Eventos de precipitación extrema - inundación

We are bom into a social field and we live out our lives in that field, never, for long, stepping outside of it into isolation. Of course, we can be disoriented for short periods of time, owing to a shock or a danger. But we soon reorient ourselves and return to our ordinary waking social frame of reference. Indeed, we are the most social of all the animals, our sociability ending in massive and complex societies. Whatever we think or feel, say or do, occurs, must occur, in the iron crucible of social reality. We are oriented always from a certain angle, a slant, a standpoint, something Adickes spoke of as our built-in “Weltanschauung, ” or “worldview.”

But different personalities have different perspectives, viewing time and place as well as past, present, and future differently. Consider the following chart in making these comparisons:

Orientation Artisans Guardians Idealists Rationals

Present Hedonistic Stoical Altruistic Pragmatic Future Optimistic Pessimistic Credulous Skeptical

Past Cynical Fatalistic Mystical Relativistic

Place Here Gateways Pathways Intersections

Time Now Yesterday Tomorrow Intervals

Here it is claimed that Artisans are hedonistic about the present, optimistic about the future, cynical about the past, their preferred place is here in the middle of the action, and their preferred time is now. How different are the other temperaments in the way they view these things. So let us look closely at these five dimensions of orientation so that we will not be surprised when our Artisan friends prove, for example, to be less stoical, or altruistic, or pragmatic than we are.

Hedonistic in Looking Around

It was Aristotle who detected the underlying hedonism in Plato’s Arti­ sans. Hedonism is the ethical philosophy that defines the “good” as what is pleasurable, especially to the senses. Of course, all of us want to have pleasure, some of the time anyway, but not with the insistence of the Artisans. Idealists would take pleasure in what they do, but if pleasure interferes with their altruistic goals, then pleasure must be forsaken. As for Guardians, pleasure must wait upon a stoical acceptance of their duty, and duty need not be pleasurable at all. And for the Rationals, if what is done is not pragmatic, that is, does not lead efficiently toward their goal, then it is simply not done, no matter how much fun it might be.

The Orientation of Artisans 47 Artisans, on the other hand, do things for the fun of it; to them, a life without pleasure is not worth living, and the hedonist’s motto of “eat, drink, and be merry” are words to live by. To wait, to save, to store, to prepare, to sacrifice for tomorrow—that is not the Artisan way. To these Dionysians, today must be enjoyed, for tomorrow might not come—or, as Sally Bowles sang in Cabaret,

What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play. Life is a cabaret, old chum, Come to the cabaret.

Put down your knitting, your book, and your broom, It’s time for a holiday.

Life is a cabaret, old chum, Come to the cabaret.

Optimistic in Looking Ahead

Artisans are the supreme optimists. The past is water under the bridge, so forget it. The distant future is a long way off, so don’t waste time planning for it. But the next moment? Here the SPs shine with a natural confidence that things are going to turn their way. SPs feel lucky: the next roll of the dice, the next move, shot, or ploy will be a lucky one, never mind that the last few have failed. What comes next is bound to be a break, a windfall, some smile from Lady Luck. And once on roll or a hot streak, SPs believe their luck will hold, and they will push it to the limit.

Along with their optimism, Artisans have an incorrigible belief that they lead a charmed life, which makes them easily the most devil-may-care of all the types. And which can get them into trouble. SPs are more subject to accidents and downturns than other temperaments, injuring themselves through inattention to possible sources of setback, defeat, or loss. SPs often live a life of violent ups and downs, winning a fortune one day and gambling it away the next, trusting the fickle goddess Fortune as she spins her wheel.

Cynical in Looking Back

We all have times when things don’t turn out well, when we lose, take a hit, are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each type has its own way of coping with such negative outcomes, of explaining them or rationalizing them. SJs, for example, tend to take a stoical view, often believing that difficulties, when they come, are inevitable, fated, that nothing could have been done to avoid them, perhaps even that they are the will of some deity. SPs, on the other hand, look upon mishaps in a cynical manner, which means that they don’t see life as having some larger pattern to it. Artisans view life as chancy, risky, a leap in the dark, a crap-shoot—and they would have it no other way. When luck smiles on them they ride the streak, and when their luck turns sour they simply shrug their shoulders, sloughing off adversity with an attitude of “that’s life,” “that’s the breaks,” or “that’s the way the ball bounces.” No doubt it was some hardened

soldier who came up with the expression “c ’est la guerre. ”

Artisans can be cynical about human motives as well. They harbor no illusions about people being noble or saintly—“come off it,” says the SP, no matter how virtuous we think ourselves, we all have feet of clay, we are all ultimately corruptible and self-serving. With their cynical take on people’s intentions, Artisans know to look a gift horse in the mouth and to check on their wallet when someone is trying to give them something. And a great source of chagrin for SPs is to be naive and fall for a trick, to be taken, duped, to be a sap or a sucker.

Such cynicism gives SPs a huge tactical advantage over the other more trusting and gullible types, who can become easy marks for Artisans. Listen as P.T. Barnum recalls how cleverly he manipulated the American public with one of his famous hoaxes (and notice how he expresses himself in feeding images):

The public appetite was craving something...the community was absolutely famishing. They were ravenous. They could have swallowed anything, and...I threw them, not a ‘bone,’ but a regular tidbit, a bon-bon, and they swallowed it in a single gulp.

In another area of show business actor and film director Clint Eastwood explored the aesthetics of cynicism in his Italian-made “spaghetti westerns,” then later in his popular Dirty Harry movies, with his sardonic take on the world reaching its zenith in his 1990s films, White Hunter, Black Heart, A Perfect World, and Unforgiven. After Eastwood’s artful display of cynicism, American movies would never be the same. Indeed, the philosophy of the cynic, albeit eschewed by those Guardians and Idealists who strongly advocate cooperation, is as morally correct for Artisans as the stoicism, mysticism, and relativism are for the other types.

The Place is Here

Artisans do not care to take tickets at the gate, or sit in the bleachers, or referee the game. They must be in the game, at the very center of things where the action is. Just as their time is now, their place is here, and so they can be said to live in the “here-and-now.” Their time and space are inseparable, and it is this unity of time and space that makes their precision of motion in the arts, especially the athletic arts, understandable. How is it possible, for instance, for baseball players to hit a one hundred mile-per-hour fastball? Or for basketball players to hit so small a target from so far away? Of course they must swing their bats and shoot their jump shots daily, and for long hours. But other types could do that and still not attain the SPs’ prowess. While others attempt their motions they are all too often concerned about what is going on elsewhere, or at some other time. The Artisans’ only concern is what is happening here at this very moment, and this makes them the masters of timing and graceful movement.

The Orientation o f Artisans 49 Arthur Hailey captured the here-and-now expertise of the Artisan in this scene of troubleshooting from his novel, Airport:

‘Mister, there’s spilled gasoline around here. You’d better get that cigar out.’

...Patroni ignored the instruction, as he ignored almost all smoking reg­ ulations. He waved his cigar toward the overturned tractor-trailer. ‘...son, you’d be wasting everybody’s time, including mine and yours, trying to get that hunk of junk right side up tonight. You’ll have to drag it clear so traffic can move, and to do that you need two more tow trucks—one on this side to push, two over there to pull.’ He began moving around, using his electric lantern to inspect the big articulated vehicle from various angles. As always, when considering a problem he was totally absorbed. He waved his cigar once more, ‘The two trucks together’11 hitch onto three points. They’ll pull the cab first, and faster. That’ll overcome the jackknifing. The other truck...’

‘Hold it,’ the state trooper said. He called across to one of the other officers....‘Hank, there’s a guy here sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.’

The Time is Now

Far more than the rest of us, Artisans live and act in the present. After all, they tell us, “tomorrow never comes” and yesterday is “water over the dam.” To an SP, there’s no time like the present, so we’d better make the most of it, better seize the day, strike while the iron is hot, or get while the getting’s good. Watch a thorough-going SP athlete in action. He or she acts to a great extent in the now, focusing easily on this time, not that time, on this stroke, not the last one or the next one.

Others may grouse and groan about their errors, or worry that the next shot might fail, but less so the Artisans. They do not mourn their losses as their concrete cousins the Guardians do; they do not dissect and redesign their mistakes as their abstract cousins the Rationals do; nor do they live in anticipation of mistakes as their abstract opposites the Idealists do. What SPs do is keep their eye on the ball and so are able, more than the others, to hit it at precisely the right instant. Oblivious to the past and the future, they can concentrate all their powers on a clear and present opportunity. And so more often than not they win.

However, there’s a price to pay for living so intently in the moment. Since Artisans do not reflect very much on their errors or analyze their mistakes to any great extent, it is difficult for them to learn from their errors, and so they can become caught in a loop, repeating their mistakes. Here, however, their talent for going with what works usually saves them. SPs instinctively repeat those acts that bring them success, and so they do indeed learn from positive experience.