• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Featuring Si, installment 2: Ode to the Processes

Ene

Active member
Joined
Aug 16, 2012
Messages
3,574
MBTI Type
iNfj
Enneagram
5w4
Here's my ode to Si. I hope you'll maybe comment or share your own.


Once upon a time, way back in 1960, before I was ever thought of, a new elementary school was built in a small town. The people were proud of it. As the years came and went thousands of children, parents and teachers walked its halls, left their finger prints on its walls, flushed its toilets and eventually, it became too small for the community. Its outdated furnace systems couldn't be upgraded. It lacked enough electrical outlets to carry the ever growing demand for the use of technology in the classroom. The roof, due to a horrible design flaw, constantly leaked. Mice, roaches, birds and even snakes often found their way into the building, so in 2013, after the principal, teachers and school board had pushed so hard for funding to build a new school, it was slated for distruction as the final crop of children left it forever and teachers, many of whom had attended there as children themselves, walked its familiar halls one last time, some of them with tear-filled eyes.

"It's the end of an era," they lamented. Teachers sobbed as they went through their keepsakes from days gone by and packed boxes. Not me. I left as much junk behind as I could get away with.

A local musician even wrote and preformed a sad country song about the school and I wondered what was wrong with me. Why didn't I feel like crying? I kept asking myself why people had pushed so hard to get a new building only to cry when the old one was torn down. I mean it was only a building, right? So, why were they all so emotional?

What I didn't understand then was that they couldn't help feeling apprehensive about the change. That which was comfortable and familiar was being taken from them they were heading into an unknown future. I was mentally picturing the future, planning for it, predicting and anticipating it, but they were clinging to a good friend, yesterday.

I had already joined TypeC at that time, but knew very little about MBTI, so I didn't understand that so many of my co-workers were Si dominants. That first year (2014) in our new building was rough. Everybody was stressed and behaved as if the very ground was going to fall out from under them. Now, I realize that it had. These were people who found security and joy in routine, who hung onto all kinds of teaching manipulatives, who cherished daily routines, job charts and color-coded work binders, filing systems, etc.

Then one day toward the end of the school year I noticed two bricks lying on the art teacher's shelf. I asked her, "What's the bricks from?"

"My husband and I came up here and got them when they tore down ----- ------- School. I got two. I thought you might want one." She took one off the shelf and handed it to me.

"Thank you," I said.

Now the art teacher is retiring. Come August, I'll be the new art teacher and I will have a brick on my shelf, not because it reminds me of a building but because it reminds me of an Si-dominant friend who deemed it important to save and deemed me important enough to give it to.
 
Top