Archive for the ‘Ni’ Category
Seriously, remember me? I was really morbid as a kid in ways people didn’t understand or even realize. I remember drawing demons and ghosts in kindergarten, screw Yoda and C3P0 or the Muppets! My favorite dreams involved my brother turning into a vampire and having to stake him, it was terrible! In the dream I was so sad and it was so scary, but damn what a rush when I woke up sweating through my ET t-shirt holding my breath until I looked down off my top bunk to see him safe in his mini-bed, breathing a sigh of cool release. Or the lovely time I befriended Freddy Kruger and he made a glove for me and gave me a hat and we invaded peoples dreams together. Oh such memories.
By the time I was 11 or 12 I was really interested in psychological horror. I loved films like the Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs. I walked to the library and walked home with books loaded with such nuggets as True Crime serial killer studies, I had them all Dhamer, Gacey, Bundy, The Hillside Strangler, Jack the Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe etc. Also along with the bundle the Satanic bible, the anarchists cook book, and books on witchcraft and demonology. No one was gonna tell me what I can put into my head. That’s the one freedom I always kept for myself.
The frickin’ horror movies…
It had to have been it. The frickin’ horror movies. Dad and I went to Video Galaxy and rented a new horror movie every Tuesday. I was a sharp kid with a precocious intellect in many ways, so I assured him that I never had nightmares and that I really liked scary movies so we didn’t have to tell mom. In hindsight, I can see how they were the very essence of what I bonded to my father with. I am non-expressive, and so is he. I don’t think I kissed or hugged him since before I was a preteen. So things like horror movies which we both really enjoyed and spent a lot of time together doing, really meant a lot to me, but did it effect who I became? I struggle to think, it must have had a big effect. For one thing, I truly love the macabre, by the time I was in high school I was a “tortured goth poet” I took it about as seriously as I did the wardrobe, my favorite T-shirt at the time being jet black with a grungy white word splattered across the darkness saying “Poseur” . It was just fun, it was Halloween every day, you know why? I loved Halloween more then any other holiday including Christmas, screw the gifts, I want to dress up like Freddy!
I just like and enjoy dark and scary stuff, its so much cooler then rainbows and ponies and GI Joe and all that crap, I mean I liked all that stuff too, having more then enough attention to turn to many things as a boy, but nothing struck my fancy like Critters, Faces of Death, Evil Dead 2, or Texas Chainsaw massacre.
I always had a nickname for what I was “Darkling”, I was suprised they had many more “Darklings” on the planet, I didn’t really know until I was majoring in Creative writing in college, post goth and raver days, I think I was trying to be collegiate at the time. I wore a green turtle neck, what an asshole. I was in a class with a young professor and many other “darklings” the pride and delight we came to class with when we handed in our stories, it was a fiction writers course. Story after story of vampires, demons, death, serial killers. I had found a true home for my sinister delights.
So is it weird that I and many other people like waking up hot and sticky, throat dry and gummy from dehydration eyes teary, brain shrink wrapped in terror and mystery, from a wicked nightmare? Its like starring in your own horror movie, and you confront your fears and learn so much about your subconscious by what it chooses to show you.
What about others though? How many other darklings are out there?
Popularity: 3% [?]
I have been noticing the last few years as I have gotten closer to being 30, that my preferences are either changing subconsciously or I am changing.
My feelings have been cooling for some time. Whereas they used to be constant, bright, and vivid, always feeling, always in pain or happy but something has slowly faded to just cold precision and analyzing of an abstract nature. Mostly searching for meaning, then connections to other things, then to ultimately the bare essential facts of the abstractions nature, whatever it is that I am picking apart.
I have noticed that I am spending much more time sitting and thinking things through rationally and logically, and though I am struggling with it now I feel it is growing and getting stronger, it actually makes me feel quite optimistic in a way because I know its probably just my Ti kicking in to shape and really trying to develop itself.
When INFJs or other NFs start getting older, do they master their emotions and then begin to apply new criteria as their brain matures?
If so, I say good, feelings never got me anywhere, in fact they were a fucking burden most of the time.
I still have feelings, but its like, they are getting more defined specifically, not that I know what they are, but what I am saying is that my mental skin must also be growing thicker because the buttons that set off my feelings are becoming more defined, not so much the feelings themselves.
I am trying to analyze my own mind and what I know about myself, but its like lately the last couple of years I have really been getting good at it and understanding myself and my nature and what I can do and cant do.
I almost feel hyper aware of myself, not just the deep convoluted abstractions of my ever swirling miasma of ideas and thoughts in head but for my body, I can focus my mind and feel my pulse, feel my heart beating, feel the data travel from my brain to my finger tips as I tell them to move and type, feel the fibers in my lungs screaming in agony over the abuse I give them, feel the digestive enzymes, see through my skin and see the intricate harmony of bone, sinew, muscle, tendon, blood, electricity, atoms, data, and intelligence.
Working as a system all together, pumping life into this body so that I can fade into this reality via my sense and just think and taste reality and existing… I am the universe.
I’m not even tripping, the lsd, bud, all that shit never really had a strong effect on me, even under the influence of gargantuan amounts of shit I always was able to remain “there” even through a bad trip, knowing whats happening to me, feeling the anxiety shrink wrap my brain with adrenaline and cortisol, was still there, calm, collected, analyzing. Vomit, pain is over, I feel better, still there, analyzing.
I even went so far to obliterate myself that I took 4 tabs at a whack, and when it melted the brains of my friends and they curled up into a corner crying on half the dose, I’m analyzing.
I don’t know if I am too connected to the reality of this dimension, tbh, who knows this could be a dream, a terribly boring and mundane dream.
Anyway tangent over,
I think age is giving more precision in the form of a developing Thinking function, my feelings in contrast seem like they have to share the spotlight and as such are reducing and diminishing in intensity.
Has anyone else ever undergone something like this?
Popularity: 4% [?]
In the summer of 2005 I was fortunate enough to spend in China with my girlfriend of the time and her family. They took me under their wing and showed me all around Szechuan from Jin Li square in Chengdu to Le Shan mountains Buddhist retreat. It was an experience I have yet to surpass. The trip while mind expanding was also heart expanding. The purpose of this story isn’t to tell of my trip details and destinations, its to tell a simple lesson I learned partially in China, then through bits and pieces over the next few years as the message filtered its way through time and space.
One portion of China I saw was a Buddhist temple location in a very poor rural area known to the locals as the “Green Dragon”. The day was hot and overcast, Szechuan is always hot and overcast because of its mountainous boundaries. Our Lexus, scented with fine lily perfume made on the streets near the American Consulate rolled up into a street filled with young children and girls and old parents, open sewage bisected the road, and the people lived in what we in the U.S. would dare to call poverty. I wouldn’t call it poverty, more like desolation. We pulled up to a girl wearing a white mens tshirt, our driver, my girlfriends father asks in his harsh sounding chengdu-nese dialect, where is the Green Dragon Temple?
She replied by grunting something with a sly look as she squinted through the window at me, then pointed to the north. I could see a tuft of black armpit hair reaching out from her shirt, “we’re not in Maple Syrup Land anymore” I think to myself.
We drove off, and I saw her shrinking into the distance behind us in a yellow mustard cloud of red soil as we peeled away. We were nearly 5 minutes away Yang says, 5 minutes until my life took a twist.
We parked around the corner from a concrete building, very state looking construction, plane, lifeless and gray. Then I noticed a large set of pillars which formed a gate. The gate had ten foot high concrete walls extending from its sides that hugged the entire temple grounds. Inside of the walls it was the most zen, and peaceful experience one could imagine. I lit candles and incense and prayed for guidance and wisdom. Little did I know how prophetic those prayers would be.
When our visit was concluded we left, outside of the gates there were many many people, lepers, the sick and the starving. And they were begging for money from the rich tourists leaving the temple. A boy approached me with a small cup with some loose coin and a folded note, my instinct was to give, give them the money that I didn’t care about that sat idle in my pocket, more then enough to feed the whole lot. As I reached into my pocket my friends pulled me away and insisted it was just a scam, its only a scam, don’t give them anything. They’re scum.
I was given wisdom, I saw true suffering, I was given a test to guide me. And I listened to my friends and I shuffled passed them and I hopped into the car and we drove away. Each dip in the road made me feel nauseous, my chest was heavy and my heart ached with each beat, I felt warm liquid on my cheeks, I was crying, my body was aching for the wrong I had done. I turned my back on my fellow man that which I swore I would never do to myself. I broke my own heart.
During my trip through the temple I had purchased a few wooden bead bracelets that were supposedly blessed. I took them as a symbol or a memento so I could never forget. But I had a long road to travel yet, the message effected me through subconscious pain and guilt, I felt ashamed for being so closed off to the suffering of others, so I wore one of the bracelets to mark that shame to myself. The lesson manifest physically.
Some time later…
Fast forward a few years, the bracelet is mostly gone, Its lost somewhere in the 2 or 3 moves I did from apartment to apartment. If fate had wove this tale, then it has done so with a sense of irony, because during this time that the bracelet was lost, I was free falling, from breaking up out of an 8 year relationship to losing my home, to hating my job, to becoming angry and desperate. I made a stone of my heart and no lessons got through.
Early in 2010 things began to change for me. I lost touch with the hard shell I was wearing as I noticed it was driving away my family and friends. This hurt so I undertook a massive level of introspection and came to some conclusions. I concluded that I could only ever be myself. I cannot be the cool and calculated person I tried to be, it wasn’t real to myself and I grew deeper and deeper into a depression. After I concluded that I could no longer live a lie, and that I was always going to just be that sensitive kid who wanted everyone to get along and to be happy. And that I had to take that form of myself and mature it into a viable lifestyle. Things turned around.
People from the past have come to me, opportunities have been given to me, when I opened my heart, all frequencies, the universe began to speak to me. Event after event, situation after situation, I see the connections between us all. Maybe we are all electrified impulses in a greater beings head, but we are all the same, all connected. And because of that connection and because I was open to know it and to hear the truth, the message came to me. Bring love wherever you go, love is the wellspring from which life flows, we must cultivate life and guard it. Days after this realization the bracelet reappears from nowhere. I literally found it in a drawer I swear I never put it in. I began to wear it and the significance of the lesson back in China remained.
1 week ago:
Alan and I decided it would be a good idea to get buzzed up and walk around Manhattan. The Belgian Bar BXL, Aramark office, all around we went. This day was strange, there was snowfall in the air but it wasn’t snowing really, but there was a metallic and electric flavor to the air. I wasn’t cold, but I felt cool and as though I was adrift in the winds as we walked. I knew that night was going to be special.
I had been wearing my bracelet for a month at this point. It had a deep significance as I now fully understood the message and why I wore it. As Alan and I walked around Manhattan at night late the city was very welcoming but also in great pain. I could feel it. One corner we turned and an old black man came to me. His eyes were yellow and his beard was gray and black, his coat was tattered and his voice was low and soft. “can you help me man?” Alan gave me a sideways glance and kept walking on, my instinct was to follow him… but my feet were rooted there on the ground and I turned to face him. I reached into my pocket and its when I made the connection. “my bracelet is missing”. It was gone, I had wore it all day and I last remembered seeing it on the train when we drove into Manhattan, but now, it was just gone. That absence made me think, bracelet… bracelet, China… It was the universe tapping me on the shoulder again. I then came to realize, this is the final exam, I failed my 1st test, and now here, years away on the other side of the planet, the same token I took from China my cheat sheet, reminded me of the lesson I had already learned.
“I cant make the same mistake again” I say to Alan, his eyes lock mine and he nods his head. I hand the old man a few dollars, he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t say “bless me” he stares right in my eyes and says “Thank you”. I passed, and a weight feels lifted from my back. I feel my eyes welling up and I feel like its ok that the bracelet is gone, it served its purpose and now it has faded into history to effect someone else life. I am free of my pain and I have concluded that my life has been half full for too long.
We must tap into our higher selves. Only through connecting to one and other and spreading real genuine love and caring can we balance the tides and win the fight for mankinds soul. Talent and gifts are abound in all of us, how many times have I used my intellect, my cunning, my physical strength, my beauty as a tool to enrich myself at the cost of someone else?
Gifts are meant to be shared, and I am done being the fat kid at the party. The universe takes care of its own, you get what you need, when you need it, and then we die when the lessons are learned. We cannot ever know the true nature of the cosmos, that’s not the point of life. We have been put here into the 3rd dimension to do 3rd dimensional things, that means we life and work in a world of material, and it is through this matter that we must prove our rights to exist through charity, understanding and self awareness.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Empty trees, hibernating in the winter season, bare and grim like a skeletons ribs. We once played in verdant lush summers, as a family BBQ, Mesquite, fires, s’mores, baseballs, bocci and laughter. All things draw to an end, including youthful daisy chains and the joy we once felt. But as I walked through the lawn, icy snow crunching under my boots I remembered a thousand memories of my loved ones living the life we were given and the steps we had taken. Gone to oblivion now, never to return until the next generation replaces us, but what have we lost? Is it so wrong to shed a tear for what will never again be? Tasseled hair, and fragrant lilac blooms gliding on a cool spring breeze, fathers garden, earthy and rich, the dirt flipped and prepared for the summers growing, peppers, tomatoes and basil. My brothers, my little brothers playing horseshoes and growing like grape vines, every day stronger, and larger. Once fitting in my hands like a baguette of fleshy tendrils and limbs. My heart deceives me and relieves me of fanciful logic, and the tears roll effortlessly for the loss I am mourning, of our youth and our family crumbling like yesterdays Halloween pumpkins, only to birth a patch of green herbs in its place. I’ve lost them all to time, and now home in my bed, fanciful and remorseful for being a weaker man, I cannot make end meet properly and tie up all the loose ends. This side of exile, meager and wanting, but prideful and painful. Self imposed and liberty prone, I cannot tie up all the loose ends. And so portion of my heart shed, I bury it here in my fathers garden, childish things I put to bed. Walking the colorless streets, the clouds swirl and blow angry stinging cold winds at my face, tears like dew dry and freeze to my skin, all is gone that I loved and now I am alone and looking for meaning. If not in the bottle or joint or writing or vagina then nowhere, life has not meaning, never had a meaning, childish things must be put to bed. Everyday I am learning, all my life I have only been pretending, living for what I was told and not appreciating what was in my hands. Taking these lessons in stride, offends me, it wounds my pride, and I turn towards bitterness but the feelings, the long standing feelings wash ashore in seas of lamentation.
Popularity: 13% [?]
What gets lost amidst the groveling masses huddling in cold long lines out front of WalMart for their 200 dollar Vizio 40 inch TV is what the holidays are all about.
What are the holidays about? Well I am glad you ask, its all about an over emotional attachment to your youthful ignorant days as a little crotch fruit, getting lots of gifts (If you were lucky) and not caring about the future outside of how much fun your shiny little bit of goodness was going to bring you.
So we buy into the scam when we are kids because when we are kids we get things, but when you’re this much closer to your 30s and Christmas cheer is replaced with soul sapping stress and shopping it takes on a whole new meaning. Hating the holidays, wondering why we do it, and then feeling guilty for being so fucking pessimistic.
I totally plan on combating this fatigue this winter solstice by making inexpensive gifts from the heart and giving those out instead. Poems say.
Oh merry fun will be had by all. Ha ha ha.
Popularity: 7% [?]
This is a fun list for taking care of an INFJ you are dating. Its pretty close as far as we go, this is good stuff to know because INFJ type personalities can be hard to figure out. Taken originally from the user Von Hase at the INFJs.com forums here.
We get you, dont worry.
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This thread is for tips for those who have INFJs in their lives, but are not INFJs themselves. I’ve noticed that there are quite a few members here who are looking for this sort of advice, so this is the place to offer it – be the relationships romantic, friendly, professional, or otherwise.
Here are my tips for the Proper Care of Your INFJ if you are in a romantic relationship with us.
1. Your INFJ adores you more than they can express with words. Even if they don’t tell you verbally, they will show you how they feel through their patience, kindness, and willingness to please you.
2. Thank your INFJ with sincere hugs and kisses, and tell us you appreciate the things that we do for you. Just knowing that you’re aware of it is reward enough to keep us overjoyed (and enthusiastically continuing to do all the things you love that we do for you).
3. If an INFJ is in a romantic relationship with you, they consider you their number one priority in life. Your happiness and well being are the most important things in their lives.
4. Your INFJ can sense your emotions even more acutely than if you were telling us with words. We can feel what you are feeling. Don’t be alarmed by this as we will never use it against you. However, this means you can never lie to us. If you try, we will know, it will hurt our feelings badly that you did.
5. We love it when you just walk up to us and hold us. No words. Nothing complicated. Just gently wrap your arms around us and focus on how you feel about us. We can feel it like it is pouring out of you and into us. Don’t be alarmed if we cry when you do this.
6. We love to listen. Don’t be afraid to tell us what is on your mind, even if we didn’t ask. We love you and respect your privacy, and don’t like to pry.
7. We also love it when you listen to us. Please ask us questions to show us that you care, and let us talk when you do. The more intently you are interested in how we feel and what we have to say, the more we will love you.
8. Sometimes we need to recharge our minds, and will sit and stare blankly into space. This is perfectly normal, as your INFJ is rebooting their amazing mind. Systems will be online again shortly.
9. We thrive in an environment with just you, and a few of our closest loved ones. The more opportunities you help us create for these kinds of environments, the happier we will be.
10. We don’t do well in crowds for extended periods. We will join you in them if that’s where you want to go, but please be mindful of the duration of contact. INFJs may become unresponsive and even irritable when exposed to crowds for too long.
11. While we are extremely affectionate with you, we’re generally not interested in being affectionate with anyone else, and physical contact with strangers may unsettle your INFJ. It is best to keep strangers from attempting to pet your INFJ.
12. Your INFJ accepts you for everything you are. However, INFJs can be especially eccentric. If you accept your INFJ’s eccentricities and peculiar interests, this will greatly increase your INFJ’s happiness.
13. INFJs are otherwise very self sufficient low maintenance pets, and can be left to their own little worlds for extended periods. However, infrequent moments of affection are always appreciated.
14. Always kiss your INFJ goodnight and tell them that you love them, even if you’re not going to sleep when they do.
15. Always cuddle with your INFJ when they wake up and greet their day with love.
16. Your INFJ will have a reflex to help others. Do not be alarmed by this, as it does not in any way reflect on how your INFJ feels about you, or your relationship. It is simply our nature to help others – sometimes to a degree that makes the ones we love assume they are less of a priority. Nothing could be further from the truth.
17. Your INFJ is a planner. Sometimes spontaneity leaves us in a position that we cannot plan how to best make you happy, and we find this upsetting. Please understand that we are never upset with you, only the situation.
18. Your INFJ is very idealistic and principled. If you need us to go against our ideals or principles to make you happy, this can cause us a great deal of internal turmoil and tension. Please be mindful of our ideals and principles and avoid asking us to go against them.
19. When an INFJ’s ideals or principles are offended, we will pull away quickly. This may look very similar to our normal modes of being lost in our heads to the untrained eye, as we do not like to cause tension or disharmony. To best care for your INFJ, learn to spot this reaction and quickly make right whatever was wrong, even if it is simply an opinion. This will bring us back to the harmony we need to be our healthiest.
20. No one will ever love you as much as your INFJ.
Popularity: 100% [?]
The further I go the less I believe in love as a form of abstraction… its really fucking tough to make things work out and usually someone has to swallow a lot of poison to make it work. It leads me to question life long monogamy, and I say this at 28 going into 29 a males prime years, and while I have no shortage of ladies who are interested, I cant help but to wonder, whats the point? I fear the die hard romantic in me is slowly being murdered by the side of me that wallows in insecure pessimism.
I have become something of the Simon Cowell of the dating world around here… I talk to a lady and all I can do is sniff out an agenda, what you are looking for Mr. Right? Someone who will love you and your faults and treat you with respect and take care of you when you need it and remain loyal and faithful while still being attractive and has pride and self dignity? Why yes that’s me, and what do you bring to the table? Nothing? oh… Sex? oh… woopdifuckingdoo.
I remember pining away in college drawing with charcoal late into the night or scribbling in my journal wondering when I was going to find the woman who completed me. Apparently she never showed up and I ended up having to complete myself. Now that I got that going for me people want in on it… except I don’t want them in on it because it took me long enough to get here.
The more things change…
At this point I see relationships more like a business transaction, I do want to have children and a family, but the steps I must take to get them seems kind of asinine to me.
Will Miss perfect show up? I am doubtful. Then again I stinted on nothing in a relationship I sacrificed for for 8 years and then she took off when I had nothing left in the emotional reserves to give. She sucked me dry and then left. Maybe I am just bitter and hurt still I dunno.
Popularity: 4% [?]
October 12th, 2009 Ni # 3
So as far as I can figure it, most INFJs go through a sort of “keep to myself” thing for most of their lives. In my case I was extremely private and I don’t let many people into my inner world. As a result of this I had always been a really loner type, very stand offish, quiet, gentle but not a pushover. I also grew up kind of tough in some rough areas and that toughness is how you learn to survive without getting hurt. As a result of this I had very very few friends growing up. As I go into my 20s I basically cut out all of my friends and went completely isolated. Because of that I ended up relying heavily on my family for social interactions. It turns out that my family isnt exactly the best thing for me, as some of them tend to sabotage me out of jealousy or a need to control things.
So I have been rebuilding my social life the past year or so, once I broke away from my family, its like I am an entirely different person. My ENFP friend says I am projecting like an ENFJ or an ENTJ at times when I do things.
But its more than that I still feel very very introverted. But somehow I am able to now get over that and push myself into a situation I would have normally walked away from. Meeting new girls, or friends and making connections and putting myself out there. And I have been finding that people love me and want to be around me and it makes me feel good like I have something to offer. But still there is more to it than just that. Its like I don’t just see my friend or a person anymore, I see a network of connections and opportunities behind people. And I am not doing this intentionally somehow my mind is just picking this stuff up and storing it in my subconscious then making conscious connections to it. Its like my Intuition is really working over the relationships I am building and its not being dominated so much by emotion so much as curiosity at this point. And I am planning social interactions to depths I never did before and I can make predictions on how people will react to things and its coming true. I feel like I am standing on a ladder above a crowd and I am the only person with any overview of the situation.
Is this normal for an INFJ who is trying to be outgoing and extroverted? Are there any other INFJs who have gone from extreme isolation to extreme social butterfly status quickly?
I am having all these new wired feelings and I am trying to organize everything into some sort of system so I can manage it better but its just new to me.
Popularity: 10% [?]
My brow glistened, shrink wrapped in a veil of sweat, “its august 4th” today I thought my nieces are being born and I am terrified. Terrified that my family will reject me, that I will be turned away from the hospital, that I would be excluded from the things that truly mattered to me. And I feel the detachment, the floating sense of intuition, judging, judging, analyzing, all. The moat of my psyche is its draw bridge drawn? Will I let them in if they did accept me, and wasn’t it funny how that was even more terrifying? Then what would I do? I just want to see my nieces, I just want, no need desperately for them to matter to me, to know my heart can hook into them and anchor itself to the notion of true family. It boils down to me never getting excited, never getting attached to anything except the rocks of my life, can I bring them in, can I do it immediately or do I have to pretend? I am so tired of pretending, the wellspring of my patience has dried up and I am so very tired of caring for other idiots little worlds. But this matters, this is my flesh, I want to be there and I want to be an uncle, In fact I want to be a great uncle, whatever that means. I know Colby will handle the true fatherly stuff, but, and I love him he is not the most intelligent man alive… He doesnt understand things, will he let me share my gifts with them? Or will he draw a line? I know they are only mine through my brother and sister in law, but will they allow me to have a personal loved relationship with them? To teach them help them grow into strong beautiful young intelligent and most importantly confident and competant women. I just want to protect them from all the genuine horrors life can offer, from the pain and hurt I felt. I was able to take it, and I want them to be strong enough to take it too, but I dont want them to experience that. How can I give them that? How can I give them that piece of myself and teach them to use that. I want them to have every advantage we never had. Every strength from Colbys charm and extravertedness to mine and Rickys silent resolve, force of will, and deepness of person. Shit the phone rang.
Popularity: 15% [?]
September 28th, 2009 Ni #2
Are you competitive?
I am excessively competitive. Its something my father drove in my as a child when I saw him, to get ahead. I couldn’t just be good I had to be the best. And it sort of seems like in some things at least it was me trying to get him to be proud of me, even after so many years I think I have an internal check mark, is this good enough for dads approval? Its much harder to turn that off than I thought because I haven’t been able to, but I like being competitive, I like being able to be better than other people are certain things, it draws attention to me in a positive way, I am not a sore winner though I am always gracious, but my competitiveness really comes out after I lose, I go obsessive compulsive on improving to beat the person to beat me. I dunno its weird.
Popularity: 11% [?]
