Daily Excerpt: Understanding the Seeker (Quinelle) - The Seeker at Home

 



Today's daily excerpt comes from Understanding the Seeker (Kacee Quinelle) 

Chapter 6
The Seeker at Home

We have spoken briefly about the home behavior of the Seeker. He or she is no homemaker and is all too frequently oblivious to health and hearth. These traits—and others—create a home climate that differs quite significantly from that of many other personality types. When the other members of the household are also Seekers, the traits are intensified. When the other members of the household are not Seekers, conflicts are multiplied.*

House and Housework

Given the Seeker’s lack of interest and skill in homemaking activities, the house can become quickly untidy and not at all a cozy place, especially if the spouse and children are all Seekers. Fortunately, for most households, this is not likely. The Seeker personality is not common enough that one would expect to find it in grand distribution among any groups. Still, certainly, there can be more than one Seeker in a family. What the house looks like and what happens at home will depend upon the distribution of other personality types.

If there is an Epicurean in the house (SFI), the problem will be easily solved. The Epicurean, spouse or child (if of an old enough age), will slip right in and take over such things as cooking, tidying up, and make the house a home. The Seeker naturally defers to the Epicurean in home matters since the Seeker does not care about them and the Epicurean does. Often, this assignment of roles (which can be a reversal of traditional roles where the Seeker is the wife and the Epicurean the husband) takes place without discussion; it just feels “normal.”

Problems can occur when there are other personality types in the household who expect the Seeker, particularly if the Seeker is the wife and mother, to act like an Epicurean. This is not going to happen—acting out of type comes with difficulty, deliberation, discord, and error. Errors can be humorous, especially if all are good-natured about the inabilities and disinterests of the Seeker. Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest by Shenan Leaver describes the household of a Seeker wife and mother with some irony and much mirth. Where there is not this level of good-nature, errors quickly turn into discord, and relationships (and the hominess of the house) go downhill from there.

Spouse

Two Seekers married to each other is an interesting combination. The strong channels will be the same, as will the weak channels. Therefore, both strengths and weaknesses will be amplified. In this case, the compatibility is strong, but the responsibility, at least the responsibility typically expected from married couples, especially those married with children, can be missing to a detrimental degree. If both Daddy and Mommy are busy tilting at windmills, the gardening does not always get done.

With Seekers, a spouse whose personality type reflects mutual complementation (called a dual relationship), i.e. an Epicurean, may represent the best combination. The dominant Intuition (Channel 1) of the Seeker is accepted by the Suggestible channel (Channel 4) of the Epicurean, and the dominant Sensing of the Epicurean is generally welcomed by the Seeker, who does not care about tracking all those nitpicky details anyway. There may be unexpressed hurt feelings when the Thinking trait of the Extroverted Seeker bumps up against the Feeling trait and expectations of the Introverted Epicurean. Here is where having crucial conversations about values and expectations becomes important—and where understanding and accepting each other and each other’s inherent psychological differences makes a difference.

Seekers may feel less compatibility or less quietude with other personality types, but relationships of all types can be managed if the differences are shared, analyzed, discussed, and accepted. Couples can learn to shore up each other’s weak functions and tone down their own dominant functions for the good of the marriage. Thus, Intuitive partners can learn to provide more evidence and data for Sensing spouses, and Sensers can learn to let go of the need for black-and-white interpretations and peek into the mystery of life. Likewise, Thinkers can learn to say the words (such as “thank you” and “I love you”) that Feelers expect and enjoy, and Feelers can learn to look at the deeds done by Thinkers (such as repairing the Feeler’s computer without being asked or running out and putting gas in the near-empty tank of a car that the Feeler will soon be driving) as expressions of caring.

Parents and Children

Children, too, can learn to understand and cope with personality differences. Of course, the older they are, the easier this is (although some parents who have experienced particularly difficult teenage years with their children might argue with that).

Young Children

A Seeker parent will instinctively bond with a Seeker child and vice versa. They take parent-child fantasy trips (sometimes real ones, too). Since the Seeker lives outside the realm of the everyday world anyway, he or she easily slips into the child’s world, whether that be through books, movies, or games. The Seeker child is not one to have a tidy room; the Seeker parent does not expect a tidy room. The Seeker child is not one to follow rules; the Seeker parent rarely sets rules to be followed, and certainly does not expect the child to comply with society’s rules but rather teaches the child to think outside the box and supports that. The Seeker father of one Seeker daughter would allow his daughter to skip school and tinker with him in his laboratory. He would simply send a truthful note to the teacher, such as “My daughter was indisposed yesterday.” He was stating that she did not want to come to school, but the teacher would interpret the note as meaning that she had been ill. Everyone is happy with that particular deception.

The Seeker child of the Seeker parent can experience some difficulties fitting into traditional society, whether that be in early years at school or in later years at work. Without a parental model for a complementary and more compliant style, the Seeker child can fail to develop the kinds of behaviors that allow him or her to succeed in a traditional classroom or at a traditional job. Generally this does not happen, because it is rare that both the parents and the child are Seekers.

The Seeker child of the non-Seeker parent, depending upon the parent’s psychological type, can be highly misunderstood. His or her lack of tidiness can be seen as sloth, rather than indifference. His or her lack of rule following can be seen as insubordination, rather than lack of appreciation for systems of rules.

In turn, the Seeker child of the non-Seeker parent may feel boxed in, controlled, and too contained. For the Seeker child, rebellion is a typical reaction to being limited in word, thought, or action. Seeker children are little scientists, and they need to do their research: sleuthing, reasoning, testing, and, sometimes with unfortunate consequences, experimenting. One Seeker child burned down the family bathroom (accidentally, of course) in the course of conducting a “reasonable” science experiment. The Seeker parent understood and applauded the curiosity while cautioning the conditions; the non-Seeker parent did not and hinted at punishment (which never came about because both parents understood that the Seeker usually “punishes” himself for scientific miscalculation, as demonstrated through inordinate frustration and regret; they also understood that their Seeker child was not motivated by a system of reward and punishment).

The Seeker among non-Seeker siblings can experience an increase in sibling rivalry if one or both parents are Seekers. The mutual bond and similar behavior can emphasize the distance between the Seeker child and the other children. Knowledgeable parents can teach children to recognize the differences among themselves, and between themselves and their parents, even at very young ages. It is an intuition that all people, regardless of size, have: we are all different in some way.**

As parents and children age, differences become more tolerable—and then less tolerable. That appears to be the case regardless of personality type. Older children understand their parents better, and parents are better able to explain themselves to their children and to receive their children’s input on the level of an adult model. Each other’s “quirks” (generally, conflicting personality types) are known; how to cope with them is also known. At the extreme end of life, however, tolerance can become more difficult, even when everyone is aware not only of the quirks but also of the reasons for them. Issues outside of the realm of socionics intervene (e.g., declining health, the need for special care, gradual loss of physical and mental capacities), and personalities change, as Jung predicted they would, with the weak functions playing a greater role as they are sought after more by the aging parent. The resulting persona can sometimes seem different and difficult to children who have come to know their parent’s dominant set of personality traits. Understanding what is happening and why, though, leads to better methods of coping.

Something to Think About

Do you believe that you are a Seeker? Take the test at the end of this book and determine if you are. If so, answer the questions in Section A below. If you are not a Seeker, but you work, live, or play with Seekers, answer the questions in Section B. Both are intended to provide real-life insight into the Seeker and those with whom he or she associates. There are no right and wrong answers; these are questions that are individualized to you, the reader, and you will have to decide which of the suggestions that these questions coach you into developing might work for you.

Section A. Questions about Yourself as a Seeker at Home

If you are a Seeker and you find yourself surrounded by non-Seekers in your family, how will you cope? Look at this question from your actual situation—do you live with your parents or a spouse? Are you married with children (or married with adult children and grandkids)? Based on your personal situation, think, for example, about the following:

·       Most non-Seekers are into planning their lives in practical ways; your parents will want to know what you want to do with your life (some parents may even have their own ideas about that)—and by “do” they mean something pragmatic such as you would like to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, or the like;

·       Non-Seekers are not nearly as idealistic as Seekers and in some cases simply do not understand an idealistic mindset, no matter how a Seeker tries to describe or explain it; you are not “serious” or “engaged” enough for them; and/or

·       With all the best intentions, a non-Seeker may advise or even pressure a Seeker to “be more realistic” or “show some commonsense” not only in career choices but also in what they do for leisure activities or how they raise their children. (Seekers are often quite laissez-faire with their children, indirectly coaching them and allowing them to take learning risks that can sometimes appall relatives and friends alike.)

Which of these things can you accept?

What can you do to adapt yourself?

What can you do to help those who surround you accept you as you are? (Can you, for example, have a discussion with them about socionics and explain the conflict between your idealism, and its centrality to everything you do, and their greater tendency to look at life in a more realistic and pragmatic vein? Can you show them some advantages to your idealism—even if those things don’t advantage you but someone else? After all, the idealist does tend to be altruistic, not living for himself or herself alone. With children, can you explain your parenting approach through teaching them about personality differences? Many parents have found that even small children “get it” when it comes to personality differences; it is the adults that don’t.)

Section B. Questions about the Seekers in Your Family

If you are a non-Seeker and someone in your family is a Seeker, what difficulties might you expect to face and how might you cope with them? Think, for example, about the following:

·       A Seeker will avoid developing personal relationships, focusing instead on topics and content. As a parent, you may want to talk about school experiences, friendships, and teacher relationships; your Seeker child may prefer to talk about the things he or she learned in geography class or physics lab;

·       A Seeker will usually brush off praise as condescension unless it coincides with his or her own assessment of a particular achievement, and will expect any praise—desired for the “right” reasons—to focus on his or her achievements, not his or her efforts. Where praise comes in other forms or for other reasons, the brush-off can seem rude or uncaring to a non-Seeker; and/or

·       A Seeker will often bring discord into family discussions for the purpose of creating new understandings; as an intellectual risk-taker, no topic is “safe” against disagreement.

Which of these things can you accept?

What can you do to adapt yourself?

What can you do to adapt the Seeker? Why would you want to do that?

*Socionics considers psychological types ceteris paribus (i.e. as though all other conditions were equal or negligible), which we know, in reality, is not the case. Therefore, the descriptions, explanations, and discussions above and throughout this book may, in individual readers’ cases, not ring true because there are other complicating factors for a given situation that lie outside the realm of psychological type or even psychology, be that financial, environmental, biological, chemical, social, legal, or some other external factor.

**With very young children, I have had success in teaching personality variables through the use of a game that gives each trait a different color so that they can visibly see the differences. The children pick out their color from each of the three or four personality type pairs (Intuitive/Sensing, Feeling/Thinking, Extroverted/Introverted, and, if desired—and the children old enough to understand—Rational/Irrational) based on recognized preferences (e.g., I prefer to spend a lot of time by myself or with one or two friends vs. I prefer to spend a lot of time with many friends.) Then, complicating situations are called out that tell the children to compare themselves with other people. For example, they might be asked to stand under the picture of a teacher who has four colors, one for each preferred personality trait, and then hold out their own cards to see how different or alike they are and how much they might have to adjust to meet the teacher’s expectations or how much the teacher would have to adjust to understand them. Next, they can be asked to stand under other pictures: father, mother, somebody important in town, and the like. Once they are pretty adept at finding their differences and likenesses and what those might mean (without going into a lot of scientific detail), they can be asked to look at each other’s cards, predict where they might have to make adjustments for each other, and discuss where they may currently be having conflicts—and why. (This game can be used to teach other kinds of individual differences as well, such as cognitive styles, sensory preferences, social backgrounds, and more.)


For more posts about Dr. Quinelle and her books, click HERE.

For more posts on socionics, click HERE.

For more posts on personality, click HERE.


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