The strengths and weaknesses of frustration types
The frustration personality type is a strategist and a half! The intrigues they can spin are beyond anything the other personality types have ever dreamed of. Then again, the Frustration type is a kind soul at heart: he is simply too lazy to do anyone harm. That is why he gets around any rule, prohibition or restriction easily, gently and without a quarrel. And in general they try to steer clear of conflict altogether, so as to keep their comfort intact. But not everything is quite so smooth! Let us look in detail at the Harmonious Traits and the conflict traits of this type.
Harmonious Traits of the "Philosophers"
To be able to pursue strategies (that is, intrigues) in comfort, Frustration types prefer to steer an éminence grise, quite literally feeding him ideas about how the steering should be done. And the éminence grise then steers the people at the helm, working the immediate steps and levers. The message of the Frustration type is:
“We are sailing west! Whatever errors they drift off by — never mind them! The main thing is that it is in that direction”
Their main harmonious trait is the whole set of Winnie-the-Pooh's good qualities: plushness, positivity, good nature, unhurriedness. It is close to the philosophy of the Taoist monks: they are content with little.
They are creatively gifted in many directions at once. Their imagination is fully developed — so fully that they are able to fantasise inside any reality and then make the fantasy real.
They are tolerant and carry a basic trust in the world, in life, in people and in the flow of things. That is why they try to see something valuable, good and interesting in everyone. But being passive personalities, they grow tired of people. So they tend to study them, to take an interest, and at the same time to keep a slight distance. A Frustration type seems always open, always ready to make contact. Yet behind that outward openness he is in fact easing away, detaching himself, and at the first opportunity he withdraws a little, so as to have time for experiencing, so as to have something inside with which to feel it through and think it over.
As cognition types, Frustration types are able to compile and integrate knowledge from very different fields — literally to see how it all joins up into a single hyper-value. They see the wood behind the tree, and they see the whole, which is why they are perceived (and present themselves) as competent in any field that interests them. And they will take on any new undertaking just as lightly and boldly, without having enough knowledge for it.
Frustration types think on a large scale, both in their visions and in their actions. This sometimes creates difficulties, because they operate with concepts that are too big. Being extraverts, they dislike detail, and the moment they start applying that scale to a concrete situation, things begin to go wrong. But as soon as they rise to a certain level of generalisation, everything there is perfectly clear.
Conflict traits
The main problem of Frustration types is that they are hard to get going and “put on the brakes” at the start. If it is something unimportant, they will begin easily, get results and be given credit for them. But the moment something is given the status of an important matter, that is where the real intrigue begins.
To the very last they refuse to dot the i's, and they do not want full clarity and definiteness in anything: there is still so much to think over, to feel through, to weigh up, so much room to let the mind drift across the open spaces of that philosophy. So by every means available they avoid clear, unambiguous answers to direct questions, keeping themselves “a way out” and room to dodge.
Inside them a mass of experiencing seethes about ideas, systems, philosophies. To give themselves room to “have a good feel” about all this, Frustration types look scattered and forgetful from the outside. They will put the most important things off until later, in this style: “What was on the plan for today? Go to the shop, watch television, tidy the flat. And in half an hour — watch television again.”
A Frustration type can work out a strategy for succeeding in any field and formulate it at the level of a task; they make good methodologists. But after that it all has to be written down and the i's dotted — and that is it, it becomes boring: all that is left is to carry it out, and that is no longer interesting.
At the very last moment, when everything is ready and the result he has been working towards for so long is within reach, he stops dead one step short of it. Then a slow process of accepting that result begins, in detail, so as to feel it all through, so that it becomes complete. Sometimes it resembles hedonism, though of a slightly different kind.
They avoid responsibility for their own decisions and actions, and would rather go back on their word, their promises and their agreements. Their favourite game: “this obligation was not taken on voluntarily. I did not choose it. So what if I promised?” As in the joke:
“You promised to marry me!” — “So what if I promised!”
Their typical life position is “it will all sort itself out somehow, it will happen by itself”, “they will come of their own accord, offer everything themselves and do it all themselves”. They prefer the most responsible things to be done for them — while still remaining at the helm.
And outwardly all this ends in a certain asocial scruffiness of appearance, way of life and Worldview.
