A fair question… “So what does all of this information; this insight into our ‘inner selves’ mean to us in useful, meaningful, and constructive, tangible terms?” I can best demonstrate with an example from my own experience.
I have a love of and for books. Just as I derive a sense of comfort, peace, and serenity from being on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico… inhaling the fragrances of the brine-enhanced breezes… feeling the damp coolness of winds laden with the moisture of far-traveled waters… absorbing the rhythm of undulating waves pounding their percussive music on sands that advance or recede to unseen pressures and forces… and… listening to all of life’s symphony as presented by constantly changing players expressing their natural voices… I am at home with books. This affinity is not one shared by many in my life. I can tell you, in fact, that I endured many years of being belittled, ridiculed, mocked, and derided for my fondness for books as though my love of them was some sort of grotesque perversion.
I have an innate sense of comfort and am, at once, at home in a library. No place is more ‘cozy’ and ‘snug’ than the place embraced by walls lined with books. The thoughts, feelings, emotions, dreams, and wonders of the ages are all present and alive in those books. My very Being yearns for all that is there for the edification of my soul. Here, with books, I am encouraged and humbled simultaneously and it is perfectly ‘OK’ and natural… for I now know and embrace the reality that this is simply how I am created… and this awareness gives me peace.
Some years ago (before I knew anything about this natural and innate taste of mine… and while I was still laboring under the belief that my ‘fancy’ for books rendered me somehow flawed) a client and friend called me with the news that he would be allowed only a limited quantity of books on his relocation to missionary work overseas and that he would have me inherit whatever of his remaining library I chose to adopt; I was exultant (for I had long-admired his collection)! This joy was not matched when I came home with boxes filled with my treasured “Old books.” And, over years, the collection was dwindled through pressure to cull the lot (a pressure that I, to this minute, regret relenting to.)
How then can I adequately describe the relief and reassurance; the validation and vindication that I felt when I read from Keirsey’s “Please Understand Me II (pg. 236)” this small portion of description of a person with my “Temperament Type”:
“[Idealists] are imaginative and creative around the house… and everywhere books, not only books of philosophy and poetry, but books on religion and mysticism, personal growth, novels of all kinds, and often children’s books”
As I look about me, even now, I see the embodiment of that described house… “everywhere books.” (And of the variety described, as well.)
A small thing, you may think… yet this small thing when combined with all of the many other ‘small things’ make up the person that is Me. And so it is for you, My Friend. That small thing is but one of the fibers that, when woven together, make up the design and consistency of our individual ‘fabric’ of personhood. And to know… to be in possession of the hard, tangible, reality of the ‘fabric’ that constitutes your values, tastes, preferences, inclinations, and style gives you a concrete confidence to press ahead with the agenda for life that is of your own choosing and design. For, don’t you see, by knowing the capabilities, the style, the ‘colors’ of our ‘fabric’ we possess the knowledge that enables us to fashion; ‘tailor’, if you will, that fabric into whatever finished product we desire… with complete confidence in the likelihood of it’s optimum performance. This, My Dear One, is no small thing. So… I challenge you to proceed… go ahead and discover ‘yourself’ and claim your own responsibility for that fashion that is you.
John Michael /30 March 2005
(IMAGE: Through the gracious courtesy of: Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com)
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