History is full of characters. Most are serious 'A' types, some are funny, some are sad, but all are extraordinary. From its very beginning, the United States has been an environment where every type of extraordinary people can make their mark. Lincoln was said to be a failure at everything except his Presidency, but this is not about Lincoln. If you think about the different personality types in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) how many of those types make a mark in history? Julius Ceasar, Napoleon, Henry VIII, General Patton, George Washington, and Lenin are all strong political figures who we think of having good judgement, rely on their thinking, and have good handle on their five senses. Could a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) have a political role as powerful as President of the United States? Well there may have already been a Highly Sensitive President. I was watching a documentary by Ken Burns on
Thomas Jefferson. Though the people commenting on the documentary were historians, they gave me the impression that Jefferson was indeed a HSP.
The documentary right at the start states that Jefferson was a controversial figure. He wrote about liberty for all men, even made several bills on emancipation, but did not free his own slaves. Thus the historians see him as a dichotomy and cannot quite make out what he was, whether a hypocrite or something else entirely. In trying to explain the problem, the historians go into Jefferson's persona. Jefferson is described as a poor speaker and as soft spoken individual. He was also brilliant in being a diplomat, an engineer, a farmer, and an architect. He squandered the first year of college getting caught up in the atmosphere, but after that he studied 15 hours a day. He wrote without notes. He traveled with a chess set and a violin, no ipods, tablets, or ipads in that day, let alone phones. If you wanted music you had to make it yourself. As a consequence, he suffered when he was away from his family cause he heard nothing from them. His wife at the time was in great distress cause her child died. He was quoted as stating, "Every human being must be viewed according for what it is good for, for
none of us, no not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had
imperfections, this world would be a desert for our love." He also wrote the Declaration of the United States of America which states that all men are created equal. All these little fact point to some of the empath's or HSP's traits such as loyalty, deep feeling, focused, absorbing environments, and wishing goodness for all men.
In the documentary there were two statements made that affirmed my suspicions on Jefferson. The first said, "Jefferson was an incredibly sensitive man, thin skinned, vulnerable,
fragile in character. ...His greatest desire was harmony and to be
loved, and couldn't stand not to be loved." This statement alone showed me that the historians in the documentary who studied Thomas Jefferson were giving an accurate account on his personality in that he was indeed highly sensitive. The second statement said, "This was the real Thomas Jefferson, a man who loved deeply, who felt deeply." To me, this seals it, he was highly sensitive. The only way historians can judge a historical figure is by what they did and what they wrote. Jefferson was a brilliant writer.
On the basis of this documentary I believe that Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was indeed a Highly Sensitive Person. The controversy about him and why he didn't do according to how he wrote, I believe, could possibly be found if we understood him as a sensitive. Modern Psychology is not unanimous about the affirmation of HSPs. How then could we expect historians to understand this? Perhaps someone would be crafty enough to make a Myers-Briggs test or some other personality test for historical figures and we could understand them a little better and why they made the choices they did. Understanding personality types would be a great benefit to humanity. As for Thomas Jefferson as an HSP, I think to judge him with our modern lens is a mistake. We cannot change what he did or didn't do, it's history. I believe we now have a little more insight in this historical figure on who's words men are becoming free even today.
