Scooter Braun was in the news today, and I thought, “this story is giving me that vibe,” and after some research I’m adding Scooter Braun to my likely-INTJ list.

A couple of video references:

This person may not seem like you, if you’re an INTJ. Scooter does seem more like the a Se-heavy INTJ, like an INTJ-T. They are easy to confuse with ESFPs or ENTJs. Some of the items that resonated:

• Dropped out of school; economics and economic opportunity won (Te stuff seems important to him, on top of the Se, mentioned below)
• Major Se-focus. The impact-concept is maybe all-important. Power-focused perceptions, coupled with vision (Ni).
• Heavy Fi-focus: Gotta do your thing, find your own path, etc.
• Ni-focus: Respect power, build a forward-thinking plan, a channel to increase it. His vision for marketing and social media use seemed to use a lot of Ni-Te thinking. This person can make a plan, and relies heavily on vision-first, plan-first thinking. (I’m sure this gave those ESFP performer friends quite a rush.)

I have coached more than a few clients who are similar. They face, more than many INTJs, that really difficult combination of “I’m a major introvert” and “I’m also a major extrovert in these other ways.”

(I have a DJ friend, also an INTJ, who looks like Scooter. Kinda funny when that happens. There are a LOT of INTJs working in arts & entertainment)

INTJs in this position also have to be careful with community. Heck, all of us INTJs do. But this kind of person seems more likely to get tripped up on the Fi-Fe divide and unwittingly turn themselves into a villain (public POV) and scapegoat / misunderstood victim (subjective POV).

It’s really unfortunate because some planning here and there can help—but it’s the wanna factor. You have to want to connect with the community and build good will, and this has never been an easy sell to INTJs with other plans on their mind. Plus, one has to admit that being the misunderstood person in the shadows—being the villain, even—gives a lot of energy leverage. Mostly of the “I’ll show them” variety, but still, it feels kinda fundamentally great to perceive oneself as deeply misunderstood. It’s a meaty feeling, and offers some scary lows to balance out the scary highs.

I’d guess his wife, Yael Cohen Braun, is ISxJ. I see an interesting visual similarity between examples like:

• Endeavor from JEM Reactions (ISxJ) and
• Natalie Portman (ISTJ)

Filed in: Fi /35/ | Fe /20/ | People /74/

Neuropathetic writes:

Thanks for the book recommendation on your blog. I bought Dario’s book. What else have you been reading?

You’re welcome! Lately I’ve been working on:

• The Cthulu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-devils by James Lovegrove
• Black Widow: Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl
• The Conquering Sword of Conan by Robert Howard
• The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey
• Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
• Idea Man by Paul Allen

…none of which are coaching or self-coaching related, but I’m drawing heavily on metaphor so it all counts toward growth. ;-)

And they’re all good so far!

Filed in: Energy /120/ | Interests /111/

Via Laura London / Speaking of Jung:

“I always think of the #shadow as, certainly the pieces that are repressed, but also have been ignored.” ~Susan Schwartz, Ph.D., Jungian analyst, Speaking of Jung, Ep. 40

“The #shadow is not just a darkness in the sense of negative but a darkness in the sense of not used—qualities that want to be paid attention to but have gotten submerged, lost. And they need a certain strength to be able to come forward.” ~Susan Schwartz, Ph.D., Jungian analyst

This is really worth knowing, and I wanted to share one way in which this is relevant to INTJs.

In my experience this “unused-ignored shadow” effect is really common with extraverted intuition (Ne) in INTJs. It’s not that we hate(s) it. It’s not that we dislike its use. It’s just that it’s not as interesting as our favorite function, Ni. Not by a long shot!

As a result, Ne is displaced and really not developed much, creating a blind spot.

Here are the typical results of that blind spot:

• We may over-feed or over-stoke a proprietary, introverted perception system even if it’s already “full” (especially during times of distress). For example: “Things are going downhill for me. I just know I’m screwed. Things are going to get worse from here. I’m stuck.”
• Evaluating otherwise good ideas through the lens of subjectively-estimated probability (“that won’t work because…”)
• Unwanted difficulty in working with others on creative projects

Here are some less-typical, but really bad results of ignoring Ne:

• We can end up communicating with what amounts to problem-oriented thinking, pushing others to call us out, take us down a notch, or work to prove us wrong
• We may raise the stakes in communication with others, based only on a trust in our subjective perceptions, leading to potentially disastrous results
• We may waste hundreds or thousands of hours, and/or lots of money, preparing for outcomes which never come, rather than considering and preparing for multiple possible outcomes
• Thinking pretty much everything has been done or thought of before (if you squint hard enough, or zoom out far enough)

Some potentially huge opportunities from paying attention to Ne:

• More opportunities for solution-oriented thinking
• Building skills in invention & creation
• Bringing life to new technologies, systems, philosophies that don’t exist yet
• Enjoying more fun & positivity in life
• Thought leadership opportunities
• Less procrastination, more productivity

Some risks of giving way too much attention to Ne:

• Naivete
• Lack of stability (being spread too thin)
• Ignorance of probability (less-likely bets may be taken first)

I don’t think I’ve ever met an INTJ who really struggled with those issues though, because we love our introverted functions so much.

Methods that I like for stimulating the extraverted intuition:

• Supplements, for example caffeine is really good at stimulating Ne for me (YMMV)
• Dice
• Randomization software
• Change of environment
• Change of information intake

After I started working on the development of Ne in my life, I did notice some new-to-me pushback effects like these:

• A bit of stress due to the massively increased amount of new information coming in (you have to set boundaries around it and consciously decide to discard much of it, and you may find that you fill way more notebooks and create much more data than you did before)
• I had to reassure people more often—“look, you know me, I am good at planning out things that don’t exist yet. Trust me, I know this is really creative and it’s never been done before. But we have a plan, and a contingency plan, and things will work fine.”
• Other INTJs who aren’t comfortable with so much attention given to Ne started to push back in various ways. I got some more condescending emails. The new & untested idea is good fodder for the critic.
• I felt a bit of annoyance with the stock-INTJ personality type. For example, an INTJ I worked with on a financial deal ignored Ne, became problem-focused, and pronounced failure too easily rather than focusing on ways to pivot. This lead to near-disastrous results for me. His peer professionals later apologized to me and told me to find someone else to work with ASAP.
• Various other projections and displacements I hadn’t anticipated, from friends and family. In fact, some of this was just hilarious. If you give more attention to a function it is the same, to many others, as changing your personality. The relationship dynamic will change as a result. And other people will start to push back in funny ways, defending their ego from a perceived weakness, or some other fragile thing. But hold onto that new ground! Don’t give up.
• A close friend called me “grandiose” in a pronounced, diagnostic, paternalistic way. This stung a bit! (In this case they were projecting, as this was someone with a secret Ne-shadow-temptation that was pretty obvious after a while. But the projection didn’t help our friendship…)

This is just small stuff, though. the trade-off has been worth it.

Anyway! All this from reading a quote this morning…I love that effect. The shadow is a fascinating topic.

Filed in: Openness /49/ | Productivity /119/ | Ni /42/ | ENTP /9/ | Control /110/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Randomness /26/ | Ne /17/

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

— Joseph Campbell

That’s scary stuff.

Caves, the underground.

I remember a time when I got stuck in a cave. Not for very long, but it was damn scary. I was trapped tight, pressed between two huge, clammy, dusty, gritty slabs of rock.

Others had to come along and describe to me how I might move my body, joint by joint, so that I could maneuver out.

That particular cave is permanently closed now, due to another awful entrapment, which makes the memory of my own experience even more creepy.

And when I go into that memory as a metaphor, and imagine the metaphorical cave I fear to enter? The one where I’m that stuck, the one where people far better equipped than myself are now tragically entombed?

Damn scary.

Still, I can’t deny it—those metaphorical caves of my past appear to have been something else. More like the outer levels of a vast treasure network…

Filed in: Anxiety /32/ | Relationships /78/ | Feeling /64/ | Depression /12/

I stumbled across this article today:

A therapist shares the biggest mistake people with low emotional intelligence make

When I ask people what comes to mind when they think about “emotional intelligence,” their answers are often centered around themselves. I hear things things like “knowing my personal competencies,” “being self-aware” or “managing my emotions.”

Funny. A good reminder for real. This is important for the introverted side of just about anybody, introvert or extrovert, because our introverted functions are so subjective. They have this incredible way of taking a thing and making it “about me”.

• Ni: Don’t you think my foresight and perspective on this issue is really powerful and helpful though?
• Ti: Don’t you think my proprietary system is basically the best thing ever?
• Fi: Don’t you think my deep feelings and values are important, too?
• Si: Don’t you know my preferred way of doing things? It’s better this way…

This is a good note for the INTJ squad too, because someone could say “feelings” and we might even immediately think, “oh yeah! I love feelings!” but really it’s a mismatch because we’re often thinking, “oh yeah! I love (my) feelings.”

In this way our Fi can sometimes help us appear as if we don’t care about others, even though we’re sharing “emotions and feelings,” and even though we’re trying to be helpful and put ourselves in our place, maybe because we read a didactic intent into the exercise (see below on that one).

It’s not about us. That’s hard to really grasp sometimes, because we want to help using our set of known tools, and even just thinking about helping moves us back into the “me” zone, where we start to collect energy from our favorite intervention or creativity tools.

But it’s also more like we are naturally good at giving attention to Fi, not Fe so much. It’s not that we are morally wrong, as we may assume people think. It’s that we can get stuck “we-ing” and “me-ing,” and not “they-ing”.

The most emotionally intelligent people know that in addition to understanding their own emotions, it’s important to perceive the emotions of others, and the way that their environment impacts those emotions.

Personality type can really help here, by giving us questions to ask, curiosities to indulge,

(…and experiments to run?? Never!)

Welcome to Soviet Prison

There is also another important thing here: We INTJs sometimes fear that others are putting us into our place when they talk about EQ at work. Or when they seem to be headed to the preachy zone, maybe it drives us crazy. We go into 1984 mode and start to feel like some dictator is about to enthrone themselves and make our lives hell.

However, part of this perception comes down to who we are. Our own INTJ Fi can be really, really judgy. It tends to write covert contracts on demand, within seconds. And it’s easy to project our own embarrassing, subjective moral-judgment tendencies onto others, even if they are on a completely different track. For this reason it’s important to be objective, ask questions, and give these interactions time to settle.

In any case, even if there was some dictator-enthroning going on, it would still be important to get out of the “me” box ASAP and start building outward-facing relationships.

But why save that until disaster strikes?

Oh, and a Funny Thing About Others’ Stuff

Unlike your stuff, it’s pretty common that relatively shallow attention needs to be paid to others’ stuff. That is—it can take a lot of attention, but in a broad, low-touch way. A frequent way. Listening, empathizing, helping things move along, but at the other person’s speed.

People like owning their stuff. Quite often they want to do the deep part themselves. So it’s not like everyone out there is looking for an analyst, and your Fe-based approach has to be as deep as your personal, Fi-based approach. That could in fact be a real energy trap.

And one cool part of this: When other people are looking for help, even if (or especially if) there are conflicting values in play within a group, Ti can really come in handy. And it can be really awesome for INTJs to get exposure to this perspective. It opens up the “designer” role even more, to an already creative mind.

Filed in: Relationships /78/ | People /74/ | Feeling /64/

Hey everybody, I wanted to say a quick Thank You for your kind emails and donations lately. It really helps to read them all and I look forward to getting to know more of you.

Lately I’ve been starting a few different projects:

• A new, long-term, life-values project based around charitable giving
• A new variant of chess involving dice, wizards, and dragons
• Building new models to support resilience in difficult interpersonal situations

It’s been fun, but on top of other work stuff, it’s been slow going, so sorry if I haven’t written back to you yet.

Another Thing

Sometimes, when I blog about a well-known person who is an INTJ, I get emails from their supporters. A lot of these emailers make the assumption that I’m on their side. (Like, who wouldn’t be, if they were smart, is their attitude.)

This morning I got an email from a fan of one of those INTJs that was frankly a bit disturbing. It made me feel bad for the well-known INTJ in question—they are in trouble, whether they think so or not, and it’s hard to watch.

Unfortunately, sometimes we INTJs, whether unknown or famous around the world, can get caught up in positions and perspectives that I would say are worth questioning:

• Fear-based perspectives, fear-based politics (local, national, or international)
• Paranoia (subjective Ni over-extension, especially when exhausted / worn out)
• Attempting to bring the whole past forward (as opposed to its best parts, leaving out the worst parts)
• Mapping patterns of history / the past wholly onto the future (as opposed to doing so in a nuanced manner and allowing for dynamism, evolution, and change over time)
• Mapping subjectively-fascinating metaphor onto shared-objective situations (“my violent hobby is definitely the answer to your group’s political problem”)
• Raising the stakes, when the stakes should probably be questioned or massaged down in some ways
• Perceiving win-lose outcomes and quickly making enemies, as opposed to working to create win-win outcomes
• Massive, troubling goof-ups of the Fe blind spot variety

This stuff can just happen. I mean, I personally remember all of this happening to some degree in my own past. So I’m probably not above any of it, but I try to be aware of it.

Anyway, just a reminder to self, and to those who may be interested, that the opposites are always worth the pursuit:

• Identifying a new hope and building the structure to support it (INTJs are usually closet idealists—and this is a phenomenal complement to our structural gifts)
• Brainstorming new, positive, transcendent solutions to difficult problems
• Starting new projects that create a win-win situation for the parties involved
• Thinking inclusively, reaching out to others, and building on their strengths
• Looking beyond the limits of the critical voice to find an even better communications approach

This kind of work usually requires inventing models and systems that never existed before. But that’s what INTJs and other intuitive-minded folks are really good at. We can grapple with a thing that can’t be seen, heard, felt, tasted, and has no smell to speak of. We can take an idea and help turn it into a really awesome reality.

I hope we can all do, or keep doing, more of that.

Anyway—I don’t mean this post in a harsh way, just tossing some seeds into the winds and hoping more of it takes root. Take care everybody —Marc

Filed in: Relationships /78/ | Sensation /40/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | People /74/ | Intuition /62/

Earlier this year I wrote a bit about the nootropics that work for me. Here’s an update:

Cacao is my newest experiment. I could tell my body wanted more chocolate, which is funny but also that’s how I legitimately felt. Intuitively, I wondered if it had something to do with the health benefits of Cacao:

• Boosts energy and is apparently known as “Mayan Cocaine” (when I read this, I had to wonder…are we talking about the same cacao here? Anyway, theobromine seems to be the relevant chemical here)
• Is a “Strong” Anti-inflammatory
• Elevates mood (Theobromine. Weaker than caffeine, both alkaloids)
• Supports memory & focus
  • Stimulates the release of phenylethylamine (PEA) which boosts focus and awareness.
• Might activate the BDNF survival pathway (which I know f*** all about, sounds like a German terrorist group from the 1970s)
• Tons of antioxidants (more than blueberries, tea, wine, and goji-berries)
• Boosts cerebral blood flow
• Increases blood vessel elasticity
• Is thought by some to evoke positive emotion (love, empathy, etc.)

Well, IDK about some of that stuff. But I swallowed a teaspoon’s worth as soon as the bag arrived in the mail (cough cough, dumb move, now it’s all over my keyboard, mouse, shirt, pants) and within 15 minutes I was sailing. It was crazy. I had the music turned up and I felt really good. At the end of a long work day this was pretty nice, compared to the usual alternative.

So apparently what I’ve been missing by eating normal chocolate is a much more direct dose of the cacao.

I’ve also noticed that in the mornings, it helps me get a jump start on the day in the same way the caffeine does, but with less of a direct hit.

Since mint also seems to help, I’ve been making mint-cacao tea. It sounded pretty fancy until I drank it, and realized it tasted like watered-down hot cocoa. But there are basically zero calories in it, and it still tastes OK, so I’m cool with my watery mint-cacao tea. It’s nice to have alternative drinks when you’re on a cut or on a diet, too.

I already noticed the headaches one can get from this (do you get the headaches?) so there’s obviously a limit to how much of the cacao I’m going to consume, and so far it’s looking like somewhere between 1-3 teaspoons a day. They’re not bad headaches though. More like “OK, no more cacao” headaches.

L-Theanine continues to work well for me. It seems to help to combine it with caffeine (2:1 ratio, e.g. 200mg LT to 100mg caffeine) for a really nice “back to work” effect, especially after a nap. I take more L-Theanine on the weekends, maybe for J-in-a-P-situation reasons.

Melatonin is still working well too. I’m going to try it for relaxation in addition to sleepy times, just to see if it helps.

Turmeric still helps me cut down on aches or a weird head-feeling or inflammation-feeling after a bad night’s sleep, for example. It works really well for me. I’ve always loved curry so again, maybe it’s some kind of body-messaging.

I bought some Kava Kava (Piper methysticum) and have noticed a relaxing effect. However it seems similar to L-Theanine. I’m not sure I’d buy it again…we’ll see.

I stopped taking PhosphatidylSerine because I didn’t feel like it had a pronounced effect. But then I started to get this “I liked taking that” thought. Something’s bugging me—maybe it did have some kind of add-on effect with the L-Theanine and caffeine. I’ll have a think about that one, maybe try it once more.

I’ve had no noticeable result as I’ve finished off the last of my Gingko and Ginseng. I upped the dosage and still, nothing except a few isolated outbreaks of energy which could have been due to anything. I may try a different brand in the future.

Gingko seems to be my all-time “no effect whatsoever compared to what I hear from other people” nootropic, and I first tried it over 20 years ago with the same disappointing results. But I can accept that people are different and some stuff that works for you might not work for me, and vice-versa.

Finally, I gotta say that caffeine is still awesome. It really activates my Ne / extraverted intuition. If I take it before a walk, I can come up with some really fun ideas. After a nap, it puts me in the mood to try fun new things, like watching a new movie or playing a game I like. The general mood boost is really helpful too.

So, that’s all of that for now. It’s frigging amazing how many different nootropics there are. And sometimes, as in the case of cacao, you find out there’s this “food” that can be thought of as a nootropic. So there must be thousands of these supplements out there. Again, I think “nootropic” is a bit of a broken mental model, or a topic in search of new models. But it’s been really fascinating to try this stuff out.

Which nootropics are you taking, if any? I’d love to hear about your experiences—email’s in the sidebar.

Filed in: Se /25/ | Rest /21/ | Openness /49/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Energy /120/ | Sensation /40/ | Si /19/ | Dieting /18/

Lately I’ve been reading INTJ Dario Nardi’s new book, The Magic Diamond: Jung’s 8 Paths for Self-Coaching.

The book is easy to recommend if you’re interested in personality type, personal growth, or self-coaching. It is quite a bit thicker than I expected, and just packed with good info. Dario presents various growth pathways for the different personality types, organized into what he calls a “Magic Diamond” model.

It’s clear from reading the book that Dario is very educated on the topics inside, and has also done a lot of testing and more-objective research (i.e. gathering data from others) which provided him with unique insights.

(For all I know, I’m one of those others; Dario wired my brain up to a computer and walked me through some fascinating exercises a few years ago when I met him in Salt Lake City)

Even if you’ve already explored your personality type, I think you can still take a lot of value from the book for these reasons:

• All of the growth pathways are available / possible / promising to everybody, no matter the reader’s personality type. So it’s not like there’s one chapter for you, and the rest of the book is for other people. The more you learn about positive growth and personality type, the more you’ll appreciate this. It’s like a never-ending well of possibilities.
• The book will help you work with, and communicate with, the people around you. At the very least, it should provide you with more questions and food for thought as you explore these relationships. I asked Dario about growth dynamics in relationships and organizational groups, and he said that people who were “less developed,” (my wording, not his) often simply hadn’t been presented with the types of growth opportunities he mentions in the book, but said they would happily take advantage of such opportunities if they came up. So there are a lot of potentially helpful tips for leaders and team-workers here. The book could help you unlock latent creativity in those around you, and make your relationship or workplace more fun, interesting, authentic, optimistic, or co-productive.
• There are lots of little info-nuggets that will help you understand personality type theory, cognitive function, and Jungian thinking. You can turn to a random page and there’s probably something like a callout or some bolded text on the page that will help you build onto your existing knowledge.

This book gets a strong thumbs-up from me.

Some additional self-coaching tips, for those who are walking this path:

• Stay accountable. Engage your favorite method for tracking and reflecting on your growth.
• Stay flexible and keep your models flexible. Hold onto your models lightly, as Linda Berens has said.
• Get outside feedback and input. Self-development in isolation can lead to difficult barriers which may seem insurmountable if confronted alone.
• Take breaks and rest up to enjoy what you’ve built for yourself. This should be a positive learning journey, not a constant fight against pessimism, “demons,” or other draining topics.
• If you don’t finish a book, don’t worry about it. Books can also be “totems or touchstones” along pathways to growth, as Dario might say. (I find that even an unopened book on my shelf provides a sort of latent existential-creative energy)

The author has not received any compensation from Dario. I bought the book myself without discussing it with him—just a happy customer here.

Filed in: People /74/ | Books /10/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/

Here’s a method that’s helped me fall asleep faster lately. I call it the “Fractal House.” I like this method because it’s more interesting to me than methods like breathing, drumming with my fingers, or other methods I’ve tried.

Here are the steps:

1. Get comfortable in your preferred falling-asleep position.
2. Imagine a calming, comfortable, and interesting location. I like to imagine a house, but it could be anywhere / anything. A camping site, a cruise ship, your favorite library after closing time, or another place.
   1. If you can’t conceptualize a new place, look to your past and think about a favorite, comfortable, calming place from your past.
3. Begin the fractal loop: Find a favorite place or thing within that place.
4. Explore your favorite parts about that place or thing, engaging your senses: Touch things, taste, hear, or smell them if you can (sleep-ready mode).
5. With a favorite part identified, either keep going deeper in exploring the details of that item, or move on.
6. Once you’re ready to move on (prospective mode), find a different item inside the Fractal house on which to use the fractal loop.
7. At this point I’m usually asleep within seconds.

For Example

Example 1: I imagine myself in a small house by the seashore. I imagine that I’m sitting in a comfortable chair at a desk with some interesting items. One of those items is an old computer, like the one I had when I was a teenager. I visualize the screen as I navigate the user interface. I see myself opening a journaling file. I start to type. I can see each letter and word as I type. I can see the pixels that form the letters of each word. (Zzzzz)

Example 2: I imagine myself vacationing in a large yacht. I take a swim in the pool inside the yacht. I visualize the details of the interior of the pool. Its geometry, and the way I swim inside of it. I feel the rough sides of the pool with my fingers. Emerging from the pool, I dry off and grab a slice of pizza from a nearby table. I can smell it, taste it. I then find that there’s a door in the wall which opens into a small, comfortable guest bedroom. Inside the room there’s a counter top with a mirror and sink, next to a bed. On the bed there is a very inviting soft duvet. I climb into the bed and pull up the duvet. Everything is just right and the lighting is warm and dim, just how I like it. (Zzzzz)

Example 3: I see myself using an old minidisc player from the early 2000s. I open the case and visualize myself inside, a miniature person wondering this techno-scape. It turns into a cyberpunk world in which I find a favorite diner. I eat something warm at the diner and the owner invites me to have a nap in one of the rental cubicles. In the cubicle I log into the 5-credit time travel interface. Suddenly I’m laying on a couch in a banker’s office in 1890s London. There’s a roaring fire in the fireplace and I hear the sounds of a holiday party down the hall. I rest my head on the comfortable pillow, pull up the wool blanket, and Zzzzz.

In that last example, you can see how the fractal aspect really transcends any concept of “reality” to engage the imagination. This is done in order to gradually explore more and more comfortable locations or details.

Other Objects and Scenarios

I’ve also done this with:

• Fractal model-building: Constructing a scale model in my mind’s eye, until I fall asleep. Focusing on the interesting parts of the model first.
• Fractal scheduling: Designing a fictional schedule as if I’m someone else entirely, using a computing device with scheduling software. Each item on the schedule is planned out in detail.
• Fractal tourism: Building and then exploring a city in detail. Usually these are pretty idealistic locations, perhaps better fit for Playmobil people in the sense that they’re fun and interesting first, but the idealism factor is very comforting.

As always, the details of the concept are important here: Develop the fractal details. Go deeper, slower, to see if sleep comes (sleep-ready mode). And keep the loop going (prospective mode) if you aren’t asleep yet.

Filed in: Control /110/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Publications /44/ | Rest /21/ | Intuition /62/

(How we doing, pandemic INTJs?) Some updates on stuff!

First, damn that’s a cool image. Wow. Space is neat.

Speaking of which…

Space Roleplaying

I’ve been reading HardNova 2 and Shatterzone recently. Both fun and unique in different ways.

Space roleplaying has been a lot of fun. As I piece together various approaches toward campaigns, narratives, characters, and world-building, I think some of the personal reasons include:

Building from Scratch: I’m at a very unknown / open-ended stage of my life & career right now. And space is just like that. Some things in my life are more-known, like “what I need to do today,” for example. But in the big picture I think my subconscious is going, “HOLY GEEZ, you can do ANYTHING out here in space!” It’s kind of a creativity cue. So a lot of my hobby work takes inspiration from this idea that it’s a big universe out there…kid. It’s fun, too.

Epic Sense of Scale: There’s this idea that I’m building at a scale suited for the second half of my life. Or last two-thirds, to be generous. New frameworks have to have a big-picture aspect. They involve technology that is flexible enough to accommodate a variety of little changes that can quickly impact the big picture.

Anyway, it’s kinda fun to think about.

In case you’ve never heard of HardNova or Shatterzone, I just want to mention that I’m playing the underdog-interest card here. The introverted-values-oriented (Fi) idea that one can sometimes derive an extra bit of creative energy by going with the approach that’s less-appreciated. I can also understand that people might just go with the Star Trek Adventures or the Aliens RPG or another popular & well-known system, and I think that’s cool too. But this time I’m going with the underdogs because I can feel that weirdly irrational pull toward the “option nobody’s heard of” and my guess is that it’ll pay off at a subjective / personal level.

Other Roleplaying

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have my own G.I. Joe / Action Force -style fictional group. It has a really cartoony feel and has been funny to work on. You can come up with all kinds of cool characters and weapons and villains and none of it has to make any kind of logical sense unless you decide it’s time to think about that.

The private-public interface for this kind of work is really a neat puzzle to think about, as well. How do I show this to the world? What benefit does that bring me? How would it help others to experience it? I don’t know all the answers, but there are so many possibilities that are downright fascinating.

Every day my journaling template randomly rolls up and inserts a new role-playing scenario, and I have enjoyed ad-libbing based on those as well.

Music

I picked up a few vintage keyboards to play with. Man, making music is fun, even if I’m not terribly good at it.

Recently I have either a Yamaha PSS-480 or a Yamaha PSS-170 on my desk at work. What a fun new development this has been. Activities:

• Sound-doodling in general. Picking a random sound on the keyboard and developing its mood.
• I’ll listen to random Youtube songs and try to figure out the chord progression.
• A couple days ago I found a nice bell sound and recorded it as a ringtone for my phone.
• Playing with synthesis: Creating new sounds, either randomly or based on a spec.

(BTW. A Yamaha PSS-480 makes a great little electronica-landscape for roleplaying with cyberpunk paper miniatures.)

INTJs

People I’ve been watching while thinking, “hmmm…yes…you light my INTJ buttons”:

• Jon Cryer, actor
• Shailene Woodley, actress (yes! Always looking for new-to-me INTJs of varied genders)
• Martin Pistorius (check out this TED talk)
• Mark ‘I disagree with the premise of that question’ Zuckerberg
• Charles Cornell, Youtube’s own jazz pianist

Summary

I wish I had time to write more, but for now that’ll have to be enough. Hope you’re all well & healthy! —Marc

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