Assorted questions

[fullerene]

Ok, so I keep coming up with type-related questions I wanted opinions on, but keep thinking to myself "that'd be a bit of a waste of a thread... so I'll just wait until enough of these pile up and make a thread with a bunch of them." The only problem is that by the time I come up with another one, I forget the first. This has happened 5 or 6 times at least now, although one or two of those might just be repeats (haha). Anyway, I figured I'll start this now and edit in questions if/when I remember/invent them. My answers are listed too for anyone who's interested or cares, or you can use them to clarify the question for you. I tried to keep the questions short for people without the patience to read much, then the answers expand on them a bit (and give you some idea why I'm asking the questions). They'll be numbered so you can number answers and we can all easily match the answer to the question. I'm also not sure this is the right section for this... but I guess the mods can fix that easily enough.

1. Does it worry/bother you all if you talk about or ask something here that you wouldn't talk to most people about in real life?

I know it's common to intp's to have trouble expressing emotion around people (or reacting naturally when it's expressed to them)... but at the same time there are threads that pop up where people talk about them. Don't get me wrong... I think it's much healthier like this than not expressing them at all. I just ask because, well, frankly whenever I catch myself doing it I think myself either cowardly or hypocritical. I hate when people intentionally try to intimidate me (although it's only happened once in recent memory), and I stand up rather well against them, if I may say so... but whenever someone starts asking deeper questions about me that I'm a little uncomfortable with, even if they mean well, I feel like it's a masked fear most of the time that keeps me from discussing it (either fear of what they'll do with the information, or fear of getting too emtotional in conversation when I'm not confident in my ability to handle them... I can't tell). The other possibility that I can see is because it's easier to share with people who you have no real connection to, who if they don't accept what you say you can quite easily dust off your hands and not look back. Since I hate both hypocrisy and cowardice in myself, I am bothered when I catch myself doing this. Why or why aren't you bothered by this as well?

2. Somewhat related to #1... of all the posts (in the intp section specifically) where someone asks whether other intp's think, feel, act like, or have trouble with X, does anyone have any reliable way to test whether they're actually intp traits simply because we agree on them?

This comes because on an intp forum almost everyone here is an intp, and even the ones who aren't think they have something noticeable in common with them (I don't even think of murkrow as anything different, when I read his posts, to be honest). I'm thinking specifically of the "trouble with family" thread, but the same could go for anything to do with things you would ask on a forum and not elsewhere... is anybody checking conclusions against people in the outside world? I mean, just because everyone here agrees that they have trouble with their families understanding them does not imply that there's a type correlation... it could simply be that everyone in the world has trouble with their families. This probably works better for emotional responses to things, because they're the ones the type has the most trouble discussing (going by professionally-discovered characteristics, which I figure were checked against other types). It's fair, I think to say we're less comfortable with them than other people... but when it comes to specific traits that aren't really part of the portrait that psychologists have drawn up, I don't know where to draw the line between "this is an intp trait" and "this is a trait common to all people" without checking it over with others. Do you?

3. Do you guys find any value at all in doing irritating jobs? I don't mean career-jobs, I mean even stuff around the house and all. I know it's stereotypical intp to hate this stuff, but has anyone found anything to be gained from it at all?

This I answer a resounding no for me. My brain has been obsessed with trying to sort out things inside of myself and the world around me to the point where almost everything that everyone else considers important seems bland and boring, a complete waste of time. This one I ask because my parents are worried that I'll never be able to hold a job, since I look stagnant and uninterested in everything. It looks like I have no work ethic and no will to really do anything. Part of this is true--the only job I held seemed to suck the life out of me (I'm only 19, so it was just a summer thing, luckly, but I'm pushing the point now where I really have to look around), but it can't all be true because I can go to college, take like 19 credits, come out with straight a's, and not feel the least bit stressed. I personally think I'm fine if I find something I'm interested in, but they seem to disagree... so they're trying to give me jobs kind of around the house just to try and force me to develop a work ethic (I dunno who they're kidding... but I guess they're really not there to see me work while I'm at school, so they just don't take notice). So anyway, I ended up cleaning most of our deck, and I think I'm gonna have to re-tar the driveway afterwards... but I hate doing this kind of work and would much rather be left alone. Their philosophy is that I'll have to play by the world's rules eventually to make money, and you can't always do what you want to, so you may as well learn that now. It might just be arrogance, but I'm getting to the point in schooling where I think I have a brain that can carry me through doing research or as a professor, both of which seem to be either laid back or stressful in a way that I would enjoy. Has anyone found anything beneficial to doing manual labor or little repetitive chore type things here?

4. How conscious are you during social interactions with people who are not close friends, and if the answer is a "sometimes X, sometimes Y" why is there a distinction?

I would feel like I'm making myself a hypocrite here (and probably in some later questions too), but this I actually have checked over with people in my life, and they have no idea what I'm talking about. Actually an xkcd comic was the only hint I had that other people sometimes did this at all ("usually I'm so happy I navigated the introduction of a conversation that I immediately forget the name the other person gave me"). Anyway, what I've realized more recently is that I tune out a heck of a lot of conversation when I'm in a group of people. 2 or so weeks after a group gathering I thought about it, and I only remembered 3 things over a 6 or 7 hour span. One was walking around with BB guns shooting at stuff, another is the atmosphere of the room when we layed around, turned the lights off, and just listened/sang to my friend playing the accoustic guitar, and the third was what the kid who I drove home was annoyed at everyone for. Nothing else from that day stuck in memory at all... so I don't think I was very conscious of it. Now I know that everyone's attention perks up when a topic of conversation they're interested in comes up--that's just natural. What I'm curious of is first of all if you guys know what I'm talking about, and second of all if it's a conscious choice or not (assuming it makes sense). I don't think mine is conscious... and at times I know it's not now... but I do have reason to believe it was a conscious choice in my childhood that's become second nature to tune out when I don't care about something, so it might just be conscious become second nature.


That's all for now... if I remember anything else over the next few days I'll tack it on the end later.

 

[Ogion]

Nice idea for a thread. And interesting questions/topics you raise.
Though for me it is late in the night and i am going to bed now, but i will comment tomorrow

Ogion

 

[Ogion]

1. Hm, although i am not so shy expressing my poltical opinions and such to others (in reallife) i am not so comfortable expresing my emotions. Here in the forum however, the obstacle is quite lower. I know well enough, that the internet is not really anonymous, but that is not the point here. I think it is because i can think while i formulate my thoughts, and especially here, because there are actually people with similar minds here. But if i'd be uncomfortable posting something, i suppose i just wouldn't post it. BTW, i think i see you guys (or in other forums or such) just as real as i see my fellow students (most of them i have no real connection to anyway ).

2. Not easy. I think, in the end your specific character is more important than if the things pressing you are coming from intp-ness or coming from being human. I mean, if these things are interesting you, it is actually not that important from where they come. And if others, who see themselves too as being "INTP", then at least it is not unprobable that it is some intpness. But you could read in some esfj-forum or something, If they have the same problems, then it is probably more a common human thing

3. Oh, you know. All the time! It really is hard for me, to just remember such boring things. Everything which is not interesting has a seriously hard stand at getting some of my time. It is not only that i consciously try to avoid it as much as possible, i even just forget all the things of everyday life. I mean, right now my academic term is over, and besides from one thing i have to get done in the next two weeks, i have no things to do right now. So happy time But even now, i have too little time. I mean, all the day i am investigating in so much directions, so much interesting things, but in the end of the day i can think of so much things i would have liked to do/learn too, and then there is always the bad conscience about not thinking about things i perhaps have to do...
I am really quite uncertain what will be in times when i have to have my own income. I just can hope to get some 'job' where i am interested in. Otherwise i am not quite sure how i could keep that job. Perhaps it is good that i have no need to possess, to have money. And perhaps it is better that i sometimes think of a life of "someone who drop out" (like Thoreau ). That is someone who lives by himself and not needing of society/as independent as possible. just have to think about the amenities i will give up and if they are worth the time i waste on a boring job.
(You see, with that question you are really not alone..., well perhaps i am)

Ogion

 

[Saturnine]

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote Ogion, except I'm more hesitant to speak my opinions to people in person than online because I tend to get a lot of weird looks that I'm not comfortable with lol I'd much rather be social in this way through the computer.

 

[loveofreason]

1.Until the recent posts of the moods thread, no.

Generally I don't feel connected to my words after they're written, so I find that sensitive topics can be aired with no sense of attachment. Usually personal stuff doesn't feel personal after being posted. For me that's the function of the forum, like a filigree mind-bridge it builds this span that may lead to understanding - a bridge composed of thoughts from multiple minds. (No-one bears the total weight yet all may cross.)

So, once something is externalised in written words (which is about the only way I can convey emotion), it's public property belonging to the abstract notion called 'humanity'. I dust my hands of my own contributions, but very rarely of someone else's.

2. No.

3. Drudgery??? NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4. Can you re-phrase the question?

 

[Ogion]

I think i understood your fourth point. You are saying that oftenly in conversations, although you can talk quite much or long, afterwards you don't really remember things.
Yeah, if you mean that, this happens to me too. When i was still living at my parents' i had that sometimes, when in a dispute/quarrel with them i afterwards could really remember what it was all about, and so i had a hard time defending myself afterwards (or even in the same quarrel but after an hour, i couldn' remember the beginning). That was annoying.^
And here in university i get this too sometimes. Especially when talking to some fellow student, with whom i normally don't have much contact, or even one i don't know, then i mostly forget what they are studying and sometimes their name.

I think a reason for that could be, that we consider most small-talk-information to be worthless, and so we don't remember them.
It could of course be just bad memory

Ogion