Leadership

Predominantly Leisurely types are rarely found above mid-management, because they’re not that ambitious in their careers - they don’t want to devote themselves to getting ahead, don’t care about working hard enough to make tons of money and are very reluctant to make the kinds of sacrifices on their personal time that the fast track demands. 

Since Leisurely individuals often work for the same company, agency or military branch, they may rise to mid-management levels over the years - as managers, they expect of their subordinates what they expect of themselves: A day’s work for a day’s pay. They don’t push anybody too hard, but they do expect their staffs to follow the rules and not make life difficult for them. They’re not particularly creative or motivating managers, but in the beaurocracies that they find themselves in, they fit right in & allow the wheels to keep turning without rocking the boat. 

Job Recomendations

If this is your primary style (and you were unlucky enough not to be born rich), im for a good ‘ol 9-to-5 job in which you know exactly what is expected of you - Since people of your style like their challenges primarily outside the workplace, look for a secure job that offers good pensions & benefits (teacher, city hall clerk, civil service, union shops etc.) and avoid jbs where a lot of initiaive is required (eg. lawyer)

Be aware, however, that those more interested & invested in the job may receive more encouragement and rewards. While you might see self-employment as a way to ensure that you have sufficient time to yourself flexible working conditions, it might be a bit of a trap if you can’t muster the necessary self-discipline or switch from work to play - You might have better chances if you have traits of a more ‘disciplined’ style,  but it can also be hard to reconcile those two sides of yourself, as such traits can be in conflict inside a single individual as much as in society at large - A solution might be to become a consultant or freelancer, to combine pleasure & work by finding a job you enjoy (eg. creative work), or, you can try to focus on archievement while you’re young & kick back later once you’ve secured a foundation of cash and ressources. 

Stress Sources

Perhaps as a result of maing their lives very comfortable, they’re rarely ever tense & generally don’t end up with stress or anxiety related problems - they tend to be emotionally even, but with one important exception: When they’re pushed to do more than they think is fair, or when someone pressures them to change their priorities - such situations would represent the primary souces of stress for a Leisurely individual. 

In response they feel drawn to do things the other person’s way, but then react by resisting in a more demonstrative way, which can go from guiltily going along with it for a while to lowkey hostile, complainy passive-agressive behavior. If others keep insisting, the Leisurely person will indignantly justify their behavior and even try to rally others to their side. 

If left alone to do their thing, it doesn’t take much for them to find emotional comfort - they don’t really need any great things to be satisfied, just a little bit of chill time - ultimately this is a slow, easy, pleasure-seeking style. Hapiness can come just from sitting in front of the TV with a bag of chips - but if their relationships with mates and supervisors are constantly strained by arguments, sourness may become their primary attitude. 

Parenting

Generally speaking, Leisurely parents make for responsible breadwinners who are concerned with their children’s basic needs - their family life is an important source of pleasure for them and generally very important - they have a gift for enjoying themselves and can share in their children’s lives more memorably when they are all having a plain old wonderful time. 

However, there can be a tendency t believe that what is best for them is also generally best for their children & they do not generally go out of their way to adapt to their children’s needs and wants if those are different from their own - they can be sort of old-fashioned. That said, they are usually not inflexible and will bend if someone can get through to them that they must.

In the maladaptive extremes, though, such a parent may refuse to comprehend that their children may have different needs than the one they assume and end up being remebered as a stubborn & selfish person more comcerned with their own comfort than the child’s welfare.

Romantic Compatibility

Strongly Leisurely people need mates who are accepting, understanding and giving nd are content to orbit around them - they won’t put the needs of the relationship first and will only go so far to please others, except when it comes to brief acts of contrition - that said, they do value their relationships, like being cared for and all will be well if their partners don’t mind the responsibility of keeping the relationship together and doing a little more of the chores. Then, they will prove to be responsive, appreciative, loyal and loving mates.

(A/N:  Alternatively, try someone who gives just as little fucks about excessive neatfreakery as you do - worked just fine for me on 2 separate occasions. Or, have some arrangement along the lines of “the living room stays clear but my desk my rules”. I personally prefer not to burden or embarass another person with my dirty dishes - can we agree that neither partner should have to twist themselves into a pretzel?)

A strong degree of either the Devoted or Self-Sacrificing style might be conductive to a harmonic match as those will usually be able to tolerate the Leisurely person’s fundamental self-interest while providing a warm & caring quality

Those with with pronounced Conscientious traits should look elsewhere though - Chances are they’ll have a hard time understanding or accepting each other’s approach to life. While they might get together due to the Leisurely type’s appreciation for the Conscientious ability to take care of things, this pairing very often turns very sour in the long run -  Neither style is good at compromizing and both wants stuff done their way.

For similar reasons, the Self-Confident style is probably out - their “high standards”/”ongoing archievements” approach tends to clash with the Leisurely style’s “work until content & then chill” MO, and the Self-Confident partner will tend to expect concessions that Leisurely types are unwilling to give

They often feel comfortable with Vigilant types as they both mistrust authority - the Vigilant person will typically be responsible and make fallback plans in case the Leisurely person mucks it up.

Two Leisurely people will generally respect & understand each others’ rights, but as they like to be taken care of it might help if one of them had a tad of Devoted or Self-Sacrificing style in them - also, someone needs to step forward & take charge when less desirable things need doing so it would depend on the exact “trait coctail” of the people involved. 

Serious mates may provide a sense of resigned responsibility that can keep the relationship together - even if the Serious partner feels put upon, they don’t necessarily expect life to be all fun & games. They will likely support a highly Leisurely person’s belief that those who have it better ust got lucky, as well as their passive wishfulness and sourish attitude - they might not necessarily be able to share in the Leisurely person’t pleasures, but they certainly won’t keep them from pursuing them. 

They will generally not be comfortable with emotionally demanding styles such as Dramatic or Mercurial

Relationships with Sensitive types might well work, but the Leisurely type should take care to be there for the Sensitive when they need suppor with personal challenges

Like the Leisurely style, the Adventurous style is pleasure seeking, but they tend to break the rules rather than stay within them & play ball, so forget this match

Specific Issues

The Leisurely Style vs. Housework

Since their free time is their main source of joy in their lives, Leisurely people need a lot of time to themselves - Even if they’re the local homemakers. In that case the house will be presentable enough, the meals good if not elaborate (unless cooking is one of their hobbies), but nothing will be particularly well kept, prepared or organized.

Taking care of a home & family is one of the more demanding jobs out there so it may be a good thing if the Leisurely individual knows how to set their limits, but they may run into problems if their mate doesn’t think of housework as “real” work & sees their need to have a break from it and entertain themselves as self-indulgent. 

On the other hand, if the Leisurely mate is the one who works outside the home, they may mistakenly assume that their at-home partner didn’t have much to do all day & not be inclined to pitch in after they “did their due” on a long day of work (it’s easy to see how being raised with certain cultural expectation of what one’s “share” of the work constitutes can be unhelpful here ^^°)

In general, they treasure their non-work hours too much to give up too much of them for chores, especially if there’s other family members whom they feel could and/or should take care of it. 

Success isn’t Everything

Leisurely-style people can be found in virtually all manner of careers, including, say, Chemistry professors, but rarely on top of any, which is fine by them - Since their overall comfort in life comes from how they enjoy themselves away from work, they rarely devote the time or  push that hard.

A pitfall of the Leisurely type may be that some for whom the trait is very pronounced may drift off course or lose direction in their life, but this needn’t happen - generally they can and do make good lifes for themselves (according to their own priorities) even if others may say that they haven’t done as well as they “should” have. For example, they might pass up a prestigious job for one that is secure and easy-going & be happy with their life as it is, doing the things they do, and will prefer doing activities they actually like (be it at work or at home) rather than squeezing the maximum potential out of everything. 

[kendrixtermina]

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Oldham Traits Masterpost

In this Entry of “Extra Typology” we go from the very esoteric to something very ‘analytical’, a relatively novel and unknown metric of classifying human uniqueness that I personally find very interesting and would like to raise awareness of. 

The system we will be discussing is the “Oldham Styles” or “Oldham Personalities” (though I’d say “traits” is more appropiate and that’s why I’ll be using) - unlike, say, mbti or enneagram, this is a trait-based system (Think Sims 3), in that you don’t have just one specific type or subtype, but get ‘tested’ for a series of traits, some of which will be particularly prominent, and your individuality would be described by your “mix” of traits. 

A person might describe themselves by their strongest traits in order, for example, Idiosyncratic - Solitary- Artistic - Serious - Leisurely (which would be my type, in case anyone wants to program a convincing robot replica - for comparision, I am a 548 sp/sx MelChlor Lunar INTP-Ne)  

As the source Material for this series, I will be using the book “New Personality Self-Portrait - Why you think, work, love and act the way you do” by John Oldman and Lois. B Morris. 

One interesting thing about this particular system is that the epinomous Oldman is not an esoteric or even a psychoanalyst, but a fairly accomplished psychiatrist who specializes in treating personality disorders, enough of a big name to be involved in the drafting of actual diagnostic manuals, and that he drafted this system based on the experience there - 

The central idea was to look at various common disordered traits and trying to identify their “scaled back” counterparts in functional people in order to understand both human individuality, and how it can “go bad” leading to disease. 

Also, just for disambiguation, I’m going to differentiate the Trait Names by writing them capitalized & cursive - ie, Solitary the trait vs. a solitary person in the classical/colloquial terms. 

Expect the Following Entries: 

0. System Overview - What is this?

1. Personality and its Function

2. Your Pattern

3. Conscientious (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

4. Self-Confident (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

5. Devoted (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

6. Dramatic (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

7. Vigilant (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

8. Sensitive (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

9. Leisurely (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

10. Adventurous (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

11. Idiosyncratic (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

12. Solitary (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

13. Mercurial (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

14. Self-Sacrificing (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

15. Aggressive (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

16. Serious (Part A) (Part B) (Part C)

17. Strenghts & Weaknesses

18. Your Life

19. Strategies for Change

As usual, the Entries will be linked in this post as I finish them, and every entry in this Series will be tagged “#ExtraTypology”. This content can also be found on the “Extra Typology” Tag of my menu bar.