Section 3. Outlining, What your sense of time tells about you. Part 2.
Time line people see time as flowing too. For them, however, no one situation is important. Rather, life is a carpet, rolling from the past into the present and onward to the future. Any instance is but a football on the carpet.
For the timeline people, for whom yesterday, today and tomorrow are an integrated whole, the past is not a past of personal feeling. It is the detached, historical past. Any given event must fit into a larger picture, even if pushed and tugged into place.
They desire to put events in historical order enables the time line type to frame hypothesis, to draw conclusions and to make predictions, in short, to be scientific. Naturally, only a few are likely to have true scientific insights but all share the mental process, initial research indicates.
Before starting any project, the time line person examines the whole situation and tries to see it in ideal terms. He wants to make up his mind and arrive at a logical conclusion before he acts.
School Principal 2, a time line type, is probably prepared to deal with a fight before it even occurs, since fights among the students are a potential hazard in most schools.
The desire to envision the whole picture is often seen as a lack of enthusiasm in the time line people. They often reputed to be cold, detached and uncaring. They are really none of these things, however, they are happiest when they can project their view far forward and far backward in time.
adj. 可能的,潜在的
n. 潜力,潜能