Carl Jung’s book Personality Types contains all the basic concepts that underlie the personality classifications for introverts and extroverts. Jung gives new and old examples from many fields to support his theory that every person tends towards either extroversion or introversion and that these two types perceive the world in radically different ways. The extrovert experiences themselves through the objects in the world while the introvert experience themselves through their own inner life.
I have a clear picture in my mind of these types after reading this book and recently I find evidence everywhere bearing witness to their existence. For instance I just read an essay by Hans Richter where he describes a form of documentary film he tends towards – Film Essays. Describing them, he says:
"In its effort to make visible the the invisible world of imaginations, thoughts, and ideas the essayistic film can tap into an incomparably larger reservoir of expressive means than the pure documentary film. One is not bound in the film essay to the representation of external appearances or to a chronological sequence. On the contrary, one must pull together the material for view from everywhere and for this reason one can jump throughout space and time: for example from the objective representation to the fantastic allegory and from here to an acted out scene."
Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: “for my sake was the world created,” and in his left: ” I am dust and ashes.”
From Ten Rungs, Hasidic Sayings Collected and Edited by Martin Buber
I find this quote from Buber interesting. It’s compelling in its immediacy and seems to me despairing but true. Of course it all depends on who you think God is and whether you ignore (or take issue with) the masculine pronouns used for God.
Let Everyone Cry Out to God
“Let everyone cry out to God and lift his heart up to him, as if he were hanging by a hair, and a tempest were raging to the very heart of heaven, and he were at a loss for what to do, and there were hardly time to cry out. It is a time when no counsel, indeed, can help a man and he has no refuge save to remain in his loneliness and lift his eyes and his heart up to God, and cry out to him. And this should be done at all times, for in the world a man is in great danger.”
From Ten Rungs, Hasidic Sayings Collected and Edited by Martin Buber
“In every man there is something precious, which is in no one else. And so we should honor each for what is hidden within him, for what only he has, and none of his comrades.”
Ten Rungs, Hasidic Sayings - Collected and Edited by Martin Buber
The Kiersey Temperament and Meyers & Briggs Type test are based on Jungian psychology. They both use the same 16 basic personality designations. Each offers a slightly different interpretation of the personality type so both tests are worth doing and reading up on.
The Kiersey Temperament and Meyers & Briggs Type test are based on Jungian psychology. They both use the same 16 basic personality designations. Each offers a slightly different interpretation of the personality type so both tests are worth doing and reading up on.
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth. — Thich Nhat Hahn
