Mercy plus Perceiver 87works with connections and
disregards Mercy experiences
which were the source of those
connections.
That is why the Perceiver
person can jump in one sentence
from the topic of motorways and
driving on the left side of the
road to the subject of pyramids
with flagpoles. Within his mental
room of Perceiver thought, he
sees these two as directly related,
because they have similar
connections. The experiences
may be totally different;
Perceiver strategy does not mind,
it is concerned only with connections.
Here is another example. When Perceiver strategy thinks of a „car,‟ it
pictures a group of wheels, doors, engine, seats and body placed together
in a specific way. Perceiver thought does not care about which wheels or
doors are being used. It only remembers the way in which the various bits
are connected.
This emphasis shows up in the approach of the Perceiver person. He
generally tries to avoid the individual and to deal rather with the problem.
Of course, people and problems tend to go together and the attitude of the
Perceiver person sometimes reminds one of a horse-mounted knight bound
by rules of chivalry: “I must kill you. I have nothing against you personally.
You are simply a problem which needs to be addressed. Would you please
step out of the way while I hack you to pieces.”
Mercy strategy, in contrast, deals with the individual experiences.
Mercy thought cares very much about which specific wheels and doors are
in the car, because some wheels and doors are much nicer than other
wheels and doors. Mercy strategy would probably find touring the
motorways of Britain much more interesting than visiting pyramids with
flagpoles.
Notice how Mercy and Perceiver thought view the same objects in
completely different ways. Mercy strategy sees the 1973 green Honda
Civic with the dent in the fender. If this car is associated with enough
emotion, then it can become the defining experience by which all other
cars are evaluated. Perceiver thought, in contrast, simply sees each specific
vehicle as another example of the species „automobilis Nippon.‟ The color
and the make of each individual car are not as easily remembered.
I suggest that many of the problems which come up in the marriage
between a Mercy person and a Perceiver person can be explained by
London