Kev
Redshirt
I'm still somewhat new, so if this is in the wrong place, or there is a better section of the forums for it, feel free to move it and ridicule me.
Lately I've been looking at some of the core "problems," defining characteristics, and habits that define me. Understanding why I am the way I am is the next step I'm taking in applying my conceptual knowledge of my INTPness in a more practical (how uncharacteristic of me) way.
1. Sleep: I have the most absurd sleep schedule of anyone I know. It's 04:30 now, and I probably won't go to sleep until 05:00, and then sleep until 14:30. Last night I went to bed at 20:00 and slept until 15:00 the following day. In the past there were times when I would stay up for two days at a time and just sleep extra long to catch up. I'm also chronically fatigued.
I thought it might have been a sleeping disorder.
Then I thought it might be phase delayed sleep disorder.
I thought it might be depression.
My new theory is that, the incompatibility with my involuntary daily life and my personality have created a sort of night life in which I extend each day to be way longer than normal in order to try to fit in all the things my personality demands.
To state it more clearly and give an example: I have a very boring job, working with customers, with whom I have unstimulating, repetitive 15 second discussions, or performing repetitive unskilled tasks. Basically, it's a step above a WalMart greeter. This job may be stimulating for some. I know people who are very chatty and people oriented, who love interacting with customers in this way. I don't. This time is “lost time” for me. I basically sell my employer 8 hours of my day in exchange for a wage that won't even feed me. There are no jobs available to me that fulfill my needs as an INTP, which is why I've become a drunken philosopher and revolutionary by night. Night time is when I am able to be creative, to follow whims of the intellect, to apply problem solving skills and logic in the ways a job appropriate to my personality would facilitate. My interest in traffic engineering has driven me to generate hundreds and hundreds of pages of designs and ideas, none of which are wanted by anyone but me. I have solved world hunger a thousand times over in my head, but the only place society has for me is behind the counter at a motherfucking McDonalds blowing customers. I think in some ways it's similar to those Japanese shut-ins you hear about. Apparently young people are locking themselves away in their rooms for months at a time coming out only to eat. I am locking myself in my own mind because the world doesn't want me unless I change to suit it; to become dull, repetitive, and ignorant.
If I was religious, I would claim to be the reincarnation of Karl Marx, Peter Kropotkin, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Huey Newton, Che Guevara, etc. all in one person. Yet I am forced into the role of worker ant, forced to adopt a role that is unfitting of me. I don't have anyone who understands my ideas, and my potential, except the Internet. My emotional, and relation retardation (self-declared) have seen to that. Sometimes I think that I am destined to be just like those who went before me. Think of all the brilliant philosophers, composers, and authors who became so involved in their work that they lost contact with the outside world, forgot to eat, drank more whiskey than a ship full of sailors, lost themselves in their art. Daily I find myself pulled in this direction. I can't keep regular meals worth shit. I eat when I get hungry, and I'm usually not patient enough to wait until I'm done cooking, I have to eat while I cook. I regularly find myself thrown into introspective fits, like the one I seem to be having now, and sometimes try to block them out by drinking excessively. Nicotine used to be my way of feeling “up” for a little while, but I finally managed to quit that (it's been over a month now)
I don't see a positive future for me. Perhaps I'll die lonely and alone and penniless like Mozart or perhaps I'll be martyred by an oppressive regime for refusing to compromise my ideals. Perhaps I'll die mentally and live my life as a miserable shell, going through the motions, but doing so on instinct while my mind stagnates and rots like fresh fish left in a hot car on a summer day. Perhaps, I'll lose my job or quit and end up on the street with all the other homeless. Perhaps, that would be the closest to happiness I'll ever get. Perhaps I'll join a commune of like-minded people, if such a group exists, and disappear into the backwoods of Oregon and live out the rest of my life talking philosophy in the nude. I could do the train riding thing. I almost did it last summer. I was sick of my life and the way it was going, and I was unbelievably close to leaving. I was sitting under a bridge north of the freight yard with my backpack watching the trains slowly go by one by one thinking about where they might be going and which one I should jump on. It was only the loneliness of knowing it would be a solitary journey that kept me here. I had a habit, before gas prices went up, of driving around randomly. I wouldn't navigate by roads or routes, but rather by compass directions and interest. If I saw an interesting road I took it. Some of these trips were hundreds of miles long. Driving sometimes helps me relax. I would just drive north along the mountains until I found an interesting canyon or other road heading west and then drive along random dirt roads through the mountains bearing slowly south west where I knew I would eventually hit a more important highway I could follow back to town. I resent the structure of the daytime. The prescribed pace of life. I have created freedom in the night, but I am not free. Meh, it's 05:30 now. I could stay up, but others will be up soon, and if I'm discovered to be awake, surely I'll be asked to participate in the dull, repetitions, ignorant torrent of shit that passes for life these days.
If you actually read all the way to the end, I'm surprised. Maybe you identified with this more than I expected? What do you think of my theory about why I don't sleep at night?
Lately I've been looking at some of the core "problems," defining characteristics, and habits that define me. Understanding why I am the way I am is the next step I'm taking in applying my conceptual knowledge of my INTPness in a more practical (how uncharacteristic of me) way.
1. Sleep: I have the most absurd sleep schedule of anyone I know. It's 04:30 now, and I probably won't go to sleep until 05:00, and then sleep until 14:30. Last night I went to bed at 20:00 and slept until 15:00 the following day. In the past there were times when I would stay up for two days at a time and just sleep extra long to catch up. I'm also chronically fatigued.
I thought it might have been a sleeping disorder.
Then I thought it might be phase delayed sleep disorder.
I thought it might be depression.
My new theory is that, the incompatibility with my involuntary daily life and my personality have created a sort of night life in which I extend each day to be way longer than normal in order to try to fit in all the things my personality demands.
To state it more clearly and give an example: I have a very boring job, working with customers, with whom I have unstimulating, repetitive 15 second discussions, or performing repetitive unskilled tasks. Basically, it's a step above a WalMart greeter. This job may be stimulating for some. I know people who are very chatty and people oriented, who love interacting with customers in this way. I don't. This time is “lost time” for me. I basically sell my employer 8 hours of my day in exchange for a wage that won't even feed me. There are no jobs available to me that fulfill my needs as an INTP, which is why I've become a drunken philosopher and revolutionary by night. Night time is when I am able to be creative, to follow whims of the intellect, to apply problem solving skills and logic in the ways a job appropriate to my personality would facilitate. My interest in traffic engineering has driven me to generate hundreds and hundreds of pages of designs and ideas, none of which are wanted by anyone but me. I have solved world hunger a thousand times over in my head, but the only place society has for me is behind the counter at a motherfucking McDonalds blowing customers. I think in some ways it's similar to those Japanese shut-ins you hear about. Apparently young people are locking themselves away in their rooms for months at a time coming out only to eat. I am locking myself in my own mind because the world doesn't want me unless I change to suit it; to become dull, repetitive, and ignorant.
If I was religious, I would claim to be the reincarnation of Karl Marx, Peter Kropotkin, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Huey Newton, Che Guevara, etc. all in one person. Yet I am forced into the role of worker ant, forced to adopt a role that is unfitting of me. I don't have anyone who understands my ideas, and my potential, except the Internet. My emotional, and relation retardation (self-declared) have seen to that. Sometimes I think that I am destined to be just like those who went before me. Think of all the brilliant philosophers, composers, and authors who became so involved in their work that they lost contact with the outside world, forgot to eat, drank more whiskey than a ship full of sailors, lost themselves in their art. Daily I find myself pulled in this direction. I can't keep regular meals worth shit. I eat when I get hungry, and I'm usually not patient enough to wait until I'm done cooking, I have to eat while I cook. I regularly find myself thrown into introspective fits, like the one I seem to be having now, and sometimes try to block them out by drinking excessively. Nicotine used to be my way of feeling “up” for a little while, but I finally managed to quit that (it's been over a month now)
I don't see a positive future for me. Perhaps I'll die lonely and alone and penniless like Mozart or perhaps I'll be martyred by an oppressive regime for refusing to compromise my ideals. Perhaps I'll die mentally and live my life as a miserable shell, going through the motions, but doing so on instinct while my mind stagnates and rots like fresh fish left in a hot car on a summer day. Perhaps, I'll lose my job or quit and end up on the street with all the other homeless. Perhaps, that would be the closest to happiness I'll ever get. Perhaps I'll join a commune of like-minded people, if such a group exists, and disappear into the backwoods of Oregon and live out the rest of my life talking philosophy in the nude. I could do the train riding thing. I almost did it last summer. I was sick of my life and the way it was going, and I was unbelievably close to leaving. I was sitting under a bridge north of the freight yard with my backpack watching the trains slowly go by one by one thinking about where they might be going and which one I should jump on. It was only the loneliness of knowing it would be a solitary journey that kept me here. I had a habit, before gas prices went up, of driving around randomly. I wouldn't navigate by roads or routes, but rather by compass directions and interest. If I saw an interesting road I took it. Some of these trips were hundreds of miles long. Driving sometimes helps me relax. I would just drive north along the mountains until I found an interesting canyon or other road heading west and then drive along random dirt roads through the mountains bearing slowly south west where I knew I would eventually hit a more important highway I could follow back to town. I resent the structure of the daytime. The prescribed pace of life. I have created freedom in the night, but I am not free. Meh, it's 05:30 now. I could stay up, but others will be up soon, and if I'm discovered to be awake, surely I'll be asked to participate in the dull, repetitions, ignorant torrent of shit that passes for life these days.
If you actually read all the way to the end, I'm surprised. Maybe you identified with this more than I expected? What do you think of my theory about why I don't sleep at night?
