A Perceiving/Prospecting Viewpoint
An important contrast can be drawn at this point. The Lens of Essence is aligned with and energized by a personality type and preference labeled Perceiving by Myers-Briggs. It combines the Jungian preferences for intuition and feeling. The 16 Personality Type authors (Sixteen Personalities, 2024) have renamed Perceiving as “Prospecting” and offer the following summary description:
“Prospecting . . .individuals are much more flexible [than the Judging individuals] when it comes to dealing with unexpected challenges. This flexibility helps them seize unexpected opportunities as well. These personality types tend to react to their environments rather than try to control them, helping them to make their own luck in whatever the world delivers. People with this trait hold that life is full of possibilities.”
I would suggest that a life full of possibilities is generated by first discovering (or even inventing) that which is the Essence of life. It is in this Essence that all of the possibilities reside or from which they are generated.
“People with the Prospecting personality trait can be slow to commit to something because of uncertainty or the potential of everything else. If they don’t moderate this trait, indecision or a lack of conviction can be a problem. They can seem unfocused. What was important to them one week may be forgotten the next. . . . Despite those concerns, this personality trait can offer a great deal of creativity and productivity. Theirs is almost a stream of consciousness quality. . . . This can lead to serial passions that keep Prospecting individuals stimulated as they explore the buffet of choices always before them.”
It is in this statement that we find both the opportunities and barriers in the life of those with a Perceiving/Prospecting orientation. They can be quite creative and productive if residing in Essence—in a world where there is clarity and consistency at its core. Without this core, the Perceiving/Prospecting person can become “untethered” and may spend their life wandering about in a VUCA-Plus world—living and acting without purpose or direction.
With this distinction between Essential and Essence in hand, we are now reading to delve specifically into the nature and dynamics of Essence.
The Essence of Essence
The Essence of something—some system—concerns the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of this something (system). Ultimately, essence is concerned with an abstraction—an ideal form. A Platonic ideal. The essence of something determines its distinctive character and its purpose for being. There is also an important sense that essence is a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is. From another perspective, essence is a distillation of something. It is an extract or concentrate obtained from a particular plant or other matter and used for flavoring or scent. It is the elixir to be found at the point when a particular entity is at its peak in terms of flavor, consistency or purity.
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