H. writes,

Watch any good movies lately? It sounds like you must be consuming media at an incredible rate.

Oh nice, H is up in here referring to the Great Video Desktop Experiment of 2020.

That’s true, H. They really do fly by. But I have no interest in remembering everything that appears on my screen, if that makes sense. The point is that stuff grabs me, and I watch for a while, and feel better. I don’t even know what’s on right now, but some of it is definitely good. And that’s cool.

I just finished Knives Out and I really enjoyed it. My kids are gonna flip when they find out about the, ahem, super-patriotic bad guy.

Before that, Inherent Vice which was all-around great.

I also watched Hitchcock’s Family Plot (1976) for the first time and liked it. Sympathetic characters and an interesting story. Awfully sexy scripting for 1976 though. Holy ssssmokes.

And 2002’s Blood Work…yeah, OK, a fun watch!

On Youtube:

I love watching a grown man enjoy burgers as much as I do (mouth sounds warning) and he has the best laugh to boot. Some crazy-fun ESFP energy there, observationally speaking.

I’ve also been watching some Pewdiepie again with my sons. He’s still fun. Our all-time favorite gets re-watched or at least referenced in our conversations every month or so. Son #2 laughed super hard last night when we watched Pewdiepie trying to compete for popularity with a children’s nursery rhyme channel.

A bit of observationally-I’m-thinking-ENTP Featureman here and there, a little Car Pal for sensory entertainment, another ENTP-like smart person giving a pretty funny tech presentation on Unix power and I think that sums it up.

Though when I close down the office, I have been listening to Parcels lately. Music yep, but also video.

How about you guys?

Watch anything you like lately? Let me know! Email’s in the sidebar.

Filed in: Sensation /40/ | Interests /111/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/

Recently I blogged about reading the manual and how reading the manual for things is a great INTJ gift on which to capitalize.

Toward the end of the same blog post, I also mentioned that writing one’s own manual can yield really powerful outcomes. And I wanted to share a micro-example of that: Keyboard shortcuts.

Here are my most recent additions. It so happens that they’re all using Ctrl + Super + some-key. (Super is the “Windows key” on my keyboard. Also, my Ctrl and Caps Lock keys are swapped)

• c-su-F11 = Shuffle mp3s, pick some, make a random playlist, play it.
• c-su-F12 = Toggle qmmp shuffle mode / shuffle off.
• c-su-7 = Open VLC window with a playlist full of 150 randomly-selected videos.
• c-su-c = Open client folder for browsing
• c-su-/ = Catfish full-text search of frameworks
• c-su-. = FSearch filename search of frameworks
• c-su-h = Play a happy John Denver yodeling sound
• c-su-m = Open Google Messages (text messaging) in browser
• c-su-n = Catfish filename search of frameworks
• c-su-o = Open Orage calendar for quickly checking the calendar…
• c-su-u = Open GPick color picker
• c-su-v = Open xfce4-popup-clipman for picking from clipboard history.
• c-su-y = Open today’s journal entry file in Geany.

I have a lot more planned. And they’re not easy! The way I design these things, I often have to write a system script before I can even start figuring out where the shortcut goes.

Previously I was more of a “learn the existing shortcuts” guy. I didn’t create many of my own keyboard shortcuts, but instead I’d review the existing ones from time to time. I think this was similar to reading the manual—“what did the author intend” was kind of the point.

In comparison, developing my own shortcuts seemed pretty lame, because what if the software environment was already designed around a given set of shortcuts in the first place? Wouldn’t it be a waste of time to write my own shortcuts from scratch? What if I inadvertently hobbled my ability to learn the system?

As it turns out, no, it’s not a waste of time. Whatever else it may be, it’s mine. And for an introvert, anything that’s mine is basically the same as free energy.

And you know, while I have my own software-batcave tools, this keyboard stuff is more like watching the formation of a physical batcave, in a weird way.

Filed in: Technology /41/ | Control /110/ | Interests /111/

I was raised, in part, by a remarkable Hungarian ISTJ named Eva.

My ESFP mom was on the go quite a bit when I was a lad. To her, the house was not a place to remain for long, unless you wanted to get depressed AF. So she was always busy driving 25 miles in this direction and then 50 in the other, “taking care of” this or that little task.

My INTJ dad was hard at work too. And since my parents were religious fundamentalists, dads like my dad were not really taught to be uh…dads. I mean, they were dads, but their role was basically to work and “provide” and not to worry about caring for their kids during the work day.

So when things really got going, and mom forgot about me, or just got overloaded, Eva would step in. She was always helping my mom with errands and day-to-day stuff.

Which, as a kid, I now realize—I guess I was errands and day-to-day stuff, a lot of the time.

I would walk out of the school grounds after school to find Eva waiting there. Five foot nearly-nothing. Dark black curly hair. Colorful clothing.

Oh, and with her arms akimbo, which was a pose she totally owned.

“MARC, I AM HERE AT CHOOR (your) SCHOOL TO PICK YOU UP BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER IS BUSY.” She said this as if to get the information out, almost like it was her informational self-talk to keep herself on track. You could visualize a little checkbox being checked.

I’d ride with Eva in her little car, and hooray—I could then chill in her amazingly introverted household for a while.

Eva was not a religious fundamentalist. She was a social Catholic. PHEW, this factor was also so relaxing.

Psychologically, going to this house was like being handed some kind of calming recreational drug, maybe, after living in my own majority-extrovert house. Damn I loved Eva’s quiet little house.

(You know, it’s interesting to me now—somebody out there might right at this moment be creating an environment that would chill you all the way out. Just by being themselves, and doing their thing. Funny.)

Now, Eva is just about as ISTJ as you can get. Loving, but in everybody’s favorite tough as jerky fashion. Phew. At the grocery store: “Marc, you want to get some candy? Go get some candy. MARC, DON’T BE CHOOSY,” she’d call out in her loud, heavily-accented voice.

And she was also not fancy, which I liked about her, compared to my own folks. My mom was a total peacock of an ESFP. She wanted to do everything just a bit extra. Especially if other people might notice. Dad would get roped in by her energy. Everything felt extra fussy. It was not a very calming lifestyle.

Eva is married to Hans, who’s a German INFP. Hans, Mom let me know, was a Hitler Youth. And sure enough, there was this big party at my house one day, and one of us (possibly yours truly) brought up the topic of World War II, and Hans was there, and he was pretty damn nuanced about Hitler. That’s right, Adolf himself, the same MF who kept dad’s cousin in Stalag-whatever over Christmas back in 1944!

But Hans also had a PC with games like Chessmaster 2000 and Countdown so I had to give him some doubt-benefits.

Hans was this classic Fi-dominant personality. INFPs are Introverted Feeling (Fi)-types. If you don’t know what that means, maybe just leave it at “pretty damn nuanced about people and relationships, and sure, maybe even Hitler”. I mean, that’s extreme and it’s not like every INFP loves Hitler or anything like that (oh god what an album title that would be) but it’s also a general perspective from which INTJs can benefit, this idea of being nuanced about people.

For her part, I was told that Eva didn’t like Jews either. She didn’t like Russians or Jews. She was some kind of equal-opportunity discriminator.

Mom told me that Eva was the daughter of the Mayor of Budapest, and the presence of Russians drove her to leave, and then she had a bunch of bad experiences after that. She liked Hungarian stuff, let’s say. Maybe American stuff. Not even sure about that, but dammit, she lives here, so that might say something. It’s complex.

What I really liked about Eva’s house is, I’d walk in to this dark, relaxing little house (my dad was always complaining about light, so he’d buy houses for their big windows) and there on the table, just for me, would be a glass of high-fat milk (dad made us drink skim) and a chocolate chip cookie. HOLY SMOKES. That right there was just something out of another world.

And sometimes, I’d walk in and there would be a glass of delicious, fatty milk and a whole flippin’ Ritter Sport sitting there! KNICK! Man that made me so happy. I’d sit there quietly, not a single emotion on my little face, but absolutely groaning with pleasure inside.

“DO YOU HAVE HOMEWORK, MARC?”

“No,” I lied. “Not today.”

Why lie? Because…

“OK GOOD. Here, you can watch the TV.”

There we go. TV level unlocked. Man, I’d chill on this little couch, in the small, dark, step-down family room, and watch TV, all alone, until my mom came to pick me up. So great.

Thanks Eva. Thanks Hans. You didn’t do anything super fancy but that’s what I preferred. You made my younger years better.

Filed in: ESFP /4/ | INFP /3/ | Relationships /78/ | People /74/ | ISTJ /2/

I’m new to Ancient Greeks and Ancient Greek philosophy, because the way I was raised, these guys were basically heretics / heathens / people who shoulda known better. So forgive me if this is old news…

…but so far, the life of Heraclitus seems like such an INTJ flex:

• Spoke in metaphor, “reasoned” in metaphor, died and left us with metaphor
• Argued with his doctors.
• Grumpy af
• Critical
• Harbored a comparatively shallow notion of the “best man” (in e.g. a group of men)
• Intellectual yet not terribly open to outside ideas
• Accused by others of not reasoning (Ti) and contradicting himself (this is like the classic INTP “that’s not logical” feedback on INTJ stuff. Blog-kun included)
• Saw life as dynamic and changing vs. static (this tends to be a huuuuge INTJ differentiator in the psychology of philosophy)
• Philosophy was heavily development-oriented as a result
• Seemed to struggle to maintain a positive mood
• Fell back on single words as weighty meta-signifiers
  • Philosophy of Simplification-convergence
  • Branching into specifics from the “big picture” word / signifier, rather than vice-versa
• Seemed to believe in a single shared truth? (Logos is common) Uh oh, covert contract trouble was in this guy’s life for real
• Could have picked any element, picked fire because of his burning heart (I made up that last part)
• Generally favorable toward conflict and war
• Believed in and focused on the unity of opposites (but not the transcendence of opposites, at least not that I’ve been able to see)
  • The oppositional state is strife; stability is justice
• Seemed to think in projected outcomes; here’s what would happen if you do that
• There was no real structure behind his becoming a philosopher, just kinda was one.

IDK. I still have a lot to learn about Heraclitus. But from the moment I stared reading, I was like, oh no…no…no no no no no. Not that I’m complaining—he deserves his share of reverence and gratitude. It’s just that one begins to see his life unfolding, hoping against hope that he didn’t drive his doctors up the wall, thinking he knew everything…little things like that.

Filed in: People /74/

Friend with $800 glasses writes:

What does your shadow-guy look like? Can you sketch him?

Ah. Just one? Man, I’ve got a Legion of Shadows. They are many, and ever changing. Just when I’ve reconciled with one, another begins stalking through the periphery of my consciousness…

Lately The Legion has sent out a bloviating INTJ like my dad. The kind of guy who writes these long, stinging and subjective critiques:

“Dear Marc,” he writes,

“Your mother and I read your latest email to us. You seem to think you know a lot about life. You have a lot of big ideas. Well, be that as it may, here’s what I’ve accomplished in my own life:

(Long list of scrod, from selling ice cream cones to buying a huge trucking house and three Cadillacs)

I think this qualifies me to say that while your ideas may be creative, the proof is in the doing. As the Lord says in Scripture,

(Quote from The Lord, Who has Apparently Taken Dad’s Side, which is Just Great)

I think that should be enough for now. We paid for your education. You have a lot of work to do, if you are going to prove your worth in this world. Even a simple ice cream salesman could tell you that.”

Are you getting an idea of the kind of person this is? My dad would write these letters to anyone who made him remotely uncomfortable. And part of the purpose of these letters was to push away his own regrets and emotional pain.

You could have literally just received word that you made a billion dollars by working hard and being good, and you’d feel on top of the world, and then one of these letters would arrive, picking apart your billion dollars! There was no stopping the negative vibes.

So this person is also the shadow of optimistic “idea-Marc”. It’s the “yeah, ideas—great. But what are you doing” voice.

That path is tempting in its own way. If you’ve been a working INTJ before, you know what I mean. You start talking and thinking like, “OK, but we need to just do it.” At work, everything is either an economic expedient or it’s barely worth the mental energy.

But I’m also an idea guy; it’s a strength so I use it. Idealism is turning out to be a strength. So thus, I guess, all the negativity from the shadow. It’s a fear, a fear of coming ungrounded and floating up into the metaphorical sky.

And why fear? Well, maybe it’s because I’ve never been this version of myself before. I’ve changed a lot. And that’s scary. So my past comes in and wants to discuss how terrifying this is, and how this kind of change may not lead to good things, in its frightened opinion.

Sometimes I write letters back to Dad, even though he’s long since passed away. Having my dad in my shadow is really painful at times, but writing about it has helped me find out what he’s really getting at. There’s some substance to it that was non-obvious from the start, so I kind of avoided it at first.

One day, some years ago, while I was practicing an active imagination exercise, I had a shocking “intuitive visit” from a younger, healthier version of my dad. He wore a medical smock and he was in black and white, straight out of the 1950s. He was pleasant, composed, and yet purposeful. He examined my head and seemed satisfied with my progress. Then he was gone. It felt amazing—I’ll never forget the positive emotional impact of that subjective-perceptive event.

Otherwise: Man, what else can you do sometimes, than avoid that painful shadow. It has thrown some really evil people at me. Sometimes I talk to them and things end up well. At other times I grumble and groan and just can’t be bothered.

One of my shadows previously was a large lump of mud, shaped like a boy. The epitome of laziness. Not talking, just sitting at a table eating fruit loops. At that time in my life I was a bit too active overall. At first he was a frightening and concerning vision, but over time I grew to love him and try to protect him. This also helped me discover new empathy in my relationship with one of my kiddos, who I love dearly, and yet who does a “lump of mud” impression remarkably well at times. ;-)

There’s also an effeminate dragon in my shadow, which is kind of a fun one. We reconciled long ago, but when circumstances get the best of me, we sometimes still need to reconcile. She’s not me, but she represents a part of me.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Ni /42/ | Intuition /62/

Multiple People writes,

Is it weird that I’m nearing 30 years old and my parents are still paying my rent? It feels like it’s just “my thing” right now, and it kind of works for me.

Nope, not weird. I hear this from various people, INTJs included, all the time.

Is it weird that I’m 25 and I have a job that pays me far less than what I’m probably worth, and yet I don’t want to leave? I really like the people here, but I also feel some pressure to make more money and move up in the world. If I end up staying here and making it work, is that weird?

Nope, not weird. In fact: Long may you enjoy such a position! See also:

Is it weird that I’m 45 and basically a reprobate, living off of my spouse’s income as I do? I feel guilty but things are otherwise going OK. She doesn’t seem to mind and has told me so many times.

Nope! Not weird. See also:

Is it weird that I live with my in-laws, and they buy all my groceries, and treat me far better than I deserve? They seem to think I’m helpless. We do enjoy watching movies together.

Nope! Not weird. And finally:

Is it weird that I’m 65 and could be working harder toward retirement but don’t really feel like it? At this rate I may never retire. But I am also kind of OK with that.

Nope! Not weird.

In fact, you may find it helps to think of the situation as intuitively OK. Maybe it seems irrational, or less sensible than you’d like, but we have to give the INTJ intuition some credit: We have this gut feeling that’s worth giving a listen, and all of these people are, in part, saying that at some level they really feel OK about their irrational circumstances.

So: Why do we need to fight that? Sometimes the sensible view, the bell-curve view, is just wrong for a specific person and their circumstances.

OK, but what if I also kind of want to change this situation?

I’m glad you asked! If something’s bothering you, it’s a good idea to poke at it a bit, IMO:

• Can I isolate the parts that feel wrong?
• Can I visualize any other outcomes that feel right?
• What could I try next?
• Can I track what I’ve tried and record the results?
• Huge changes can cause huge problems. What are some little experiments I can try that don’t upset my current flow too much, and yet also open the door to positive change, if possible?
• Can I calendar a check-in with myself or someone else, to stay accountable to this desire to change?

So in summary, maybe the answer’s not a yes or a no. Maybe the answer is: Life’s an experiment. Let’s be a little scientist and see where it goes. Bring the best parts of your intuition and comfortable life forward, and open up to a little bit of sensibility and discomfort, in the name of discovery.

And a little bit of meta-advice: Keep showing gratitude to those who support you, when appropriate. They’re good people and sometimes all they want is some recognition.

Filed in: Anxiety /32/ | Productivity /119/ | Control /110/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/

Weber State professor resigns after tweeting threats at those involved in police protests

One post was a response to a video of a police car driving into a crowd of protesters in New York City while they were demonstrating against deadly force by officers. That action has been criticized both by the New York police commissioner and mayor, along with those at the rally who say they feared being run over.

Senjo wrote: “That’s not how I would have driven the car into the crowd.”

Cringe. Yeah, behold the very moment of the blind spot thunderstrike.

(I’m over here practically crossing myself, hoping I never wander into that kind of territory again, and recalling past events in my own life. In Twitter-style reactive & extroverted discourse, I think it would be easy to get caught up in the waves of cultural stake-raising, and end up saying something starkly uncalled for, no matter where you’re at on the sociopolitical spectrum.)

What’s also interesting are some of the INTJ fingerprints in the professor’s decision-making style. For example, he wasn’t asked to resign:

In a statement Wednesday, Allison Barlow Hess, the school’s spokeswoman, confirmed his resignation, but she said the school never requested that Senjo leave. He had been placed on paid leave while WSU began reviewing the situation.

…and yet the professor’s subjective intuition of future events seems to have driven him to make the decision:

I studied the situation and the public fury is too great. I have to resign immediately. There’s no other option.

No other option! Now there’s a phrase I’ve had to learn to watch out for. There are many, many paths to reconciliation—none of which are guaranteed to be easy, but quite often it’s the smarter decision than effectively taking one’s toys and leaving. And it would be just like a troubled INTJ to get over-defensive, pouty, and leave before their personal value proposition, their very worth! is challenged.

Which is really kind of sad in its way—I don’t think the main intent of the pushback is to challenge this professor’s right to be a professor, so much as it is to challenge his most recent decisionmaking. According to him, even though he made poor decisions, he was also acting in a manner common to Twitter’s particular pattern of discourse:

“I agree that my tweets were far beyond the realm of acceptable university policy as well as acceptable social norms,” wrote Scott Senjo in a message to The Salt Lake Tribune. “I made those tweets in the oftentimes vulgar, extreme back-and-forth that can occur on Twitter and they were simply wrong.”

“Those are my tweets,” he added, “but I don’t stand by them and will have to suffer the consequences of my recklessness.”

From this perspective, he sounds like he’s heaping punishment upon himself needlessly. If it’s true that he deserves punishment, it should at least also be true that a little bit of time and discussion would yield a more nuanced outcome for an experienced employee of a university.

Unless, that is, his covert intent is to punish those who are criticizing him, creating a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. “You said in the past that I’m a really talented professor? OK, here’s what happens when you act like you can even think on my level, and take me down a notch. I’ll take you down a notch by leaving.” The diva effect. This kind of thing could also be expected of a troubled INTJ.

So: Huh. I do wonder about the details.

Finally, bias blind spot is a formulation of the blind spot term which is new to me. Of additional interest: Naïve cynicism and Selective Exposure Theory.

Filed in: Control /110/ | Fe /20/ | Feeling /64/ | Relationships /78/

We need a new framework for “typing people”, i.e. getting to know a person, and then sharing one’s best guess of that person’s personality type. In this article I’ll discuss the why and the how and then provide a simple example outcome.

Problems – The “Why”:

• “Typing and telling” is super frowned upon in some areas of the academic and professional personality type world. (I come from the latter.)
  • What is it? “Typing and telling” is when you basically tell someone what their own type is. Like walking up to someone and saying “HEY. YOU ARE AN ENFP,” for example. It happens! Especially online, where this can happen a lot in personality type communities.
  • You WILL likely lose points in academic or professional circles if you type and tell. Reputation points, relationship points, and more.
• It’s also generally true that telling someone what type they definitely are can be a pretty lame move.
  • For one thing, what if you’re wrong? (Reminder: “I’m never wrong” is not an acceptable answer, as it just means you haven’t been doing this long enough).
  • Also, it can create the wrong impression of how personality type works, or lead to hurt feelings.
• At the same time, sometimes people are absolutely begging for a quick estimation of their type.
  • “Please tell me what you think,” they’ll say. “I’ve read so much and taken so many tests and it’s been frustrating. I want input, even just a wild guess.”
• For a lot of those people, it’s more of a broad, open, perceptive journey anyway.
  • The chance of a wild guess or even a good seemingly-challenging guess hurting their feelings is pretty low, for example. But it’s also not likely that it will completely resolve the question for them.
• There is no current, concrete model (that I know of!) that resolves this typing-and-telling problem with an ethical approach, effectively allowing people to share their thoughts as to another’s type.

A Solution: Observational Type

“Observational Type” or “Observational Typing” is a very simple solution that can solve a lot of problems.

Here are the ingredients:

• We offer observational input as to another person’s personality type characteristics, instead of saying something like “I know your personality type for sure.”
  • We emphasize the observational, outside-in perspective. We are not you! We may not truly know you!
• We talk about what are picking up so far, from observation.
  • We may provide simple examples of things we noticed about the other person, or heard the other person say, and so on.
• We treat our own observation lightly, in the sense that it’s not the final answer, and needn’t be the final answer.
• We understand that not everyone will accept, or needs to accept, someone else’s observation as their own final answer.
  • You may even ask yourself: What is it about my own personality that needs to give such a quick and final answer? This can open the door to Jungian studies in topics like the shadow, developmental personality aspects, or a relevant archetype.
• We understand that it is usually not our job or your ethical privilege to claim the final answer on someone else’s core personality type.
  • Speaking of “core,” consider Linda Berens’ model of Core, Contextual, and Developmental types. The fact that a given person can appear to be different from others of their same type, due to a variety of factors.
• We keep in mind that immediate certainty in the face of limited exposure or while snapshotting a given context can also be a kind of psychological tell. This over-confidence (how dare we call it that!) often communicates instead a projection of confidence.
  • So, is a quick, final answer actually more like proof that the person doing the typing lacks appropriate, depth-focused education on the person or the theory, or both?

Example Phrases

Some examples of helpful phrases you can use, to emphasize the context, include:

• “Maybe there are some other factors I don’t know about you, but…”
• “I haven’t exactly known you for a long time, so…”
• “I know you’ve had lots of input on this, so here’s just what stands out to me…”
• “I am reminded of some other people, like (person) who is (type), perhaps because of (some specific reasons).”

And here’s a Before-And-After example:

Before: “Oh you’re absolutely an ENTJ. No question at all,” (This is probably the worst kind of typing and telling)

After: “From an observer’s perspective I’d guess at ENTJ, because…” (In this answer we add depth, detail, and open up the possibilities, creating more ethical headroom)

(Note that you don’t have to actually use words like “observer,” “observation,” or “observationally”.)

Conclusion

This is a simple model, but I think it really helps, even as something to keep in mind.

As an advantage, it holds to a broadly ethical standpoint while also opening the door to what could be a helpful, shared, open discussion about a given person or their personality type.

This method is much less like playing with fire—relationally (I know you so deeply), intellectually (I know everything at an instant), and reputationally (I am willing to give a poor answer, if I can sound decisive about it).

It also better aligns with best practices for helping others discover their personality type.

The Academic and Professional Side of Personality Type

By the way, be sure to join us at APTi if you’re interested in being a part of the community. It’s a very welcoming organization and I’ve personally learned some amazing things from fascinating people.

Speaking of professionals, and since this blog is written by and for INTJs in large part, here is INTJ Richard Owen discussing Introverted Intuition in a fascinating presentation for BAPT, the British Association for Personality Type.

Filed in: Intuition /62/ | Relationships /78/ | People /74/ | Essays /52/ | Ni /42/ | Publications /44/

The act of prediction, while tempting to many of us, can be extremely limiting. Even if you could reliably predict the future, wow, impressive—but also, you are missing out. What you’re missing is the ability to hope for something way better, to visualize it, design it, and eventually create it.

Where human potential, human creativity, and human development are concerned, prediction alone is of limited worth.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Energy /120/ | Goals /52/ | Control /110/ | Planning /17/

That’s right, I’m talking about you, lazy person who hasn’t been frequenting the home gym lately.

That’s right, you over there, the one experiencing Prolonged Latent Exhaustion with a Muted Sensory Effect on the Conscious Awareness.

P L E M S E C A

Geez, no wonder you haven’t worked out in weeks. You’re out of resources…

…not that you’d realize it, due to the Muted Sensory Effect part.

Filed in: Fitness /31/