Winter Wheat

This weekend I participated in Bowling Green State University's Winter Wheat Festival of Writing.  I'm not sure who came up with the name for our festival, but I would guess "Wheat" was chosen because the grain is the main ingredient in bread, which is the staff of life.  I believe it was Barry Lopez who pointed out that some people need a story more than food.  Thus our festival gives us a way to share our experiences in the making of stories and poems, and the festival itself becomes a kind of food for the spirit of the writer. 

This year the festival focused on "identity."  Accordingly, I gave a presentation on temperament.  I based my presentation on two websites, the David Keirsey site and the Personality Page site, as well as the book Please Understand Me II, by David Keirsey. 

I became familiar with temperament theory about five years ago when a colleague at BGSU gave me a copy of Please Understand Me II.  Initially, I was skeptical about the theory that Keirsey proposed, because I prefer to look at life as a vast mystery.  I didn't like the thought that people could be categorized into "types."  But after taking the temperament sorter and reading about my "type," I became intrigued.  Later, I began to regret I had not known about temperament theory much earlier in my life.  Keirsey's books have been around since the 1970s and are based on his dissertation research into the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Jung, Briggs, and Myers.  As I studied temperament theory, I came to accept that people are not born as blank slates, that we are each born to experience the world in a certain way, the way that feels best, most familiar to us.  Yes, our life experiences also determine our personality, but life experiences do not tell the whole tale.  For instance, no matter how much a parent might want a child to play the piano or play little league baseball, that child might not be suited to that activity temperamentally.  No amount of experience, practice, pushing, or cajoling isgoing to change the fact that the child would rather make things from clay or write stories.  

During my presentation, I gave a quick overview of temperament theory, led the participants through the sorter so that they determined their own temperament type, and then allowed the participants to write and reflect on what their temperament meant in terms of their writing.  The last activity we did was to consider what each type means metaphorically.  To do this, we looked at how Keirsey matches each type to a Greek god or goddess.  I asked the participants to write about how their god or goddess embodies their life preferences.  One participant, a rational whose god is therefore Prometheus, shared with the other participants that she had the night before chosen the poem she was to read at the festival that night.  She told us that it is a poem about fire.  (Of course, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans.) 

Temperament theory today suggests that all of us have a "primary mode" of operation within four categories of our lives:  our flow of energy, how we take in information, how we prefer to make decisions, and the basic day-to-day lifestyle we prefer.  Within each of these categories we prefer to be either:  1.  Extraverted or Introverted; 2.  Sensing or Intuitive; 3.  Thinking or Feeling; 4.  Judging or Perceiving.  The theory holds that we naturally use one mode of operation within each eategory more easily and frequently than the other mode.  The theorists are careful to point out that we "prefer" one function over the other, although we all function within each mode.  The combination of the four "preferences" defines our temperament type.

I wanted participants to understand that temperament theory is not about putting people into boxes.  As the personality page online suggests:  "Learning about our ...type helps us to understand why certain areas in life come easily to us, and others are more of a struggle.  Learning about other people's ...types help us to understand the most effective way to communicate with them, and how they function best."

Temperament theory has become invaluable to me in working with other writers. It has also helped me in my own writing, particularly in character development.  It  helps me to get inside my characters' heads and to understand their motivations.

Many find temperament theory useful in their own personal growth.  Knowing your type helps you to clarify and to understand what is important to you.  It helps you to recognize your weaknesses without hiding behind them.  It helps you to strive for balance.  Most importantly, temperament theory helps open the door to our success, however we define it.  Theorists are quick to point out that there is no magic formula or scheme that will make us successful people.  But knowing your temperament type is a powerful aid in our quest for excellence.  It will help us to expand our understanding of human nature.  It will help us to reach what Jung called "individuation."

Individuation, according to Jung, is the conscious realization of your true self, beyond the ego that is presented by your conscious self.

There are sixteen types.  These sixteen types exist within four broad categories:  Idealists, Artisans, Guardians, and Rationals.

Many of the participants in my workshop felt as though the scales had fallen from their eyes and had a new understanding of what "makes them tick" as individuals and as writers.  Many were quick to perceive how the description of each type could aid them in character development.  And those who were teachers said they felt more aware about how their students process information.  Many also said they understood more about why each of us choose to write.  And why each of us enjoy reading certain types of literature more than others.

Participating in the Winter Wheat Festival was an excellent experience.  After leading my workshop, I participated in two other workshops and then listened to the poet Carl Phillips read from his work.  It's wonderful to be around other writers for day, to be with others who recognize the importance of the writing life.