INFP Introverts

“My freshman year of college, I took the Myers-Briggs personality test. Four letters—INFP—and the computer printed eight pages about me (Introvert-Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving). I still remember one section of the printout because it resonates so well with me. INFPs, it said, vacillate between two primary desires. Some days, we are monks. We dig up our insides like gardens. We sit by ourselves on the porch and write. We leave parties early to be alone. Other days, we are explorers. We create new projects, foster new ideas. We busy ourselves with hard work. We want to change the world.”

Continue reading “Saving Moments”

“On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, INFP is a rare personality type, found in only about 4% of the general population. Yet, of the possible 16 types, it is the one most frequently found for gifted people. This scarcity, coupled with their extreme intelligence, renders them seldom understood and, thus, rarely validated in relationships. The following material is based on qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with eight highly-gifted INFP adults.

Continue reading “INFP Personality Type in Gifted People”

“If you have time to whine and complain about something, then you have the time to do something about it.”  —Anthony J. D’Angelo

“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.” —Dorothea Lange

“A grocery store check-out clerk once wrote to advice-columnist Ann Landers to complain that she had seen people buy ‘luxury’ food items, like birthday cakes and bags of shrimp, with their food stamps. The writer went on to say that she thought all those people on welfare who treated themselves to such non-necessities were ‘lazy and wasteful.’

“A few weeks later, Landers’ column was devoted entirely to people who had responded to the grocery clerk. One woman wrote:

“‘I didn’t buy a cake, but I did buy a big bag of shrimp with food stamps. So what? My husband had been working at a plant for fifteen years when it shut down. The shrimp casserole I made was for our wedding anniversary dinner and lasted three days. Perhaps the grocery clerk who criticized that woman would have a different view of life after walking a mile in my shoes.’

“Another woman wrote:

“‘I’m the woman who bought the $17 cake and paid for it with food stamps. I thought the check-out woman in the store would burn a hole through me with her eyes. What she didn’t know is the cake was for my little girl’s birthday. It will be her last. She has bone cancer and will probably be gone within six to eight months.’

“You never know what other people are dealing with.”

Source

“I am a 6 ft.-2 in., 250 lb. construction worker. Your short film about Teddy Stallard was quite profound—it actually made me cry. It also made me realize that I must be more mindful when I am training my apprentices. Thank you so very much.”

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Related Entries: Empathy (1), Empaths

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” —Thomas Paine

“Those who say that it cannot be done should get out of the way of the person doing it.” —Chinese Proverb

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” —The Talmud

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don’t give up.” —Anne Lamott

“Introverts are not what the rest of us, the three-quarters of the population who are extroverts, think they are. If you’re cripplingly shy and desperate to make more friends, you’re probably an extrovert; if you spend time alone because you’re depressed, you could be either. True introverts are, on balance, drained by social interaction and energised by time alone; for extroverts, the opposite applies.

[…]

“Introverts find social interaction tiring, some studies suggest, because they can’t help but engage and empathise to a degree that extroverts habitually don’t—an approach that would exhaust anybody if they did it all the time.”

Continue reading “Know Who You Are”

“You may imagine from the above that I am a misanthrope. A bitter and friendless recluse who is a daily latte away from being a full-blown hermit. But, apart from an occasional fit of rage at the state of humanity in general, I spend most of my time on the warm and fuzzy, peace and love to all humankind side of the fence. Dislike of people is not my problem; in fact, I don’t have a problem. It’s just that I’m an introvert.”

Continue reading “Solitude is Bliss”

“When I was a child,” he said, “I used to cry if somebody killed an ant. As I look back on it now, I liked feeling that way. I don’t want to sit here, now, numb to half the people in the world. I feel like something soft and warm an’ delicate an’ sort of shy has just been burned right out of me.”

“Numbness is probably better than hate,” said Ruth gently. She had never seen her grandfather so anguished.

“The trouble with numbness,” said Grange, as if he’d thought it over for a long time, “is that it spreads to all your organs, mainly the heart.”

—Alice Walker, “The Third Life of Grange Copeland”

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Related Entry: Giftedness

“Cafe Bastille. I strike up a conversation but there seems to be no real interest. Words are spoken but elicit no exchange. I let it drop. The smell of food, the noise of the kitchen, the colors of the bottles in back of the bar, the polished glasses; on the walls, Picasso, Toulouse Latrec—fullness of the senses but not a word of expression. The void in the middle of the feast. Or the appearance of the feast. Communion withheld. I sometimes run into people who have no interest in other people or conversation. I can’t see where they are at, if they are at anything. If you are living in the country, I can understand this. You go down to the creek, take a slow walk, contemplate. But the city is people. If you have no interest in people, you have no interest in anything. Well, maybe art, architecture, music, food. But it is conversation, a dialog, that ties it together, declares its value. So when I run into someone who has no interest in conversation, it seems like I have run into the living dead. They are walking about, doing a job, but they are really in the grave.” —Louis Martin

Related: Anne Frank, John Mayer, Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“I haven’t written for a few days because I wanted, first of all, to think about my diary. It’s an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I—nor for that matter anyone else—will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter? I want to write but, more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.

“There is a saying that ‘paper is more patient than man’; it came back to me on one of my slightly melancholy days, while I sat chin in hand, feeling too bored and limp even to make up my mind whether to go out or stay at home. Yes, there is no doubt that paper is patient and, as I don’t intend to show this carboard-covered notebook bearing the proud name of ‘diary’ to anyone, unless I find a real friend, boy or girl, probably nobody cares. And now I come to the root of the matter, the reason for my starting a diary: it is that I have no such real friend.

“Let me put it more clearly, since no one will believe that a girl of thirteen feels herself quite alone in the world, nor is it so. I have darling parents and a sister of sixteen. I know about thirty people whom one might call friends. I have strings of boy friends, anxious to catch a glimpse of me and who, failing that, peep at me through mirrors in class. I have relationships, aunts and uncles, who are darlings too. A good home. No…I don’t seem to lack anything. But it’s the same with all my friends, just fun and joking, nothing more. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, that is the root of the trouble.

“Hence, this diary. In order to enhance in my mind’s eye the picture of the friend for whom I have waited so long, I don’t want to set down a series of bald facts in a diary like most people do, but I want this diary itself to be my friend…”

Anne Frank
Saturday, June 20, 1942

“I have often wondered what my name turns up when I’m not in the room. I know I’m the mystery child, the one born premature (just six and a half months in the womb), who should, by all rights, have had balsa bones, a heart of chalk. I’m not the proud success that Nena has become, or a genius like Patricia, but neither am I the troubled baby that is the sinewy Pauli, nor as helpless as Caridad.

“I’m something else entirely; my own island, with my practical borders, seemingly ordinary on any map but, for all the burnt earth and barren mines, the least likely to be swallowed and disappeared by the waters.

“What I mean is this: I am as marked by genetics and exile as everyone else, as comfortably a part of any family portrait as the others. But though nobody much notices, I’m also a stranger in my own family, whether my connection is by blood or experience. I run about ten degrees hotter than they do—not to a boiling point, but to a simmer. Unlike Nena, I don’t fight to get my way. Unlike Patricia, I don’t proselytize. Unlike Pauli, I don’t shock. And, unlike Caridad, there’s a real weight about me.”

—Achy Obejas, “Memory Mambo”

“Imagine how beautiful the world would be if we could all just get along,” the Idealistic INFP contemplates.

Their internal focus concentrates on how they feel about things, and decisions are made accordingly. Externally, their highly developed intuition affirms these altruistic beliefs.

More than other intuitive types, they focus on making the world a better place. The INFP begins this admirable mission by searching out the answers to what life really means and then culminating these findings into a clear purpose and active ways to better serve humanity. Based on these findings, they re-evaluate the path they are traveling, deciding whether to keep going straight or change course; always with the ultimate goal in mind—the good of all. Intuition, idealism, and perfectionism are the drivers that help them achieve goals to that end.

They are natural mediators, solving other people’s problems without a hitch. INFPs are flexible and laid-back—until their values are placed into question. That’s when they come out fighting, aggressively defending their position or cause. A cause is different than a mere project to them. It’s something they passionately believe in and have worked out every detail to back up their position. Mundane details leave them cold.

Decisions based just on facts don’t sit well with them. Their global feelings don’t coincide with the use of hard logic. This skill can be cultivated if you try hard enough but it’s not something they embrace.

On the flip side, when emotionally stressed, they may throw out erroneous fact after fact to back up their often illogical outbursts.

INFPs benefit from thinking twice, taking deep breaths, whatever they need to do to calm themselves, before it gets to this extreme.

Being the perfectionist creates a tendency to be his or her own worst critic. They may have problems working in a group because the other members may not be as committed and diligent as the INFP. In other situations, giving it more than their best shot is admirable, but here, they may appear to be control happy.

Combating these negatives is one of balancing their high ideals with the rigors of everyday living. It is important to resolve this dichotomy for their peace of mind and happiness. They’re bent on giving back in hands-on situations rather than in a more concrete logical way. This type of attribute also makes them more comfortable writing about their feelings than telling someone how much they care.

Because they write so well, they may be drawn to this creative outlet as a career, or consider counseling, teaching or social services as a fit.

“You didn’t hear a word I said”—that’s not something anyone will ever say to an INFP. They listen intently, believing it’s the thoughtful thing to do.

This act of caring puts people at ease and makes the INFP a trusted friend and confidante. Although it’s not always easy for them to express their feelings, they are genuinely concerned, warm and understanding. He or she tries to avoid conflicts but when it’s a necessity, they come from a feeling perspective, rather than placing blame. This is all well and good, but the INFP needs to be aware that sometimes this stance makes them appear to be too emotional and rather irrational.

They have everything it takes to accomplish great things and to become better and better with each passing day.