Guest post by Occam’s Chainsaw, INTJ

Dead Poet’s Society

Ne: ‘Carpe diem’—the most important thing Keating taught his students. He encouraged them to seize the day by taking every opportunity that came their way. He was forever telling them to think in a unique way, and to look at things from various perspectives. He told them not to follow the rules the books set, but instead to be creative and come up with their way of doing things. He firmly believed that words have the power to change the world—he said, “no one is very tired; you are exhausted“, or “instead of very sad, use morose.” Keating not only talked about different perspectives, but also demonstrated them, for example through his out-of-the-box teaching style, like standing on his desk.

Fi: Keating had very intense emotions, he was extremely passionate, and he conveyed his feelings through his teaching methods, through his Extroverted Intuition. He was willing to help whoever was in need of it, and he listened to whatever people had to say so that he could comfort them. He did everything his own way instead of following a set of rules that was invented by the school. Instead of repeating the already well-known things, he gave an entirely new explanation for everything, like the reason for writing poems—instead of communication, he said they were in fact a tool “to woo women”. He never generalized people or emotions, but treated them as individual unique beings.

Te: Keating knew how to solve problems, and this ability paired up with the fact that he had a skill to find immediate solutions made his advices a hundred times more valuable, because they weren’t only to comfort the individual, but also to offer them a possible way to eliminate their issue. It came easily for him to organize the class, but since his Te is tertiary, he managed that from an NeFi approach; he built a connection with them by being friendly and approachable, and he also made it pretty clear he didn’t care about the educational hierarchy, hence he encouraged the boys to treat him as equal to them.

Si: Keating was still fond of his past, and he could recall anything in any detail that he was asked about. He came back to teach in the same institute he graduated from, presumably because he was still attached to it and chose it instead of an unknown school. After finding the book in Neil’s desk and reading the lines he wrote in there, his feelings broke to the surface and he burst out crying in the classroom (alone). Keating could quote anything from any book by anybody, and if he was faced with a quote told by someone else, he instantly caught up to it and was able to continue it word by word. He learnt everything by heart.