There are psychological preferences (traits) as expressed through personality type (temperament), and then there are moral behaviors. A person’s type may determine how they express their values, but it does not determine the values themselves. A person’s type contributes to how they give their gifts, but the decision about whether or not to give the gift is a moral one.
Psychoanalyst and author Alice Miller writes that people who grow to adulthood without ever having been truly loved as children are similarly unable to truly love. In that case, “we can only try to behave as if we were loving. But this hypocritical behavior is the opposite of love,” she writes. Only “a loved child learns from the beginning what love is.” Others have to learn what love is in adulthood if they learn it at all.
A person’s psychological type doesn’t determine whether they make the choice to learn love in adulthood, or instead follows their natural but hypocritical inclination to act as if they were loving. Making decisions about whether to learn to love or not, whether to develop an ethical life or not, whether to seek out and develop one’s own true self or not, and whether to keep one’s word, commitments, and obligations or not are all moral choices. Not one of these choices is determined by personality or psychological type.
I think that growing up unwanted and unloved are good excuses for being a psychological mess upon reaching adulthood. But there’s no good excuse for failing to learn to love rather than acting as if you love, no good excuse for failing to love someone with all your heart, with passion and sincerity, by desiring and acting in ways that serve the needs of the beloved in addition to serving yourself. I see no acceptable excuse for receiving bounty and hoarding it. There’s no valid excuse for being given the chance to heal–usually many chances–and refusing it or betraying your healer, as Judas did Jesus.
the parable of the talents
Jesus told a story about a wealthy landowner preparing for a long journey. Meeting with three of his most trusted managers, he explained that he’d be gone for a very long time. “I’m leaving you three in charge,” he said, “and you’ll need this money I’ve budgeted. Make good use of it and when I return, I’ll do an accounting to see how you’ve each performed.”
The first manager received one talent, the largest unit of currency at that time. A talent was worth 6,000 denarii, the standard Roman coin. One denarius was equal to one day’s wages, so one talent was worth 20 years of labor to the average worker. In 2023 dollars, the first manager was given $1.3 million to manage.
The second manager was given two talents, equivalent to $2.6 million, and the third was given five talents, equivalent to $6.5 million.
Some years later the owner returned and conducted an accounting of his accounts. The second and third managers had done business and invested the funds, and doubled the master’s money. In contrast, the one-talent manager had buried his talent in the ground and returned it untouched to his boss.
The owner was shocked! “What?! You buried my money in the ground when you could have at least put it in the bank and earned interest for me? Why did you do that?”
The manager replied, “Everyone knows what a hard-hearted man you are. I was afraid of your anger; that’s why I buried the money.” Not fooled by the manager’s blame, the wealthy landowner considered that two of his three trusted managers had overcome any qualms about managing his money, and profited from the trust and generosity their boss had showed them.
“If you had really believed I am the hard-nosed bastard you say I am,” the rich man replied, “you would have put that money in the bank rather than risk having it dug up and stolen. As it is, you used me to excuse the smallness of your own heart. You’ve broken my trust and failed to return anything on my investment. You’ve proved that you’re not the sort of manager I want in my business.”
The boss then took the $1.3 million from the hoarder and gave it to the managers who had doubled the worth of their funds.
“Get that lazy manager who buried my money in the ground out of here!” he cried.
And there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.
love gives
Love is not a Scrooge McDuck. Love is a giver. Love is a constant yielding in the back of one’s mind, all the way to and beyond the boundaries of one’s heart.
Life seems jolly as we go along loving those who are easy to love–our friends, the ones similar to us, those who agree with us do things our way. But let a disagreement occur, a difference of opinion, and things change. Life stops being such a fine, jolly frolic when our differences draw blood and stakes are serious.
When people are willing to give up their right to have their own way, I know that they are truly awake and alive to love, regardless of their temperament. Extraverts and introverts alike are able to love. Extraverts may do it with a lot of words and production, and introverts may do it quietly without drawing much attention to themselves, but the character of the love will be constant.
love yields
Love yields. Because love yields, it’s not possible for love to have its way in a conflict in which one person wins at the other person’s expense. When my loved one demands their own way and I yield to their demands, one of us has loved and one has been made a hostage. Love has a concern for each person in the exchange, each person in the relationship.
“Love hurts, love scars, love wounds, and marks,” Nazareth sang, but love doesn’t have to achieve its ends through suffering.
A person can try and choose the path of love, a path that says,
“I don’t want to win at your expense. I’m more than a vampire, sucking your blood; I’m more than a leech or parasite, always taking and giving nothing in return. I hear that I’m causing you pain, and I’m sorry. What solution will serve our mutual interests? What can we do to achieve peace between us?”
This kind of caring doesn’t arise from personality type; it is rooted in good character.
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