Kahlil Gibran, INFP

Setting aside the matter of whether or not one enjoys his “voice” or agrees with his teachings, Kahlil Gibran was almost certainly an INFP. Gibran, himself a private man who never married, is widely understood to have put his own highest ideals into the mouth of the hero in his best-known work, The Prophet. Let us, then, examine that work and see if it indicates an INFP orientation.

INFP being constituted of Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, and Perceiving, let’s discuss  each of those elements, in turn, as it is found in Gibran’s writing.

Introversion

The hero of the The Prophet is a loner, who has wandered alone for years, and is now preparing to travel home, alone. The prophet is clearly an introvert. The people tell him:

“In your aloneness you have watched with our days…”

And early in the work the prophet says:

“A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences…”

And toward the end, the prophet says, speaking of himself:

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way…”

And in one of the many passages that betray an introvert’s bias, we read:

“And then a scholar said, speak of Talking,

And he answered, saying:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in the lips…”

Would an extrovert dream of teaching that talking is evidence of not being at peace with one’s thoughts, or see talking as inferior to internal functioning?

iNtuition

One of the hallmarks of intuition is the use of metaphor anc concept. The Prophet is full of such things. A few examples:

“For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow…”

"And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

"I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress..."

“You will be together when the white wings of death scatter your days…”

“Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup…”

“And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

Overall, The Prophet is full of flights of poetic, metaphor-laced intensity and concept…and has very few concrete details…and is thus clearly the work of an iNtuitive, not a Sensor.

Feeling

The Prophet is so frequently emotionally expressive and vulnerable, and reaching for intimacy and connection and anthropomorphism, that it makes even some Feelers wince in its repeated tugging at the heartstrings. A “Thinker” would simply not write that way. A few examples will suffice:

“And those who stood near saw his tears falling upon his breast…”

“And he looked at her with exceeding tenderness…”

“Deep is your longing for the land of your memories…”

“But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory…”

“You shall see him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.”

“…let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving…”

Perceiving

One of the consistent themes running through The Prophet is individuality and a scorn of conformity and institutions and laws…even encouragement not to necessarily seek clarity and answers and confidence, but a process and a beginning and unfolding...even if lacks confidence and direction. 

The entire section on “Laws” is the non-conformist’s protest. Here’s a part of it:

“You delight in laying down laws…

What of the cripple who hates dancers?

What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and the deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?

What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?...

They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.

And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?...

But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?

You who travel with the wind, what weather vane shall direct your course?...”

“People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?”

And towards the end of the book the prophet says:

“If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them.

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,

And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.

Life and all that lives is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal.

And who knows but crystal is a mist in decay?”

“This would I have you remember in remembering me:

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. .."

And so Kahlil Gibran is one of the more obvious examples of an INFP writer: celebrating solitude, taking flights of imagination and metaphor, breaking into passionate lyricism and plaintive devotion, and insistently shaking off the constraints of convention. Few other male INFP writers, it seems to me, have put their vulnerable emotions forward so willingly in their works, and in so childlike a fashion…yet hand in hand with philosophy of which a child could not conceive. Do you find Gibran derivative and cloying? Or perhaps deeply wise, and the perfect balm for your aching soul? Or a little of each? Whatever one's reaction to him, his voice is unmistakably INFP.