ISFP... the artist

My cousin has a friend that can look in your eyes and tell what personality type you are according to Myers&Briggs. He told me that he has always been able to look at people and know things about them… but he studied Myers&Briggs so that he had the ability to talk to people about what he knows intuitively without totally freaking them out. He is currently writing a book on the subject…

I was first exposed to Myers&Briggs in high school when I tested as an INFP. Cousin’s friend looked in my eyes and within seconds said, “ISFP”. I told him that I thought I was an INFP. He said, “ISFPs always think they are INFPs. Why would anyone want to be an INFP. They are so depressed.” With this information I started reading about ISFPs and the profile fits. The ISFP is the archetypical artist and the feminine. We aren’t great with money because it doesn’t really matter to us… and finally… this part I love… Unless the ISFP finds a medium to express what they experience inside they always feel disconnected with humanity. A long time ago someone told me, “you have the soul of an artist”. I like hearing that… and after watching Billy Elliot I cried… it was kind of embarrassing… because he found his medium…

My medium… I am still trying to figure that one out… I am kind of lazy so I hope my outlet for expression finds me… hmmm… The book I read said that most ISFPs are not necessarily able to express themselves as writers, but ISPF Hemingway was able to do this… I like Hemingway.

I am currently reading A Moveable Feast. I like it. I like hem. I like that his Victorian mother dressed him in girls clothes as a child and his only time to be a boy was when he went hunting with his father… This was probably the only time that his father was able to be a man as well since his wife was so controlling… but later… probably fighting against the control of his mother… she discouraged his writing… he became the masculine voice of American literature. A famous line from A Moveable Feast in the chapter Miss Stein Instructs… Stein tell Hemingway,

“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

And he followed Stein’s advice with, “So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”

Reading on the bus today… this made me laugh… Hemingway is talking about a peer who is promising that he Hemingway will win a large $reward for his writing… really it was a trick by the guy to get great writers to submit work to his magazine… Hemingway… made me laugh with this…

“It made me feel sick for people to talk about my writing to my face, and I looked at him and his marked-for-death look and I thought, you con man conning me with your con. I’ve seen a battalion in the dust on he road, a third of them for death or worse and no special marks on them, the dust for all, and you and your marked-for-death look, you con man, making a living out of your death. Now you will con me. Con not, that thou be not conned…”

that’s all I have for now.