MBTI Type: INTP

Darwin approaches everything with a desire to understand it, to make sense of it, to take it apart, and to put it back together again, which eventually leads him to proposing his ‘theory of evolution’ – an alternate, creative display of logical causation based on the ‘survival of the fittest.’ He observes the harshness of nature, in which only the strong survive, took what he knew about humanoids and apes, and combined them into a large-scale theory that embodies ‘everything’ important (INTPs love to come up with similar abstract, hypothetical reasoning theories). In large part, he accomplished this through ‘what if?’ thinking. Others find him somewhat detached and off-putting as a result—to him, watching a fox kill a rabbit is just witnessing the harshness of reality in action; to his emotional daughter, it’s a horrific murder. He is theoretical and always thinking, proposing different ways to look at the universe, and endlessly questioning the meaning of life, whether religion has any place in it (he does admit that it can be a ‘stabilizing force’ and it might do harm to challenge it overtly; unlike some of his friends, he is not an avowed atheist at least at the start, and doesn’t want his theory to tear apart Christianity, just challenge its creation theories). He loves to tell his children stories—either to make them up on the spot or repeat his old favorites, though sometimes they change in the retelling. It takes him a long time and many thousands of hours of meticulous research, analysis, and detailed note-taking, to compile evidence for his theories, before he’s ready to present them (strong Si drive). Lastly, evidence for his inferior Fe comes from how poorly he handles the loss of his daughter. He doesn’t know what to do with his emotions or how to handle them, how to process his grief, how to comfort his wife, and has no emotional ability to include her in them—he takes their daughter away from her to ‘heal her’ with expensive doctors, never once thinking that his wife might want to go with them; and then it takes them some time to reconcile and grow close again after he has become embittered about the child’s death. He will sometimes lash out at people, such as his pastor, and angrily assert that he doesn’t believe in God, but also wants his wife’s approval and for her to be okay with him publishing his book. He tells her to do whatever she wants with it (and then is a little alarmed at the idea that she might throw it on the fire).

Enneagram: 5w6 sp/so

Darwin never feels ‘quite ready’ to share his theory of evolution; when others push him to finish his book, he says there’s more to learn, and he isn’t prepared yet to share his findings and theories with the world. When he learns another author has put out something similar (twenty pages long), Darwin even considers giving up on his book, because it has already been said, devaluing his work in the process. It takes him many years to finish writing his book, and then he’s hesitant to share it unless his wife approves of it—a glimpse of his 6 wing’s desire not to shake things up too much, or to alienate his loved ones in the process of sharing his theories with the world. Others have to prompt him to open up at times and talk about what’s going on with him, both as he grieves his daughter and as he loses his faith. He has strong logical opinions, but also likes to consult with other people and hear what they have to say, and he is somewhat fearful of the inevitable repercussions of releasing a book that challenges the established belief system.

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