Relationships with INFPs too often seem like an easy, no-effort-required experience for INTJs. This is because the most prominent INFP gifts float just under our INTJ radar, while INFPs appear to naturally seek out and soak up INTJ advice.

Unfortunately, an INTJ can quickly become overbearing and oblivious in this relationship, and no matter how well things seem to be going on the surface, a sudden negative reaction from an INFP will almost always come as an unpleasant shock to the INTJ ego. Here are some tips to make sure you’re relating for best effect with INFPs.

Establish a baseline of optimism and fun

INFPs quickly become uncomfortable in an environment of cold, analytical criticism. They are sensitive to the human need for simple comfort, optimistic thought, and fun experiences. INTJs can develop a skilled level of “systematic warmth” by harnessing their inner gifts for encouragement, spontaneous fun, humor, and aesthetic comfort. As INTJs integrate these gifts into a planned organizational process, they create fertile ground in which INFPs can sow important creative seeds and contribute their best selves without feeling too much pressure.

Recover at any time

Don’t treat relationship problems with INFPs as if they’re unsolvable. INFPs are very forgiving by nature and typically enjoy the making-up process. To an INFP, a relationship is naturally complex, with boundaries that are anything but black and white. You can demonstrate your humanity (a subject in which INFPs excel) by being persistent and uncovering your past failures by re-exposing yourself and giving things another shot.

Avoid appearing like you’re showing off or not at fault

While this may seem like a good rule for relationships in general, there are some important exceptions and some equally important applications in which a bit of conscious effort is rewarded. For INTJs, the INFP relationship is one of these.

INTJs have a sort of “accept me because I have demonstrated I deserve your admiration” approach to life, while INFPs see things through a different lens, one which could be described as “come as you are.” That means that faults and vulnerability are not just allowed, they are encouraged. While it may be tempting as an INTJ to assume that your Ph.D. or the fact that you can speak five languages would be things that really matter to an INFP, you may actually find that tripping on a curb and laughing at yourself is the single act that seals the deal.

In general, understand that your force-demonstrative behaviors are more likely to be interpreted by an INFP as showing off, and adjust your approach accordingly.

This also applies to situations in which blame may be a factor. The more quickly you accept some blame and explain it to the INFP while asking for their patience and forgiveness, the more quickly you will be able to recover to higher ground where you can work together more successfully. Placing blame is a traditional weak spot for INTJs who are laser-focused on achievement and development. But accepting the permeating nature of fault is really a capstone on a nuanced understanding of human development.

Be careful about dodging their need for relationship processing

• Them: I’m sorry about the way I responded to your actions last night.
• You: It’s OK, look, I’m sorry to and I’m over it.
• Them: Do you want to talk about it?
• You: No, as long as it’s over, we’re good, it’s no big deal.

Here we have an INFP who was just shut out. The INTJ, though, thinks that things are fine!

This INTJ just completely dodged out on a relationship-processing opportunity, one which would undoubtedly be difficult for an INTJ, but the INFP was gently inviting a “talk” about it, which is INFP code-word for a therapeutic discussion of relationship values.

I would encourage the INTJ to wade right into that relationship talk as humbly as possible. Sometimes it’s better to learn to do a thing, stumble through it, and figure it out, than to ignore it for so long that your relationship partner just gets more and more frustrated over time.

Be careful starting home-improvement projects and other ESTJ things

Within each INFP are the hidden psychological dynamics of the ESTJ personality type. The ESTJ is one of the most capable home-improver types (individuals may differ, but as a group, this is true). So don’t be surprised if you start a home-improvement project and the INFP grows impatient with your excuses for why you’re not getting around to it. Home improvement is a highly sensory area. INTJs can get easily frustrated with sensory work, and I often hear from INTJs who are living with INFPs that the INFP is wondering when they are going to get around to finishing their projects.

Instead of feeling bad or reacting in anger to any prodding, do your best to be co-creative with the INFP. Encourage them to learn to help you out. Act a little dumb about it. Laugh about it. If the wrap-up of the project is delayed, seek the INFP’s help directly, and act as humble as possible. Within their psychology is a home-improver ESTJ that would love to help, or even learn to show you up!

Overall: Learn to be the best INTJ you can. You’re an intuitive, not a sensate personality. So be careful about letting light sensory hobbies explode into huge, ego-bound home improvement projects that you promised to your INFP partner. Chasing down the last 20% of annoying details on a new sun room build-out is far, far less enjoyable to most INTJs than relaxing and watching a favorite movie in the background while talking about books with their INFP.

If you are stuck on the sensory project with an INFP wondering when it’ll get done, play with the parameters a bit. See if you work more calmly early in the morning, rather than after a long day at work. Or put on some headphones and favorite music while you work, buying you a bit more time before the inevitable “I’ve f***ing had it with this cabinet” result arrives.

Another thing that ESTJs really don’t like is procrastination. Many INTJs tell me they struggle with procrastination. So be very careful projecting “I’m an amazing person” around an INFP when they will eventually see through to your procrastinator side in some way. They might feel conflicted to discover you are hiding a painful insecurity, an one which they take very seriously themselves.

Be careful with help-you talk and help-you check-ins

When an INFP talks in their typical descriptive mode, it may seem like an opening to help them solve their problems. For example:

INFP: “I need to figure out how to set goals. I’m always failing at it.”
INTJ: “You should totally read this book by Dr. So-and-so. It has everything you need to set achievable goals. The key is to be really reasonable with yourself.”
INFP: “Ooh, sounds like I should read that.”
INFP, a month later at a dinner party: “I love setting goals, but I never achieve them, seriously!”
INTJ (feeling upset): “Seriously, read that book.”
INFP, two months later at the dinner table: “I missed my goal again. Why do I always do this? Argh.”
INTJ (fuming): “Look, we talked about this. Your goals aren’t reasonable. I recommended a book. You haven’t read it. I can’t discuss this right now, it’s like you secretly hate all of my advice.”

In no case did the INFP ask for help; they simply put their thinking out there. It would have been much wiser for the INTJ to ask, “can I help you achieve your goals somehow? What would be helpful to you?”

Going beyond that, the INTJ would be smart to treat follow-ups as opportunities for 1) encouragement and then 2) very gentle check-ins like, “I know I recommended a book, but is there anything else that you think would work better?”

Let INFPs be responsible

INFPs are introverts just like you. Introverts don’t want someone constantly advising them on what to do. They want a listening ear to help them process and maybe analyze what they’re thinking, they want to use to their own creative process of thinking / feeling / intuiting / sensing, and they want that to happen on their own time.

In other words, INFPs expect you to be all over their problems listing solutions left and right just as much as you want them to be all over yours.

Let INFPs be their best introvert selves, and give them time to work on their problems as if you fully trust that they’ll figure things out in the end.

Live, and let them live too

INTJs tend to step too quickly into an “older sibling” role in this relationship. Remember, a relationship requires some sense of equilibrium in order to be successful. Recognize what you, as an INTJ, are gaining from the relationship—things like:

- Full, no-strings-attached permission to be yourself
- Empathy
- A listening ear
- A patient advisor when you have e.g. relationship troubles at work

In return, INFPs want to be able to expect the same. If what they receive is something like this:

- Encouragement to change to be more like you, the INTJ
- Blame
- A didactic fix-it approach to their problems
- An impatient response to ongoing problems

…then you might as well throw in the towel. This is not the INTJ help that anybody needs, even if it’s easy to slip into this mode with a personality type as flexible and permissive as the INFP.

Learn the skill of asking questions

INTJs can help this relationship move along by balancing their directive, judging-centered commentary with analysis and questioning. The analyzer-questioner INTJ is generally a healthy INTJ, so take this as a challenge to improve your efficacy in the world at large.

Conclusion

If you’re struggling in a relationship with an INFP, try some of the approaches and skills above. It’s a different world in some ways, but learning to relate to INFPs is one more beneficial step on the road to balance and emotional maturity.

Filed in: INFP /3/ | Relationships /78/

Departing a bit from the typical long-form self-improvement book, Gifts of the Intuitive Theorist: 300 INTJ Strengths to Try is a book of creative exercises. It’s packed with opportunities to dive in and explore various INTJ strengths—some of which you probably haven’t tried before. Learn a new fact or two, or develop a completely new set of skills. You decide!

You’ll probably like this book, or so my early INTJ reviewers say. Purchasers receive both a DRM-free PDF and EPUB copy of the book. There’s a PDF with sample exercises available, and here is the purchase link.

While I’m getting the book launched you can use the promo code “launchpromo” at checkout and pay $6.99 instead of $7.99. This won’t be permanent, so grab it while you can.

If you read it, I’d love to hear what you think!

Production Notes

Because the book is one large set of exercises, I started out by identifying the kind of language prompts I wanted to use, then I put together a Perl script to generate a framework of the book for me (notice I didn’t say “write the book for me”). I fed different ideas into the script, which eventually generated 300 really generic sentences, which I then molded into exercises. Then I deleted some and added some more.

I have revised each exercise an average of 4-5 times. If you read the sample PDF you can see an example where I work through an exercise until my brain is really well stimulated and I’ve gained some new insights.

It’s a workout book, first and foremost.

The book cover is decorated in architecture which incorporates triangles: The Epcot Center Spaceship Earth geosphere. In reviewing my own doodle and sketch imagery, the triangle appears over and over. It imparts a sense of directional force and strength of structure in one object. As such, the triangle has a lot to do with INTJ psychology. INTJs love to create and develop (usually mental) structures with which to exert force! Building on this, I decided to find a way to combine triangles and architecture (architecture in the general sense is an INTJ strength) in the cover.

The image above is a 3D render of the book and some accompanying objects, including a pencil drawing I made some time ago. 3D modeling is absolutely my jam when I need to put a quick product shot together. Alternate angle one and alternate angle two. I used a software package called Art of Illusion which I’ve been using since around 2003. It’s limited in some ways compared to the commercial software I’ve used, but a lot of fun for simple projects. Using FOSS like Art of Illusion for production artwork in 2018 feels a bit like drawing the Mona Lisa with a ballpoint pen, which I’d probably enjoy doing anyway.

P.S.: If you’d like to be included on my list of early reviewers for future titles, my email’s in the sidebar.

Filed in: Coaching /27/ | Thinking /70/ | Books /10/ | Energy /120/ | Intuition /62/ | Publications /44/

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a productive person. Maybe you love to find more efficient ways to get things done. Or perhaps the thought of being effective and reasonably powerful when it comes to enacting change makes you feel warm and happy inside.

On the other hand, if we don’t feel like we’re productive, we can really start to beat ourselves up. A lack of productivity is something we may instantly and rigidly identify as the enemy. This becomes a problem when we’ve simply taken on more things than we can reasonably accomplish, for example. It is difficult to accept that we should let some things drop, or delay our productivity, so we attempt to become hyper-productive.

A common outcome of a hyper-productive lifestyle is what I call “productivity exhaustion.” The symptoms are very similar to depression symptoms: Fatigue, negative thoughts about self and others, lack of interest in life, and so on. I first measured and discovered this effect in my own life as I completed a variety of professional certifications and examinations, all at the same time. After documenting my experience, I set about finding ways to overcome this kind of outcome in the future.

If you are experiencing productivity exhaustion, here are some tips I have discovered that may help:

Keep a log of your experiences

I have created a log format you may find useful: PDF Format | RTF Format

In your log, note things that make you feel sad or depressed, as well as things that make you feel interested or excited. This log will help you understand the dynamics of your own productivity system. Over time, obvious answers and coping methods will emerge as you review your own measurements and past experiences.

For example: “2018-04-16: I feel no interest in anything. I guess a little interest in upgrading the OS on my computer. I feel depressed about everything.”

Structure your slack

Convert some of your structure-defining productivity energy into energy that provides boundaries in which you can slack off. Calendar in your rest breaks, your video game playing, and so on. Keep a “slack budget” of at least an hour or two a day, and use up the budget whenever you’d like. Weekly, budget at least a rest day or two if you can. Be as serious about rest as you are about working hours—INTJs often underestimate their need for rest, and they especially underestimate the expectations of their family or social group—we need to know that the people who are important to us are resting and recreating.

Study your slack

Watch and monitor the activities that help you relax and enjoy life. Can they be deepened? Or are they better kept shallow? Experiment and see what you like. Watch for new hobbies and interests that may emerge, because these can literally save your life.

Analyze the implications for your productivity

How can you work to reconcile these two halves—where can productivity and relaxation or fun be blended together? Attempt to intersperse relaxation and productivity more often. Since I’m interested in psychology, writing in this blog helps me blend the two.

Collect activities that help you recover from productivity exhaustion

INTJs are good at collecting information, advice, and tips. You may find it helpful to turn your attention to building a collection of recovery methods, so that when you are feeling exhausted you can choose from a wide spectrum of possible activities, to find those that “feel” good. Remember, since INTJs are thinkers, this feeling process can be used in times of stress to complete us in our recovery from stress.

Don’t cut back on your interests

It may seem tempting to get more “important” things done by cutting back on your interests. But please note that people who have “too many interests” are more likely to be successful. I believe this success is related to maintaining a deep feeling of interest in and excitement for life’s various experiences. In my experience, this interest and excitement can immediately cut down one’s chances of feeling burnt out or exhausted.

It is tempting to say “I just need to crack down on my hobbies so I can focus on my chemistry degree,” but this is a very rigid mindset that will almost always increase your chances of becoming exhausted. Better to keep the hobbies and find a way to attack the actual problem (for example: I am not as skilled at chemistry as I need to be; perhaps I need to change my major).

Elon Musk is cool, but it would really suck—comparatively speaking—to be the Elon Musk who thought that he should just get serious and focus only on Tesla.

Do cut back on your intensity

There is a concept in Chinese philosophy known as “yin deficiency.” In short, our masculine, productive, forward-surging energy (yang) overcomes our feminine, organic, unstructured side (yin). Imagine yourself as a whole made of two parts. One part of you is suffering, because it cannot feel comfortable, accepted, or capable of self-expression. It is a very individualistic side, the side of you that just wants to do whatever you feel like doing right now. As you study your productivity system, try to think of ways of giving that side of you a stronger voice in your life.

In extreme cases, look even closer at your circumstances

While it may be frustrating to feel so exhausted, you may need to explore an even more frustrating possibility: Your circumstances just suck. In such cases you are wise to use what little productivity you have to plan a sort of escape from your current circumstances.

Using the “change of major” example above, I think this is a possibility that would cause most INTJs to feel extremely reticent. “What do you mean, I’m not skilled enough???” However, when your mental and physical health are on the line, you are wise to consider all possibilities of creating an immediate change in circumstances. The feeling on the other side of that change is often completely different, less anxious, less depressing, and more fun. This is an environment in which you can exert your natural skills to bring about positive change on a daily basis. I would personally rather be a successful and happy IT guy who is working to better understand chemistry, than a depressed and anxious full-time chemistry student who is failing their chemistry classes.

Some of the happiest people in the world are happy precisely because they know how to say, “I just can’t live like this anymore—something has got to change.” It’s much better to change one’s major or some other circumstance than to give into feelings that life isn’t worth living, or that life has no meaning at all.

Conclusion

If you’re feeling productivity exhaustion, I hope the tips above help you. The process of overcoming it may not happen overnight, but it’s worth your time and energy.

Filed in: Depression /12/ | Productivity /119/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Procrastination /23/ | Fitness /31/ | Anxiety /32/

I added these buttons to an XFCE panel menu. This made a lot of things easier, and allowed me to create some new processes.

You’ll see that I love to harness the power of randomness for review purposes, for picking fresh music, and for other fun things and stuff.

• Random playlist refresh for putting a fresh list of random songs together.
• “Daily Drivel” is my Markdown-based journaling template, which is created automatically every morning at 3 a.m.
• Ham radio frequencies I use often—there are lots of these, on various bands, mostly VHF and UHF. (Quick, what’s the national simplex frequency on the 70cm band?)
• “View/Edit Random Framework” opens up one of the hundreds of frameworks I’ve created, so I have an opportunity to review, make edits, and sometimes scrap the whole thing and go back to square one.
• “View/Edit Random Writing File” opens up one of the thousands of journal entries or other text files, for example a list of interests, a list of favorite video games, a list of things I want to do next in hobby X, etc.
• Play Random New Fresh Tune picks one song from my latest-songs playlist and plays it.
• Open Random Book does just what it says, with e-books. I read for a few minutes and I’m good.
• Refresh Podcast Playlist is a kludge
• Servers & Systems Docs is a Frameworks folder containing lots of sysadmin stuff, like how to do X, Y, or Z on a server. Some of these are basically “I spent 15 minutes on Google looking for the best answer to this problem and I don’t want to ever repeat that again, so here it is.”
• Thunar is an excellent file manager, and you can put things like sftp:// addresses right into the location bar.
• KolourPaint is an MS Paint clone that is surprisingly useful for just getting visual ideas out in a simple way.
• QMMP is like an upgraded but faithful clone of WinAMP.
• At the very bottom you’ll see my two of my detective archetype activators.

Filed in: Interaction Styles /4/ | Productivity /119/ | Technology /41/ | Energy /120/

A client shared with me his opinion that Charlie Munger is an INTJ. This sounded interesting, so I dug in and did a bit of Charlie Munger research. Here are some attributes and quotes of Charlie’s that seem both representative of the INTJ personality type and representative of Charlie’s thinking in general.

By the way, you can check out Charlie Munger books and listen to Munger for free at the Internet Archive, in addition to Youtube and other sources.

1. Argument from Personal Temperament (Be Like Me)

This one really gives away Charlie’s temperament. Here are the four temperaments, for reference:

- Guardian / Stabilizer (SJ)
- Idealist / Catalyst (NF)
- Artisan / Improviser (SP)
- Rational / Theorist (NT)

“In the late 1980s, [Munger] recalled in a magazine interview, a guest at a dinner party asked him, ‘Tell me, what one quality accounts for your enormous success?’
Mr. Munger’s reply: ‘I’m rational. That’s the answer. I’m rational.’”
—Charlie Munger: Lessons from an Investing Giant

Rational living is great for an INTJ! But really—rational! If we were all rational, every one of us, we’d be in sore shape. Even people who are Rational by temperament are understood to fluctuate between rational and irrational many times during the period of a single activity. Munger himself discusses experiences in which he did not behave rationally. He explains and kind of justifies these experiences by wrapping them up in a rationally understood meta-context.

2. Criticism of Ti, or Introverted Thinking

Te-preferring types like INTJs prefer to sort through others’ ideas, to pick “the best” as determined by evidence or measurements as a way of gaining leverage.

Ti-preferring types, on the other hand use a calculating creativity to build a mental model from the bottom up, preferring to create, rather than reference, ideas.

“People calculate too much and think too little.”
—Charles T. Munger

Here Munger uses the fundamental Te vs. Ti argument (Which in INTJs can be summarized as the “don’t reinvent the wheel” sentiment):

“I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.”
—Charles T. Munger, Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor

(The real risk here is that you find ways to avoid doing your own analysis, and miss key points of leverage which others have not yet actually discovered)

3. Referential thought (Te) preference

“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading.”
—Charles T. Munger

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero. You’d be amazed how much Warren reads, and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
—Charles T. Munger

Here is more justification for digging deep to find all the facts and information, as preferred by Te:

“The great algorithm to remember in dealing with this tendency is simple: an idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it’s easily available to you.”
—Charles T. Munger

“We both [Warren and I] insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think. So Warren and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in business.”
—Charles T. Munger

4. Valuing (Fi) preference

Munger continually demonstrates a preference for sorting through individual-moral questions.

“Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets—and can be lost in a heartbeat.”
—Charles T. Munger

Taking the reverse, Munger is a steady critic of group thinking and inherent organizational biases / flaws (Fe, or extraverted feeling, issues)

5. Low risk tolerance (anti-boundary-expansion / pro boundary-retention)

The typical INTJ has a very low tolerance for risk (though turbulent INTJs much less so). INTJs prefer to approach risk through careful study and analysis, looking for external conditions that line up to fit the “success principles” they’ve learned. The topic of taking risk, to an INTJ, is typically a discussion about contingency planning. (Which is funny if you think about it)

“It’s not possible for investors to consistently outperform the market. Therefore you’re best served investing in a diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds [or exchange-traded funds].”
—Charles T. Munger

In Socionics Model A (another personality type model), INTJs are said to have an overall negative bias toward the expansion of boundaries, which is the exploration of the interaction of what might be called “fields of energy” (literally, if you look at the subatomic level). We INTJs prefer to protect boundaries by contingency, so that we can make careful boundary-internal investigations via intuitive methods. Munger fits right in here.

“We recognized early on that very smart people do very dumb things, and we wanted to know why and who, so we could avoid them.”
—Charles T. Munger

6. Occasional moments where Ti creeps in

Munger does give credit to post-mortems. A good post-mortem analysis is where Ti begins.

“Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you’re trying to improve your cognition. Reality doesn’t remind you. Why not celebrate stupidities in both categories?”
—Charles T. Munger

Conclusion, and How to get the Best out of Munger as an INTJ

From what I’ve read so far, I’m comfortable with the idea that Munger is an INTJ. There are additional areas where Munger shows typical INTJ tendencies, like direct avoidance of novel concepts and principles (his thinking on Bitcoin may be right on in some ways, but for the purposes of analysis, it is effectively black & white), which indicate a negative overall bias in his extraverted intuitive process (Ne).

I have enjoyed reading and listening to Munger. If you want to get the best out of Munger’s shared experience, I recommend the following principles:

• Look beyond the historical stories and trivia that Munger shares. While interesting and engaging, they mask his behavior and he says so himself. These stories mostly get at the “why” and not the “how”.
• Explore and detect the actual work and trades Munger performed.
• Attempt to identify Munger’s original creative works. (systems, etc.)

Munger does not draw on history and psychology as much as you might think, to hear him talk. Instead, he mostly draws on and applies others’ ideas. Which still makes him a wise, effective person!

Filed in: Fi /35/ | Te /36/ | People /74/

This is not medical advice. Always consult with medical experts before changing your approach to a condition like depression.

These notes are based on my personality type code, which is INTJ. The contents are meant for the information of other INTJs, and are not meant for a general audience.

Long ago, I used to suffer from severe, chronic depression. I had no personal plan of attack. I had no idea that I should be doing my own detecting. My formal methods of treating depression were A) therapy and B) visits to a psychiatrist, who prescribed various medications.

Eventually when my circumstances changed and my depression seemed to go away by itself, the psychiatrist told me I was cured of depression. I was very happy about this.

Unfortunately, it came back later.

During that time I had a number of frustrating experiences with therapists and medical professionals. I remember the therapists who gave me advice that, in hindsight, came straight from their own personality type. It was often an awkward fit. One of them, who I’d guess was an ESFP, kept making remarks about my posture and physical appearance, and told me I should join a sports team. I also had to speak in short sentences, or he would start to nod off in his chair.

I also remember the psychiatrist who was just as frustrated as I was, as we tried various medications to treat the depression, while also trying to hold the various side effects at bay. One day he told me “we [psychiatrists] think we know everything, but we’re really still in the stone age.”

Don’t get me wrong: I had some incredibly helpful experiences with therapists, and a psychiatrist who can admit we are still in the stone age is someone worth listening to.

But at that time I started to learn that I had access to, and good reason to use, the following personal tools:

• The ability to respond to each experience with a plan for the next episode, and possibly a theory about what can help
• The ability to detect, including taking simple measurements of my mood, and how it may cycle throughout the day
• And every other INTJ strength: Intuition, research skills, writing, and so on.

I learned how to keep an open mind to new information, and dive in to develop my own model of my depression, as if I might be able to cure it. This started with simple organization of my thoughts and observations and ideas for the future, and it turned out to be immensely helpful.

A Timely Cure

Back when I was severely depressed, a normal period of deep depression would last about 1-3 days, with very low moods lasting for weeks and sometimes months without a break.

Currently, when I feel depression (I hope I never get rid of it entirely; more on that below) it takes me an average of 1-2 hours to cure the symptoms.

While suffering from depression, I have measured my rate of negative thoughts at anywhere from 10-30 per minute. If you’ve been here before, it sucks. Here are some examples of the liabilities one can face while in this mode:

• You think the worst of yourself
• You think the worst of others
• You think the worst of the world

If you have to make any decisions while influenced by this kind of thinking, you are in trouble, period.

After my symptoms have cleared, things are different. Every single negative possibility is severely moderated without any effort. It’s like my brain says, “go ahead, think a negative thought. I dare you.” Things are in clearer perspective and I have the energy and ability to think and act creatively.

Now that I’ve measured the difference between these two states, I can’t not fight back whenever I feel depressed.

Eliminating depression may be wasted effort

From what I can tell, it would be a really stupid thing to “defeat” depression entirely. Depression is a helpful warning system. It is one potentially useful tool that can help us escape to better circumstances, get needed rest, or otherwise change our circumstances.

Looking outside the disease model can be helpful

It is clear to me now that depression is less like a disease in my life and more like a symptom of exhaustion. For me, depression often follows a bout of too much productivity or otherwise manifests as a sort of “you’re worn out” statement by my body. So it will probably be helpful to look at the following cure-tools through the lens of exhaustion treatments.

“I fell asleep as a conspiracy theorist, and woke up as a huge fan of Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam”

The quote above is from one of my journal entries as I measured my attempts at treating depression. I fell asleep with the worst possible ideas about the people and things around me. I woke up later singing Head to Toe. I laughed, I felt great, and the change was mind-blowing. I shook my head and knew I had to share this with others.

My first big finding was that sleep is a huge help. If I can take a nap as soon as I feel depressed—even if I just woke up—it will help most of the time.

I aim for either a quick, 15 minute nap, or a complete 90-minute sleep cycle. My measurements show that sleep cycles are important and that waking up in the middle of one can instantly cause depression. I set my alarm clock according to those 90-minute cycles and try to aim for about 5-6 cycles of sleep every night.

Sometimes I cannot sleep at all—I’m stuck. In these cases I often find that it’s best to give up on sleep for now and move on to the next step.

Inflammation seems to be linked to depression

I have become aware of a very faint, dull pain in my head that accompanies depression. I was not able to grasp this before, and I believe that lack of attention to such a problem may be due to this INTJ’s typically weak attention to his senses (thus the lack of an “S” in my personality type, to use a simple explanation). The depressive thoughts definitely speak much louder than the physical pain.

In any case, I found that taking some ibuprofen (I rarely exceed 600mg) makes a big difference. By itself this can also completely erase my depression.

Note: In studying Ibuprofen I was told by others that it can cause liver damage, but this seems to be a less common effect and possibly even an extreme case, based on my interpretation of the papers I read on the topic. As I said above, consult with experts and don’t just blindly follow my method here.

Using a small amount of caffeine as a secondary mood-lift can help a lot

With an average-low mood, I find that a small amount of caffeine can also help me recover very quickly (typically 30mg but very rarely exceeding 100mg). It cannot replace my efforts to attack the pain of inflammation, but it really helps. Used alone, caffeine seems to result in a very annoying state of being more jittery than average but also that burnt out feeling. Which is not pleasant.

30mg of caffeine is easily obtained in the form of zero-calorie diet soda. However, I don’t always want to drink really acidic stuff like that, so I purchased 100mg Jet Alert tabs and cut them up when needed.

With both caffeine and ibuprofen, one can grow accustomed to the effect. I’ve never had this problem. In theory, you could also grow addicted to the stuff in that you keep taking more and more. In my experience, this phenomenon does not manifest itself either. However, when I was in the thick of anxiety problems years ago, I learned from my doctor and our work together that I do not have an addictive personality. Compulsions? Sure, under anxiety I might stress-eat or exercise too hard, but an addict-type I’m not. Just FYI in case it’s helpful to compare against your own experience.

Music is surprisingly helpful in fighting depression symptoms

As a short-form mood booster, music can easily affect my mood for the better, as can movies and TV. I’d be an idiot to leave music & video out of my toolkit, and I often polish off an attempted cure with some upbeat music or a funny Youtube video.

Unfortunately though, it has been my experience that music or video by itself is not typically effective as a standalone depression treatment.

Self-talk helps, too

I find that expressing my thoughts and giving my mood a voice are helpful techniques as well. I have found that saying things like “I’m a grump right now, I’m just going to be a grump all day, I can’t change that, I’m just stuck,” has been helpful. Journal entries also help.

I have also created a log format you may find useful: PDF Format | RTF Format

The Wannas matter

Every day has to have some amount of things I really wanna do or I’m screwed. A day that is full of productivity without many expressions of things I feel like doing is practically a recipe for depression. So I try not to leave for work without listing some topics I want to learn about, or some new software I want to try, or whatever.

I believe that “stuck on the rails” productivity is a very common exhaustion ingredient for INTJs. I have discussed this with other INTJs in coaching sessions. It is important to be able to take breaks, to disengage from a draining project, and to attend to one’s feelings when it’s all just too much, or when it’s not really interesting or motivating anymore.

Circumstances matter a LOT

If you downloaded the log format I linked to above, you can see how I monitor potential circumstance changes.

Many of us, perhaps especially us introverts, believe that we shouldn’t blame our circumstances. I completely disagree. Blame them all you want, I say, if it helps you change them. This has helped me: Noticing where my circumstances suck, pointing that out to myself, and pointing out where other people may even be to blame for how I’m feeling. If you think you might blame yourself too much, try reversing that attitude. Especially if you think it could motivate you to make needed changes to your circumstances.

Going back to the big picture

As I mentioned at the beginning, the key motivator behind all of this is my detecting and modeling meta-system. My gut tells me that if you, the INTJ reader, do not engage your own thinking and measuring gifts, you might not appreciate or even get good results from the techniques listed here.

And finally: This information may change over time as I modify my approach and take new measurements (2022 Edit, almost 5 years since writing this: Depression has not come back and I still feel like I can respond well if it does.).

Please make sure to consult your own medical professionals or other professionals in your journey toward a better life.

Filed in: Productivity /119/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Fitness /31/ | Depression /12/ | Energy /120/

I sometimes find it helpful to watch TV shows or films while I’m doing desk work. And I love to watch them while I’m resting or recuperating. Film seems to have a powerful emotional effect that can help me rally my mood and attack or confront problems. Here are the patterns and archetype-connections I’ve noticed so far.

Note: This is automatic stuff—I don’t suggest these to myself in a conscious manner. Instead, I find myself “automatically” interested in watching these films at certain times.

During Low Stress

• Documentary Films [Learning about people, processes, systems, and technology; a prompt to engage and reflect using my preferred thinking style]
• How-to (learning new things) [Learning to make an impact; technological development]
• Science-related [Applying the theorist gift to new projects; study of the unknown; making the unknown known]

During Medium Stress

This point seems to mark the start of a deeper or more impactful form of “mood support via metaphor”.

• Detective TV Shows & Movies (Columbo; NCIS; Rockford Files; MacGyver; A Touch of Evil) [Systematically detecting and solving problems]
• War Documentaries / Historical Military (An Ungentlemanly Act; Reilly: Ace of Spies; Historia Civilis) [High-leverage battle with adversarial tasks]
• Improvisational Play (‘60s Kurt Russell Disney Films; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) [Keeping calm and believing in a good outcome despite crazy circumstances; the “just be yourself and have fun” voice which tangles with the “do what you have to do” voice]

During High Stress

• Caper Films (Ocean’s 11,12,13; Taking of Pelham 123) [Long-odds work that has an element of daring with a big accomplishment and payoff]
• Impossible-Odds Detective (Deja Vu; Back to the Future; North by Northwest; Rear Window; The Fugitive) [Leveraging all of one’s skills and detecting gifts]
• Escape Films (The Great Escape; Flight of the Phoenix) [Finding a way out of difficult circumstances]
• James Bond [Clever detection and high-leverage insertion / attack]
• Martial Arts or General Action (Chuck Norris) [Some detection with high-leverage one-man attack]

During Recuperation & Vacation

• Science Fiction (Contact; Jurassic Park; Godzilla films; Close Encounters; Doppelganger; Colossus the Forbin Project) [Exploring the unknown & fanciful / prospective]
• Comedy Films (MST3K) [Living with a sense of fun and exploration of the strange / weird parts of life]

During Deep Recuperation (Sickness, etc.)

• Similar to high stress mode, above
• I also seem to enjoy Let’s Play videos on Youtube, from Stone Soup to FarCry. [Watching self from a meta-perspective, big-picture view on a process]
• Flight videos, like watching pilots on Youtube [Wish to soar and reach emotional/spiritual/physical heights once again]

Points of Leverage:

• If I’m at work, this should be a film I’ve seen already, so I can pay attention or not, and there’s no pressure. I can watch the same film many times this way; it just feels good to have it on in the background.
• I rarely follow the actual plot or story and may have difficulty relating it to someone; the metaphorical mood-connection seems to be the point. So “what do I feel like watching” is the best question to ask rather than forcing something.
• Writing and talking about the metaphorical connection to my current work seems helpful. I can deepen this exploration (detect around the detective film!) if I feel I don’t have useful tools yet.

There is also a bridge to audio-only where I enjoy listening to spy / detective music (Examples: His Name is Napoleon Solo and Peter Gunn), or old time detective radio shows like Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, or 007 audiobooks.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Control /110/ | Ni /42/ | Interests /111/ | Productivity /119/ | Anxiety /32/

So you read my warnings and you want to get better at it anyway. Fair enough. Lots of INTJs do computer programming for work. I do, and have. It’s fun, but there are some definite traps, as I wrote about at that link.

Still, this is your journey, and why not see how it goes. Here are a couple of paths to try, along with some other notes.

Path 1: Code-modifier to Coder

If you are interested in programming in general, I recommend starting by throwing out first principles and just fixing or modifying someone’s code. Here’s one for you: Give this super old-school TCL program a shot.

• First, see if you can get the program running on your system of choice. You should see a GUI with two buttons.
• Change the file manager from Thunar to whatever file manager is running on your system.
• Can you swap the two buttons?
• Can you make it so F1 opens the “About” dialog instead of F2?
• Can you increment the version number?
• Can you add a third button that does something else?
• Looking at the app, how could it be molded to be useful to you, personally?

See if you feel motivated to make some changes from that starting point.

Then, consider: How else might you develop in this code-modifier role? Can you try modding a video game? Modding a PHP website template?

Path 2: Fake-coder to Coder

We can leverage highly abstract templating languages to learn how to code. I did this by learning Textpattern years ago and I still think it’s a great way to learn how to code. Textpattern uses “TXP tags” instead of a normal programming language. TXP tags are easier to work with than PHP, and as you start to get comfortable with them, you can start to throw in PHP whenever you like. The tags help you get immediate, programmatic results fast. The better I got at TXP, the more effective I became as a coder.

I started with TXP by modifying already-created TXP code to create the outcomes I wanted for my own code.

Meta-path: Embrace the Old and Powerful

Lots of INTJs lose motivation when they are confronted by new and shiny stuff. I mean, we’re the ones who go around defending the Stoics, and other old dead smart people, right? So consider: There’s a reason why I’m not telling you to download the newest, shiniest IDE and the newest version of the coolest programming language. Try out an underdog. Try something old. You might find it lowers the pressure and you feel less inclined to give up. In addition to TK, you might also want to try something like FreeBASIC which is actually really, really impressive for a BASIC variant, and gets a lot of praise for its efficiency, execution speed, and flexibility. Or maybe you used calculators in school, and want to keep programming on a calculator for now. Great! Whatever feels good.

Anti-patterns

These are things that will probably get you in trouble:

• Relying on tutorials. I recommend that all INTJs start with their own project rather than a tutorial project. Start with the “MVP” (minimum viable product) version, with very few features. Then build up from there. A good way to get frustrated is to spend hours on someone else’s book full of tutorials, and then realize you are bored to death with the “really simple application” you’re building.
• Over-optimizing your choice of language. “Does it do double, triple, quadruple duty? Can I use it to make iOS and Android apps? And desktop apps as well? How soon will it go obsolete? Does anyone recommend against it?” Tempting questions for the researcher’s mind, but wow, those can paralyze you within minutes. My advice is to start with whatever works and learn that thing so well that you just dominate. Before teaching Photoshop professionally (this was years ago), I used GIMP for little website graphics projects for years and learned about color modes, pixel-level operations, histograms, etc. By the time I picked up Photoshop, I was able to dive right in because I understood every underlying principle.
• Imagining yourself defending your choice of language, then asking “can I defend my choice?” Recipe for disaster, IMO.
• Starting huge projects. This falls under “doing” and “making”, and the typical INTJ skills are in the thinking arena. Sure, like everybody else we want to have a concrete impact on the world, but huge maker-projects are—and it’s hard for those INTJ egos to admit—just hard for us. I have this INTJ friend who curses at his dog about 10x more often when he is making things. The other day he called his dog a “dumba**” and I thought, “I wonder what he’s making?” You see what I mean? The pressure mounts. So start with little utilities. “Can I make this app open a folder in my favorite file manager?” “Can I make this web app show how much hard disk space is left on the server?” Add little features from there. If you want to think like a big-picture designer and create the master program, you’d better have a lot of those utilities under your belt or you’d better be delegating lots of the coding.
• Ignorance of meta-patterns. If you start to stress-eat and curse at your dog, or at other people, while you’re coding, or if you keep getting into internet arguments, pay attention. Your mind is trying to give you a psychology lesson. Take breaks, allow yourself to do this as a hobby only, and keep the pressure off. Keep analyzing, try not to become a stress case.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes & what you’re learning. Email’s in the sidebar.

Filed in: Technology /41/ | Ti /30/ | Thinking /70/ | Te /36/ | Productivity /119/ | School /3/

I find myself listening to broadcast radio a lot more, recently. Among other benefits, the pseudo-random song selection seems to help me get off the same old emotional rail when I would otherwise just reinforce my feelings with my standard playlists or favorite music tracks. (More on the randomness at the end of this post.)

As an example of the radio effect: The other day I was feeling depressed and grumpy. I know I can usually tackle that and resolve the symptoms within a couple hours, max. And it was crucial that I do something soon, because we were supposed to be leaving to go on a trip. Driving and interacting with family members while depressed is like a recipe for poor decision-making. Hoo boy.

I tried everything that seems to work well for me. I tried to nap, but things felt too hurried. I engaged (or “attended to”) my sensations and recognized a dull headache, so I took some ibuprofen. After giving that a chance, I tried some caffeine. After that didn’t seem to work, I went on a short hike. Nothing! I still felt like life was a wasteland. Exhausted, ready to call it a day already.

Feeling about the same after a couple of hours, I found a package sitting on the kitchen counter—a new gadget had arrived! This really engaged my interests (it’s a radio, the little Tivdio V-115 a friend had recommended, and which I recommend at this point as well as a fun gadget with an impressive speaker). Some good brain chemicals started to pour in. But then I turned on the radio and things really changed.

One of the local radio stations was playing one of my favorite songs, but one I wouldn’t have turned on myself. I turned up the volume and jammed for a bit, singing along. It was like someone opened up my brain’s sunroof and I was absolutely cruising. Within 5-10 minutes, I was feeling way, way better, with no depression symptoms at all.

I’m sure the ibuprofen and caffeine helped some, but 2 hours is beyond normal efficacy for those things. In this case the right chemical environment may have been established by those things, but the trigger-puller was definitely the music.

Going back to randomness, I seem to really benefit from randomness as a consulting function in my life. It helps me brainstorm in an objective way, rather than just turning back on my own same-ideas again and again. As a non-radio example, when I visit the library I sometimes use the millisecond reading on my stopwatch to dictate which section of the library to browse. If it reads 18ms, I’m going to the 180s. If it reads 64, I’m going to the 640s. Last time I did this I went home with 3 books that were absolutely fascinating, yet which I never would have thought to look for.

Filed in: Randomness /26/ | Energy /120/ | Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Depression /12/ | Interests /111/

One of the most important things I’ve learned about exercise is that it is meant to be an ever-changing game for some of us. I’m one of those people. I did the /r/bodyweightfitness routine for about 6 months, and while it was amazing for the bulk of that time, toward the end it was excruciatingly boring, even the progressions part. Especially the progressions part.

My results indicate that exercise is much more sustainable for me if I progress through a variety of forms of exercise (perhaps increasing in intensity over time as a general attribute) rather than progressing through ever-more-challenging same-exercises.

When I exercise, I usually derive some major benefit. Today’s benefit from exercising, for example, was realizing that there is a huge leverage point in an existing project that will help me reach a goal. I call this exercise-benefit loop an “exercise-benefit loop”.

(Hmm! Well, too lazy to rewrite that sentence.)

The following steps seem to form a positive input to my exercise-benefit loop:

1. Recognize and name any psychological resistance
2. Recognize [resistance name or resistance type] as a stressor
3. Unburden myself of the psychological resistance by attacking the stressor

For example, “I’m not enjoying this at all. I’m totally bored,” is one way to name the resistance. I named the resistance “boredom.” To follow that, I need to recognize that I have a stressor on my hands: Something that creates a problem in my exercise-benefit loop. I need to solve the problem. With the stressor named, I ask myself: What can I do about it? And this is where it gets a bit more interesting.

My subconscious is usually way ahead of me by this point. In many cases it seems to know what I need sooner than I do. So I like to ask my intuition (the INTJ’s dominant gift, so to speak) what I should do about it. I engage this process by doing things like visualizing myself doing some fun exercise, and accepting whatever I see myself doing. Or imagining that an exercise coach walked through my door, and listening to his advice.

But let’s say it’s raining right now (which it is) and I see myself jumping on a trampoline (which is now wet). OK, I accept that my subconscious seems to jump right to that, and it really does seem like what I need, in some intuitive way. Let’s fold in some analysis (introverted thinking) and ask: How can I get that activity to be where I’m at right now? I don’t want to get all wet as I don’t have time to change clothes.

In my case I decide: I’ll put on some upbeat music and jump around in my office here. Maybe I’ll dance, do some jumping jacks. Maybe I’ll do some somersaults on the floor.

Well, I just tried that (key point: You have to try the thing!) and I’m sitting here sweating. When I was done, I opened my office door, and the cool, humid air just poured in. Perfect.

As an INTJ, I’m accountable to my intuition, and things work much better if we cooperate. However, you never know when a problem in the exercise-benefit loop will appear, and when that occurs it’s crucial to accept it, name it, and consciously attack it.

Filed in: Planning /17/ | Goals /52/ | Intuition /62/ | Fitness /31/