JONGSON PARK

Many intuitives will stay away from established process and systems, because they’ll say it hinders their intuitive ability. But an experienced intuitive can start to develop and build conceptual systems, knowing that unconstrained intuition and not having process, logic and reason to help constrain intuition can cause errors and inconsistencies.

Intuitives don’t rely on established processes or systems. When they see a system already in place, they immediately get disinterested. The motivation is trying to discover and build the system while going through the process. While in that process they become the first one to build the first iteration of that process and system. Part of the challenge is not knowing what the next step is and figuring that out. There is no “right” or “wrong” answer in thought work, there are only iterations and problem solving to get to the the most efficient, optimized, maximized input vs output. The value is not in having the right or wrong answer, the value is in the the problem solving process. Once you have that process as a toolset, you can transfer that ability to any different project.

This was just my take on personalities and personas, from what I’ve learned from Myers-Briggs and Cognitive Functions. Not claiming to have figured anything out or even know what I’m talking about. These are just my thoughts and interpretations of what I understand. Maybe even just relabeling terms in a way that makes more sense to me.

There is a very computer-like analogy of how we process information – input, process and output. Or simply, we built computers analogous to our process. Our relationship to the ourselves and outer world, how we receive and process information, and how we interact with the outer world. Every computer is constrained to the same logic and parameters, not on a spectrum but we as humans, have a dichotomy and each dichotomy on a spectrum, which is why each one of us have such different personalities but also many similarities. This makes the most sense to me, we are all different but the same. And I think the dichotomies are somehow inherent to the relationship between our right and left brain and the dominant personas on each side.

The opposite dichotomy of an introspective is an expressive. This is someone who by the time a decision to move forward has been made, it’s almost immediately spontaneous and reflexive. The decision to take action is usually directed toward the outer world. The action is expressive, meant to interact with the world and people around them. It’s purely an external action. For an expressive, there might be some time that a thought process is internalized but ultimately it has to manifest outward and interact with someone, somebody to be “real”. Seeking a response, feedback, tactile information. An expressive seeks to affect the environment or at least be a part of it.

Now that a decision to move forward has been made, where does that decision live? Where is that decision expressed. An introspective will usually direct their decision or judgment back onto themselves. That could mean that the idea, thought or action doesn’t have to exist beyond their inner world. And can look like different things, maybe they decide that it’s something about themselves they want to change. Or they build a process or system around what they’ve thought about. Many times it can be expressed through writing, creative work, art, usually work that is soloist in endeavor. Not necessarily meant to be consumed or meant to find an audience, its only purpose is to exist, to be an experiment, exploration of the thought process or expression. And the introspective is content with that.

Collectivism weights decision-making toward the collective or from a social dynamic value set. One factor in decision-making could be, maintaining harmony within the group. So a person might sacrifice what they want to go with the decision of the group. So this like many things is not in itself good or bad but it’s in where and how it’s used.

A person might decide to leave their job to take on the role of caretaker of a sick family member, allowing other family members not to sacrifice their jobs or a big part of their lives. A person might want to go to a different restaurant but is willing to go with the group as to not make a fuss. Or maybe the group is doing something unacceptable or inadvisable, but the group’s interdependence and influence is so strong a person just goes along with it. In both cases, a decision has to be made weighing it against the social outcome of the situation. It rarely is the case that a decision doesn’t impact or say something about the group or the individual. To go against the group might be received as or a statement of saying I’m not a part of the group.

So while one collectivist decision-making method might be maintaining harmony, other collectivist decision-making styles might be seeking validation, affirmation, approval, popularity, admiration, respect, consensus, momentum, social wellbeing etc. I think there are shades within each of these that are positive, constructive, supportive, edifying and even necessary but there are also shades of this that can be erroneous, manipulative and self-seeking. When the objective is to appease the group, a fallacy can happen when the group might be operating toward an erroneous inevitability and the group’s momentum is feedback looping and snowballing itself toward that direction, without a check or moment of self-awareness.

As individualism sacrifices consideration at the group level. Collectivism sacrifices consideration at the the individualistic level. Individualism and collectivism is a decision-making process, placing judgment of ultimately where to put the value and where to put the compromise – will it be on the individual or collective.

If an individualist chef creates recipes for himself, a collectivist chef serves a menu for the group. While the first chef might be satisfied cooking what they want to cook, they might not find a following of customers. And maybe the second chef might do a good job of finding customers, they might have no identity of who they are as a chef or what they cook. I think the ideal is to operate in some balance and exchange between the two.

Individualism, at first look, might sound selfish and self-centered. One apsect of individualism might be making decisions based on the outcome of the individual and sometimes that might look like greed and narcissism. But another aspect might be, making decisions that maintain or hold onto your individualism. Which might be things like creative expression, unique personality and not having to conform to what everyone else is doing.

Individualism is making decisions based on what is best for the individual. But what’s “best” is relative and subjective and so individualism can take on different flavors. A rich and powerful person might make decisions just to increase their wealth and power at the expense of other people. Or maybe a person who wants to go to college has to stop hanging out with his friends because they’re a bad influence. Or maybe an artist, or someone that has a unique personality or someone who just speaks their mind decides to stay true to who they are, whether or not the people around them accept them.

Individualism weighs a value-based outcome between what’s good for the individual versus the collective and will tend to lean toward the individual, with reason and a system of thought, usually at the expense of the collective. This will sometimes seem cold and indifferent. And what might seem cold and indifferent is that an individualist has predetermined that they can’t please or help everyone, their help and resources are limited and that people have the capacity to help themselves. Not saying this is right or wrong, but an individualist’s typical reasoning will be, “If I work to better myself than the people around me will be better off.”

Relying on only what can be seen to inform you. We can never be sure of the the unseen, what people are thinking or the intangible and unseen systems so why risk the erroneous conclusions. What you see is what you get. It’s using the five senses because that’s what’s the most “real”. There isn’t much meaning beyond what we can see and what is actually happening. A conceptual identifies patterns but not beyond what we can see and what we can objectively know. Numbers, scientific reasoning is the highest form of logic, it is valid and quantifiable. Building systems of thought only in terms of what can be proven and building processes to cannonize that system.