PTypes Personality Types
PTypes A Correspondence of Psychiatric, Keirsey, and Enneagram Typologies Conscientious Type

Hedonist



Exuberant Personality Type

The Cyclothymic Idealized Image



Idols

Compulsive attachment: creativity
Compulsive aversion: being unable to create

more...

Idols of the Types



Strategy

Strategy: mastery through expertise

Goals tagged "bipolar" on 43 Things


I now see the Exuberant Personality Type construct from a Christian perspective, whereby it represents an attempt to find our source of security in a strategy rather than a trust in God (Cooper); or, in Karen Horney's terms, it represents a search for glory.


The following ten traits and characteristics are typical of the Exuberant personality type.

  1. Mood swings. Those of the Exuberant temperament tend to experience a greater range of emotion than those of any other type. They are very emotionally reactive.

  2. Artistic inclinations. The Exuberant type is the most inclined of all the types to be involved with the fine arts, music, or literature (Keirsey, 204). They take an artistic approach to all aspects of their lives.

  3. Independent work. Like "the majority of poets, novelists, composers, and to a lesser extent, of painters and sculptors," those of the Exuberant type "are bound to spend a great deal of their time alone (Storr, ix)."

  4. Relationships secondary. Those of the Exuberant temperament "are quite likely to choose relationships which will further their work rather than relationships which are intrinsically rewarding, and their spouses may well find that marital relations take second place (Storr, 107)."

  5. Great productivity. Persons of the Exuberant type are highly disciplined, gifted with superior powers of concentration, and capable of producing great quantities of high quality work; they also enjoy frequent periods of recreation and inactivity.

  6. Disinhibition. They are hedonistic and impulsive; "they live Epicurean lives in the here and now, and as gracefully as possible (Keirsey, 204)."

  7. Keen perceptions. The Exuberant temperament is especially attuned to color, line, texture, shading - touch, motion, seeing, and hearing in harmony. The senses of Exuberant individuals seem more keenly tuned than those of others (Keirsey, 205).

  8. Kindness (Keirsey, 205). Although those of the Exuberant type may adopt an aggressive, tough exterior, they are remarkably gentle, kind, and generous.

  9. Extroversion and introversion. The interpersonal conduct of those of the Exuberant type alternates between the greatest extremes of sociability and social reticence.

  10. Love of nature. In many individuals of the Exuberant type there "may be found an instinctive longing for the natural, the pastoral, the bucolic. They are quite at home in the wilds, and nature seems to welcome them (Keirsey, 206)."



This description owes a debt to several ideas of Cory Caplinger (Lifexplore), especially the names of the first two characteristics.

Sources:

Keirsey, David, and Marilyn Bates. Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types. 3rd ed. Del Mar: Prometheus Nemesis, 1978.

Storr, Anthony. Solitude: a return to the self. New York: Ballantine, 1988.



Idealized Image

I did conceive of "character strengths and virtues" in a positive way as Martin Seligman does in his Positive Psychology, but now see them as images of perfection that inflate the idealized self theorized by Karen Horney.



Character Strengths and Virtues (what the Cyclothymic type is proud of)


The "Character Strengths and Virtues" are attributes of the idealized self, or ego ideal. As "conditions of worth" they are idols.


  1. Creativity, Originality, Humorousness, Wittiness.
  2. Energy, Diligence, Studiousness, Attentiveness, Persistence, Perseverance, Purposefulness, Resoluteness, Zealousness, Enthusiasm; Dutifulness, Honorableness; Vigilance, Alertness, Sensibility, Intelligence, Resourcefulness, Wisdom; Firmness, Tenacity, Independence.
  3. Refinement, Magnificence.
  4. Generosity, Liberality, Courtesy, Graciousness; Charity, Kindness, Affability, Empathy, Sensitivity, Concern, Friendliness; Tenderness, Agreeableness, Fraternity.
  5. Sincerity, Straightforwardness, Integrity, Justice, Fairness.
  6. Confidence, Self-Esteem, Hope, Cheerfulness, Joyfulness, Sociability.
  7. Naturalness.


This profile was derived from Cawley's 23 "Virtue Subclusters" in Michael J. Cawley III, James E. Martin, John A. Johnson (1999), A Virtues Approach to Personality.



Aggressiveness, competitive spirit, complexity, courage, courtliness, decency, discreetness, emotional honesty (genuineness), gentleness, humor, intelligence, judgment, kindness and generosity, leadership skills, loyalty valued, magnetism, modesty, protectiveness, saintliness, self-confidence, sensitivity, seriousness, toughness, zest for life (Brian, 353).


These are some of the "Personal characteristics" of Ernest Hemingway indexed by Denis Brian in The True Gen.



Signature Strengths*


"Creativity [originality, ingenuity]: Thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things; includes artistic achievement but is not limited to it

"Bravery [valor]: Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain; speaking up for what is right even if there is opposition; acting on convictions even if unpopular; includes physical bravery but is not limited to it

"Vitality [zest, enthusiasm, vigor, energy]: Approaching life with excitement and energy; Not doing things halfway or halfheartedly; living life as an adventure; feeling alive and activated"

"Kindness [generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, altruistic love, "niceness"]: Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them

"Leadership: Encouraging a group of which one is a member to get things done and at the same [time maintain] good relations within the group; organizing group activities and seeing that they happen"

"Appreciation of beauty and excellence [awe, wonder, elevation]: Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience" (Peterson & Seligman, 29, 30).


* Selected from Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman, (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford: Oxford UP.




Artistry


Artistic: "1. Of, relating to, or befitting art or artists. 2. Appreciative of or sensitive to art or beauty." (AHD)

Synonyms: "aesthetic"

"artistic, aesthetic are often understood as equivalent terms, especially when used in such collocations as the artistic or aesthetic satisfaction; artistic or aesthetic standards or values; for artistic or aesthetic reasons. But artistic may stress the point of view of the artist or of one who actually produces a work of art, who thinks in terms of technique, or the relationship of details to the design of the whole, or of the effects to be gained and who therefore regards beauty as a thing that results from his attention to these matters and that is his creation. By extension artistic may imply also the point of view of one who studies or judges art objectively from the artist's angle. On the other hand aesthetic stresses the point of view of one who contemplates a finished work of art or beauty that exists and who thinks in terms of the effect it has upon him and especially of the sensations it stimulates and the feelings it excites, Strictly, the artistic temperament shows itself in a urge to fashion or to express and to create out of materials, words, or sounds the beautiful thing that the artist designs or conceives: the aesthetic temperament shows itself in responsiveness to beauty wherever it is found, and by contrast, in aversion to that which is ugly. Artistic satisfaction is the gratification that comes to one who can look at a work of art (his own or another's) and call it good: aesthetic satisfaction is the content that accompanies the enjoyment of beauty for its own sake and independently of all other considerations. For aesthetic , largely because of its connection with aesthetics, the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty, usually implies a distinction between that which is beautiful and that which is moral or useful or merely pleasing. Artistic standards are therefore the tests of perfection in a work of art which artists and critics have accepted: aesthetic standards are the usually subjective criteria which have been set up by aestheticians or be the individual to enable him to distinguish the beautiful from the merely pleasing or gratifying." (MW, 64)

Analogous:

Antonyms:

Contrasted:


1. Artist: "1. One who creates works of art; especially a painter or sculptor." (AHD)

Synonyms: "artificer, artisan, architect"

"1 Artist, artificer, artisan, architect mean one who makes something beautiful or useful or both. In their wider senses the words are often confused. The earliest and the continuing implication of artist is skill or proficiency ... : it was formerly applied to anyone who made or did things requiring learning and skill; thus, a teacher, a philosopher, a physician, a scientist, and alchemist, or a craftsman was called an artist ... Gradually, however, the word has come to be associated with those whose aim is to produce something which gives aesthetic pleasure, first with musicians, dancers, actors, and later with poets, painters, and sculptors. The two ideas of skill and the aim to give pleasure were combined, so that since the early nineteenth century artist (when it does not mean specifically a painter) is usually applied to a gifted person who works in the fine arts and especially to one who reveals his skill, taste, and power to create beautiful things ... Artificer still retains its earliest meaning of one who makes something by means of art and skill. Originally it was applied especially to mechanics. In current use it suggests craftsmanship and is applied especially to those who work in some plastic material which responds to the exercise of skill, taste, and ingenuity in contrivance ... Artisan was formerly and is still sometimes applied to the practitioner of any art and especially an industrial art chiefly in distinction from an artist ... This difference between artisan and artist widened as artist came to imply the power to create or produce beautiful things and became restricted in its application to a worker in the fine arts. In current use artisan is a general term almost equal to workman and names one engaged in a craft, a handicraft, or a trade; it comprehends in its range all the skills often subsumed as skilled labor. In extended use it is still often contrasted with artist, the latter now implying imaginative power and a passion for perfection, the former mere mechanical industry ... Architect has never lost its basic implication of a master builder, though it has come to stress more the designing of something to be built than actual participation in its erection. Specifically it designates a person whose profession it is to plan buildings or structures in detail and to exercise supervision over their construction in order to see that the design is executed in every particular. In extended use the word usually implies the power to conceive a thing as a whole and in detail in advance of its coming into being as well as to control its execution. It is often applied specifically to God as the Creator. Although it comes close to artist in its implications of imaginative power and constructive ability, it differs from the former in its greater emphasis upon design than upon execution ... "

Analogous: "craftsman, workman ... : creator, maker: writer, composer, author" (63-64)

Antonyms:

Contrasted:


2. Artist: "2. Any person who performs his work as if it were an art. 3. An artiste." (AHD)

Synonyms: "artiste, virtuoso, expert, adept, wizard"

"Expert, adept, artist, artiste, virtuoso, wizard are comparable when they designate a person who shows mastery in a subject, an art, or a profession or who reveals extraordinary skill in execution, performance, or technique. Expert implies successful experience, broad knowledge of one's subject, and distinguished achievements; it is applied specifically to one who is recognized as an authority in his field ... Adept connotes understanding of the mysteries of some art or craft or penetration into secrets beyond the reach of exact science ... It tends to imply [subtlety] or ingenuity ... Artist stresses creative imagination and extraordinary skill in execution or in giving outward form to what the mind conceives. More than any other word in this group it stresses skill in performance and the factors (as perfection in workmanship, loving attention to detail, and a feeling for material) that are pertinent thereto ... Artiste applies especially to public performers (as actors, singers, and dancers) but may occasionally be applied to workers in crafts where adeptness and taste are indispensable to distinguished achievement ... Virtuoso, though often close to artist in meaning, stresses the outward display of great technical skill or brilliance in execution rather than the inner passion for perfection or beauty. It is applied chiefly to performers on musical instruments and especially to pianists, violinists, and cellists ... Wizard implies such skill and knowledge or such excellence in performance as seems to border on the magical ... "

Analogous: [master, teacher, tutor]

Antonyms: "amateur"

Contrasted: tyro, dabbler, dilettante ... novice, apprentice, probationer" (311)


The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1981, c.1969). William Morris, Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Merriam-Webster (1984). Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.



Careers and Jobs for Exuberant type

Google Answers: selecting the right career for me



This list represents careers and jobs people of the Artistic type tend to enjoy doing.

bookkeeper
clerical supervisor
dental assistant
physical therapist
mechanic
radiology technologist
surveyor
chef
forester
geologist
landscaper designer
crisis hotline operator
teacher: elementary
beautician
typist
jeweler
gardener
potter
painter
botanist
marine biologist
social worker

Source: U.S. Department of Interior, Career Manager - ISFP.



Noteworthy examples of the Exuberant personality type

Many people (and not just those of the Exuberant personality type) have exuberant traits or behave in a exuberant manner. The traits and behaviors of the Exuberant personality type are not so inflexible and maladaptive or the cause of such significant subjective distress or functional impairment as to constitute

Cyclothymic personality disorder

The noteworthy examples of the Exuberant personality type are examples of a *type*, not of a disorder. It is my opinion that the ideal type which is described above is best be characterized as exuberant, and that the Exuberant personality type represents the pervasive and enduring pattern of the personalities of the people listed below better than any other type.

Famous persons on this list may serve as ego ideals, idealized images, and idols for individuals of the Exuberant type.

Noteworthy examples of the Exuberant personality type are: Index of noteworthy examples



"Giving style" to one's character--a great and rare art! It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye.

Also Sprach Zarathustra.



Weblogs






  "Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

I hypothesize that the personality theories of personality theorists best describe themselves and those of their own type.



Ernest Hemingway


  • Ernest Hemingway's Search for Glory

  • Hemingway: An Introductory Overview
    Since some initial familiarity with the central concerns and chief characteristics of a writer’s work can contribute to a reader’s understanding and appreciation of that work, the following material identifies and comments briefly on the chief themes and recurrent motifs in Hemingway’s fiction.
  • Yahoo! image search results for Ernest Hemingway

  • The pathological pride of Ernest Hemingway

    Epictetus speaks of pride:

    "Do not take pride in any excellence that is not your own. If a horse were to say proudly, 'I am beautiful,' one could put up with that. But when you say proudly, 'I have a beautiful horse,' remember that you are boasting about something good that belongs to the horse. What, then, belongs to you? The use of impressions. Whenever you are in accordance with nature regarding the way you use impressions, then be proud, for then you will be proud of a good that is your own" (Handbook 6, trans. Seddon).

    Pride in things which are not our own is a pathos, "a species of pleasure" (Seddon, forthcoming, pg. 94).

    Carlos Baker (pg. viii) describes Ernest Hemingway:

    "There is the man driven by pride, which he often defined as a deadly sin yet embraced as his personal and well-loved daemon. He was proud of his manhood, his literary and athletic skills, his staying and recuperative powers, his reputation, his capacity for drink, his prowess as fisherman and wing shot, his earnings, his self-reliance, his wit, his poetry, his medical and military knowledge, his skill in map reading, navigation, and the sizing up of terrain."

    It looks like at some point Hemingway judged that the loss of his skills and powers was bad and that he could not go on. He committed suicide.

    Carlos Baker (1969). Ernest Hemingway: a life story. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.


  • Hemingway's passions:



  • Beliefs/Attitudes:

    • It's better not to think, because sometimes you think and you can't stop and your brain gets to racing like a flywheel with the weight gone (Young, 110-11).
    • The universe is hostile and bleak, and man is subjected to death, infected by malaise, and rendered powerless (Backman, 132).
    • In the very beginnings of life there is unreason--undermining existence, estranging and traumatizing man (132-33).
    • In order to defend against internal and external threats, I've had to shrink the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual elements of my being (133).
    • It's better not to think about things, but to just concentrate life in physical being (133).
    • I'm content to withdraw and remain a loner at heart (133).
    • The world is meaningless; I have a feeling of primal rejection (133).
    • My religious experience is reduced essentially to an outcry for help in a time of need (133).
    • I am not able to make the kind of authentic relationship to others or to a divine power which would give purpose to my life and sustain my spirit in its struggles (133).
    • My art serves not only to exorcise anxieties but, by creating another reality, to justify me (132).
    • My code enables me to hold tight against pain and death and to function and survive without surrendering my essential pride (132).
    • The creating of life through art disarms and metamorphoses death (132).
    • Art is the compelled and profound response of the conscious and unconscious being to the experience of death (132).
    • By controlled aggression man gratifies his need to achieve union and to retaliate and kill (121).
    • The world breaks everyone...those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially (123).
    • Our love is a pact against the others--there's only us two in the world and there's all the rest of them (123).
    • I do not care what it is all about. All I want to know is how to live in it (123).
    • I'm afraid of nothing (124).
    • I need to affirm myself through the mastering of fear by courage (124).
    • The only way to counteract the feeling of helplessness is to strike back (124).
    • I have a need to kill. When a person is still in rebellion against death he has pleasure in taking to himself one of the Godlike attributes; that of giving it (125).


    Backman, Melvin (1979). Death and Birth in Hemingway. The Stoic Strain in American Literature: Essays in Honour of Marston LaFrance. Ed., Duane J. MacMillan. Toronto: University of Toronto.

    Young, Philip (1966). Ernest Hemingway: A Reconsideration. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP.


  • Moodswing : Dr Fieve on Depression

    Perhaps the best-known modern manic-depressive writer is Ernest Hemingway, whose adventures during his highs and lows made national headlines. His career illustrates the benefits and pitfalls of the creative manic-depressive. Hemingway's constitution was such that his abundant energy made it excruciating for him to stay still. When he was not writing, he was fighting, or deep-sea fishing, or hunting--doing anything so long as it involved movement. Hemingway's terrifically active periods alternated with his depressions. Whatever he did, he did violently. When he was depressed, self-doubt would overcome him. Hemingway's heavy drinking during most of his adult life might be considered his own form of self-treatment. For a period of forty-two days, while he was a correspondent in the Second World War, he slept only two and a half hours a night.

    Hemingway's first serious depression after the First World War, came when a woman rejected him, and he then broke off all close ties, including with his family. In 1925 he worked furiously on A Farewell to Arms. Beginning in 1926 he fell into a depression that lasted for nineteen months. Later he wrote Scott Fitzgerald, "I am no longer in the bumping-off stage." But what he called his "black-ass days" increased in frequency after the Second World War Hemingway had a sense of mission or a sense of himself as the hero. In his manic periods he would become convinced that he was immortal. The number of his injuries sustained in various plane crashes, automobile collisions, and fist-fights are legion. He was extremely disciplined as a writer and could work from dawn to 2:00 P.M., then go out fishing or hunting and still be ready to go at two the next morning, when everyone else was too exhausted to move. Toward the end of his life his rages and elated spirits were always likely to cost bystanders their front teeth. In 1960 he was hospitalized. This must have been most difficult to accomplish since he had always hated psychiatrists. He is known to have had three courses of electroshock treatment later at the Mayo Clinic. He became paranoid toward the end and thought that the Internal Revenue Service was out to get him. According to his brother's biography, he killed himself because his body, always important to him, was falling apart. The likelihood is, however, that he was also drinking and in another serious depression as well. His brother described him as a consummately impulsive individual all of his life, who talked constantly and without inhibition. Like Van Gogh, he became violent with others, and finally with himself. Hemingway's mood disorder was complicated by the fact that he styled himself "the American male hero," and tried to live up to this self-imposed image. His father had also committed suicide (pp. 44-45, 1989).



  • Sun Also Rises - Book

    In "The Sun Also Rises," Hemingway, through his alter-ego, Jake Barnes, tells us that the true meaning of "aficionad' is passion. In Spain, there is a more restrictive meaning. 'Aficianado' only means one who is passionate about the bulls. In fact, the concept is so restrictive that some bull fighters are considered to be just 'commercial' bull fighters and are not passionate enough about their chosen profession to be considered 'aficionados.' This is so according to Hemingway.

    In the broader sense of the word, Hemingway, in this book, reveals himself (as Jake Barnes) to be an aficionado when it comes to boxing, drinking, fishing, and bull-fighting.



  • The Sun Also Rises
    Of Bulls and Steers: Who’s the Real Hero?

    The temporary thrill of passion extinguishes itself in a moment through the agency of the object and symbol of passion itself. These critiques indicate that Hemmingway is rejecting the traditional image of a glorious hero for that of a pragmatic, ordinary hero. Passion is rejected in favor of moderation, since the characters who, like steers, resist the least are the most successful.

  • Google Search: sun.also.rises Aficionado

  • Google Search: sun.also.rises passion

  • Google Search: hemingway passion

  • hemingway sun.also.rises cycle OR cyclic OR cycles OR cyclical OR circular

  • Jens Bjorneboe: Hemingway and the Beasts

    'Take Nick out,' says the father.

    Here Nick meets life. Afterwards he asks his father three questions:

    Does it always hurt so much to have a baby?
    Do many people kill themselves?
    Does it hurt to die?

    It is here that Hemingway's long autobiography begins; this is how it feels to be human. Nick, the hero, has received his wound. He is scared to death, and all his later experiences are more or less repetitions and variations of the same theme. Nick has learned what it means to be a human being on earth; it was a boy invalid who left the Indians' hut with his father afterwards.





    • The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway - StoryLines America.

      Nick's fear of death, coming at the onset of darkness and preventing him from sleeping, is an image that surfaces repeatedly in Hemingway's work.


    • Fear was his beat - New York Times Books.

      Every artist has the right to expect to be judged by his finest work. In this cruel season, Ernest Hemingway has been transformed by some into a commodity, and literary scruples have never been a strong point of commercial travelers. A century after his birth, he has an enduring legacy: ''The Sun Also Rises,'' ''A Farewell to Arms,'' ''A Moveable Feast,'' two dozen stories and great sentences and paragraphs and scenes in lesser books. He is our poet, in prose, about fear and the imagined encounter -- before we die -- with death. Fear was his subject matter, fear was his stock in trade. Hemingway, a brave man, was stalked by fear from the start.


    • Ben Gusberg's Paper: Ernest Hemingway - summary of Hemingway's career and value.

      In some respects Hemingway was a study in contrasts. There is, first, the immensely competitive, ambitious young man who strove to excel in every thing he undertook; someone others looked up to, proud of his physical capabilities and his artistic prowess. He could be shy and diffident as well as an incorrigible braggart; a sentimentalist, quick to tears, or the stoic warrior, master of fear and pain; a generous friend or a ruthless overbearing enemy; a non-hero longing for heroic status; a man of action harnessed to the same wagon as the man of words; a non-intellectual contemplating the highest human concerns. There was the romantic liar for which the line between truth and fiction was never clearly defined. He was proud of his capacity for drink, his talents as a fisherman, map reader, wing shot, and poet. He was a persistent worrier, plagued all his adult life with insomnia and violent mood swings. There was the fierce individualist who shunned politics, economics, and fashion. He believed in art, in sport, and in nature. There is, at last, the temperamental manic-depressive, who once said he would have liked to be king and decided for himself, the right time to die.


    • The Hemingway Resource Center

    • Amazon.com: buying info: Hemingway: The Final Years

      Just finished Hemingway: The Final Years by Michael S. Reynolds. I didn't enjoy it as much as Hemingway: The 1930s. Hemingway's life turns ugly and he sort of disappears like the Chesire Cat. The Amazon "Customer Reveiws" are worth reading. Reynolds' 5 vols. may replace Carlos Baker's Hemingway as the definitive biography.

      Thursday, April 20, 2000 04:28 p.m.

    • Timeless Hemingway

    • Hemingway, Ernest - Britannica guide to the Nobel Prizes.

      A consummately contradictory man, Hemingway achieved a fame surpassed by few, if any, American authors of the 20th century. The virile nature of his writing, which attempted to re-create the exact physical sensations he experienced in wartime, big-game hunting, and bullfighting, in fact masked an aesthetic sensibility of great delicacy. He was a celebrity long before he reached middle age, but his popularity continues to be validated by serious critical opinion.

      This article was written in part by Philip Young (d. 1991), who was Evan Pugh Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 1980-88. He was the author of Ernest Hemingway.



    • Tracking Hemingway - Atlantic Unbound, July 21, 1999. [via Yahoo]

      Atlantic articles from 1939 to 1983 -- by Edmund Wilson, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, and others -- track the strengths and weaknesses of this American literary lion.
    • Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park, Illinois [via Magellan]

      The Foundation fosters understanding of the life and work of Ernest Hemingway with emphasis on his Oak Park origins and his impact on world literature.
    • The Ernest M. Hemingway Home Page [via Google]

      "This is a page for fans of Ernest Hemingway. I hope you learn something you didn't know!"

    • Google Search [Directory]: hemingway

    • In Search of Hemingway's Brain During His Lousy Centennial Year - New York Observer.

      Mr. Passaro compared Hemingway�s mind to those of nonliterary artists: "We don�t ask painters to be intelligent, or photographers, or musicians," he said, "but I, for one, do ask writers to be intelligent."

      Hemingway wasn't an intellectual. In Please understand me, David Keirsey beautifully differentiated Hemingway and his type:

      ISFP is usually not interested in developing facility in speaking, writing, or conversation. Speech, after all, is abstract, not concrete, ISFPs preferring to have their fingers on the pulse of life. That pulse must be felt - by touch, in the muscles, in the eyes, in the ears. This insistence on the senses being so closely attuned to reality can, in some ISFPs, occasion a breach with language, and language becomes a barrier to smooth interpersonal relations. So ISFPs are sometimes seen by others as reserved and private, tending to give up rather easily in their attempts to express themselves verbally. But this reluctant speech is not so much a lack of ability as it is disinterest. Hemingway broke that barrier, a splendid instance of an ISFP entering into the world of words and making apparent inarticulateness into art, changing the face of 20th Century literature (205-6).

      Here is an expression of Hemingway's aesthetic views which his biographer, Carlos Baker (1969, 131-32), excerpted from a deleted portion of "Big Two-Hearted River":

      The only writing that was any good was what you made up, what you imagined....That was the weakness of Joyce. Daedalus in Ulysses was Joyce himself, so he was terrible. Joyce was so damn romantic and intellectual about him. He'd made Bloom up. Bloom was wonderful. He'd made Mrs. Bloom up. She was the [132] greatest in the world. That was the way with Mac [McAlmon]. Mac worked too close to life. You had to digest life and then create your own people....Nick [Adams] in the stories was never himself. He had made him up. Of course he'd never seen an Indian woman having a baby. That was what made it good....He'd seen a woman having a baby on the road to Karagatch and tried to help her. That was the way it was.

      [Nick] wanted to be a great writer. He was pretty sure he would be....It was hard to be a great writer if you loved the world and living in it and special people. It was hard when you loved so many places....There were times when you had to write. Not conscience. Just peristaltic action. It was really more fun than anything....It had more bite to it than anything else....He, Nick, wanted to write about country so it would be there like Cézanne had done it in painting. You had to do it from inside yourself....He felt almost holy about it. It was deadly serious. You could do it if you would fight it out. If you'd lived right with your eyes. It was a thing you couldn't talk about....He knew just how Cézanne would paint this stretch of river. God, if he was only here to do it. They died and that was the hell of it. They worked all their lives and then got old and died.

      And of the many pictures Baker gives us of Hemingway:

      There is the temperamental manic-depressive, the inveterate hypochondriac and valetudinarian who spoke seriously of suicide at intervals throughout his life, yet possessed enormous powers of resilience and recuperation that could bring him back from the brink to the peak within days and sometimes within hours (viii).
      Carlos Baker (1969). Ernest Hemingway: a life story. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.


    • PEN Center USA West: 1999 Imitation Hemingway Contest Finalists
    • PEN Center USA West: 1999 Imitation Hemingway Contest Winner

      "Across the Potomac and into Her Pants" by Maxine Nunes

      The young intern flashed her thong at me, and it was good. And it was also bad because I thought about my wife in a thong and knew she would look like the jambon that hangs in the windows of the charcuteries along the Rue de Buci. It was a long time since I had cheated on my wife, maybe even many hours or many days....



    Kay Redfield Jamison

    • Live From Lincoln Center - Interview with Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison

      Well, if you ask writers and artists who have depression, severe depression or manic depression, what they feel is important to them about their illness and their moods in their work, what they almost always focus upon is the intensity and the range of emotional expressiveness. Learning from the pain and from the suffering, they experience the sorrow, they experience the despair of the nihilism and so forth. And on the other hand, very ecstatic and visionary states. So that's what artists and writers focus upon.

      I think it's a lot more complicated than that. I think it's also that people with manic depressive illness who have a particular temperament live a life of almost seemingly irreconcilable differences and opposite states that they somehow, on a day to day basis, have to reconcile. So that people who have very disciplined and interesting and strong and creative minds, who also have this temperament, spend their lives having to make some order out of chaos and reconcile these opposite states. I think that a lot of what we ask from our artists really is to experience extreme mood states, experience the extremes of human nature and experience, but also to put some new meaning and redemptive value.



    • A statement by Kay Redfield Jamison in Night Falls Fast is quoted in New hope for people with Bipolar Disorder (pg. 20):

      "Kay Jamison writes about her own experience with the illness. 'I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often; appreciated more...seen the finest and the most terrible in people, and slowly learned the values of caring, loyalty, and seeing things through...But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know....It has made me test the limits of my mind'.

      "'Extremes of emotions are a gift -- the capacity to be passionately involved in life, to care deeply about things, to feel hurt; a lot of people don't have that. It's the transition in and out of the highs and lows, the constant contrast, that fosters creativity'."


      Fawcett, Jan (2000). New hope for people with bipolar disorder. Roseville, Calif. : Prima.





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