I've been thinking a lot about personality typing the past few days. It began when I watched 9. The characters were pieces of a human soul. They all had different characteristics that warranted personality traits, so I tried to classify each to a different MBTI type. It didn't work for all characters, as most were not developed enough. (The movie really should have been longer with more character development.) All of this personality typing got me thinking about my own type, so I revisted the differences between INFJ and INFP. I'm just not an INFP any way I slice it. Even if I were more spontaneous, I'm still too definitive.
After I reasserted my own traits, I looked at Trent's again. I'm not dismissing the idea that he could be an ISFP. The only problem I see is with the Temperment Sorter description of SP's which holds that they are process-oriented, not goal-oriented. I'm aware that the book is full of extreme examples, but somehow it struck me oddly. (Perhaps it's my lack of understanding of SP motivation.) I definitely see Trent as an artist, but artists can operate in different ways. The traditional ISFP artist is all about the process, all about creating and appealing to the five senses in the moment. They communicate and reach outwards through their work, yet they have no goal. For them the motivation is simply to create, and the process is the reward. Their experiences are not preparation for later, but they experience intensely now. They "live on impulses." I'm having trouble understanding this completely, but only because I can't apply it to myself. What actually confuses me is trying to apply this SP template to what I see of Trent. Does he act this way? Is this his motivation? Is he really that impulsive?
Conversely, I've held the belief that he's an INFP. Quite different from an ISFP, I know, but only in the way information is gathered and processed. An INFP judges experiences against their inner values, and strives to live their outer life according to them. They usually have a greater goal in mind that they work towards such as bettering the world through what they do. Trent is quite outwardly, and unusually, gentle as an INFP is described. It is much easier for me to apply Trent to this model, but is it only because INFP is a visionary just like me or because it really does fit? Sadly, I may never know more of Trent's personality than what I have witnessed over the past year via his interviews, updates, and tweets. I hope that will change.
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The movie for New Moon is coming out in November. Yes, I read the Twilight Saga and enjoyed it. But no, I have no inclination to see the movies, although hearing others talk of them stirs up all my feelings for Bella, Edward, and Jacob. Their triangle keeps grabbing me because it could so easily be real. Not the particulars per se, but the feelings and circumstances. I still believe what I said about fictional love: We find part of our own love within it. The lovers carve another aspect of our emotions, and in turn they take on a part of our will. It doesn't matter if their flesh is real. Their love exists, if only in daydreams. --Love's Reality
Ultimately I come back what I do know, and that's my own past, choices that I've made, and what may yet happen. Lately I've tried to focus on those choices: what did I do and why? What choices may come up, and what do I plan to do? Inevitably a scenario plays out in my head several times, imagining dialogue and action, stopping, reversing, refocusing. What does it feel like when you reach a crossroad?
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The movie for New Moon is coming out in November. Yes, I read the Twilight Saga and enjoyed it. But no, I have no inclination to see the movies, although hearing others talk of them stirs up all my feelings for Bella, Edward, and Jacob. Their triangle keeps grabbing me because it could so easily be real. Not the particulars per se, but the feelings and circumstances. I still believe what I said about fictional love: We find part of our own love within it. The lovers carve another aspect of our emotions, and in turn they take on a part of our will. It doesn't matter if their flesh is real. Their love exists, if only in daydreams. --Love's Reality
Ultimately I come back what I do know, and that's my own past, choices that I've made, and what may yet happen. Lately I've tried to focus on those choices: what did I do and why? What choices may come up, and what do I plan to do? Inevitably a scenario plays out in my head several times, imagining dialogue and action, stopping, reversing, refocusing. What does it feel like when you reach a crossroad?
