INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

“Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare to express themselves as we did. The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive’—the honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.” —Sophie Scholl

Continue reading “Sophie Scholl and the White Rose”

At the age of 21, Sophie Scholl was guillotined by the Nazis for her involvement in The White Rose.

Many of us were children or not yet born, but there was a time when having a social conscience superseded personal wealth and popularity in sports, a time when empowerment among elite athletes had nothing to do with economics. You either believed in a cause and took action or you hushed up. In 1968, against the wish of his own nation [Australia], Peter Norman did something.

“I did the only thing I believed was right,” Norman said over a beer six years ago. “I asked what they wanted me to do to help.”

In the photo, he wears a badge identical to those worn by Smith and Carlos, identifying their Olympic Project for Human Rights. But Norman’s participation was more than a token. “While he didn’t raise a fist, he did lend a hand,” was how Smith explained it.

“Any other white guy, I don’t think he would have had the courage to go through with it,” Carlos said yesterday. “Our lives were threatened. We were being demonized in the media. People were saying we wanted the destruction of society instead of what we really wanted, equal rights. I just don’t think most white individuals would have been strong enough to make that commitment.

“At least me and Tommie had each other when we came home,” he added. “When Peter went home, he had to deal with a nation by himself. He never wavered, never denied that he was up there with us for a purpose and he never said ‘I’m sorry’ for his involvement. That’s indicative of who the man was.”

The Americans discussed their plan with Norman, then a 26-year-old physical education teacher and Salvation Army officer, before the ceremony. When Carlos realised he had forgotten his black gloves, Norman suggested the two share Smith’s pair. He then asked what he could do to support them, and Carlos managed to get an additional badge, which Norman attached to his track suit, over his heart. After the ceremony, Norman explained himself simply: “I believe that every man is born equal and should be treated that way.”

“I couldn’t see why a black man wasn’t allowed to drink out of the same water fountain or sit in the same bus or go to the same schools as a white guy,” Norman said. “That was just social injustice that I couldn’t do anything about from where I was, but I certainly abhorred it.”

[…]

Norman last saw Smith and Carlos last year, when San Jose State University, California, unveiled a statue, based on the photo, of its two alumni. Typically, he downplayed his involvement. “People don’t realise that they sacrificed their lives for a cause they believed in, and it was peaceful and non-violent,” he said. “I was glad I was with them.”

Read Full Article: Peter Norman
Read Full Article: Clenched Fists, Helping Hand

Forgetting to be Human
by Dick Staub

We have forgotten what it means to be human; the evidence abounds. Read the paper, weep, resist, pray, and then live a fully human life. Blessed with extraordinary spiritual, intellectual, creative, moral and relational potential, we squander our greatness on lesser pursuits and wonder why we feel restless and empty.

While globally 30,000 children die daily due to malnutrition and preventable diseases, children in the West spend hours in elaborate, addictive “interactive virtual reality” games. Unaware of a sense of mission and meaning in real life, they turn to a vacuous wasteland of mind numbing entertainments and “not-pretty” diversions.

In the political arena, spin obfuscates reality and candidates spend billions of dollars to get elected so they can acquire or hang onto power, which is then wielded on behalf of large faceless special interest groups. In religion, the marketing machine produces converts attracted to religious celebrities who are generally workaholics unavailable to their families—saving the world and losing their own souls.

Whether in Hollywood, politics, or religion the story is the same—a young person with passion and vision, unable to discern purity of motive from a raw, naked desire for power or notoriety and fame, enters the fray. Early successes fuel the quest—trade-offs must be made. Must be at this meeting or that, must sacrifice this daughter’s soccer game, son’s piano recital, anniversary dinner with the spouse. The noble cause trumps the noble life until the choices become a way of life and then there is no life worth living.

Dulling the pain requires stimulants, entertainments, diversions, sensations—“let me feel” is our cry. The pure feelings produced by love, family, friends, neighbors, or a walk on a sunny day or in a light rain are displaced by cheap, imitative, virtual or “extreme” experiences. Spiritual humans become sensate humans enslaved to our substandard lives, needing to pay the mortgage, unable to disentangle from the consumerist webs. The mighty fall—evangelicals being no exception.

One day a trumpet heard by the entire planet will sound, but we’ve waited 2,000 years and we are fools to believe that that day will be the beginning of the promised abundant life. In the now, we who know listen for and hear the music today. We dance a different dance—we are the resistance, we are summoned to be the creators, we see the truth and say it. We are called to be fully human.

Fully human, we embody the words penned by British poet Arthur O’ Shaughnessy:

We are the music makers.
We are the dreamers of dreams.
We are the movers and shakers.
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

“Cynics are only happy in making the world as barren for others as they have made it for themselves.” —George Meredith

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And, while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Jack Kerouac

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” —Richard Bullock

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” —George Bernard Shaw

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” —Helen Keller

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.” —Jack Kerouac

• “I did not want my tombstone to read, ‘She kept a really clean house.’” —Ann Richards

• “Asked once what she might have done differently had she known she was going to be a one-term governor, Richards grinned. ‘Oh, I would probably have raised more hell.’” —New York Times

• “Ann Richards was, actually, what men and women alike would call a great Broad. She wasn’t a Role Model, she was herself! Gutsy, warm, smart, stylish, and really funny. She could clean a closet or clean your clock, make your lunch or eat it. She lost and won some tough battles and it showed in her dazzling weathered face. What a dame!” —Unknown

• “She was a symbol for every little girl who wanted to grow up and do great things. My daughter met the governor when she was only four and a friendship was born. Richards was always interested in Amanda and when she left office she began to write her letters at the end of the year to tell her what had been going on in her life and to admonish my daughter to read and study and dream big. When Amanda was confirmed in her church, the governor sent her a beautiful piece of jewelry and, when she graduated from high school, a crystal bowl with a sterling silver top was delivered to our house. Amanda’s name, high school, date of graduation, and the governor’s name were all engraved on the underside. The governor had recently written Amanda a note urging her to attend a university outside of Texas and go see more of the world, which she has done, in part, because she got a fine recommendation letter from the former governor of Texas to send in with her student application. The course of my daughter’s life has been positively influenced by this woman of great strength and determination. And I am pleased.” —James Moore

Molly Ivins:

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin’ and greetin’ at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar.

Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock’s personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, ‘Bob, my boy, how are you?”

Bullock said, “Judge, I’d like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer.”

The judge peered up at me and said, “How yew, little lady?”

Bullock, “And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department.”

Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie’s palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. “And who is this lovely lady?”

Ann beamed and replied, “I am Mrs. Miles.”

“And the television executives told me when I was in Baltimore that I was just—too much. I was too big and I was too black. They told me that I was too engaged, that I was too emotional. I was too much for the news so they put me on a talk show one day just to run out my contract. And that was the beginning of my story. So, I say, even when things are difficult, be grateful. Honor your calling, don’t worry about how successful you will be. Don’t worry about it. Focus on how significant you can be in service and the success will take care of itself. And always take a stand for yourself. Your values—you—are defined by what you stand for. Your integrity is not for sale.”*

The universe is always trying to get your attention. Sometimes it starts out—any major problem you encounter—as a whisper. By the time it gets to be a storm, you’ve had a pebble knock you upside the head; you’ve had a brick; you’ve had a brick wall; you’ve had a house fall down. And, before you know it, you are in the eye of the storm.

But, long before you are in the eye of the storm, you’ve had many warnings, like little clues. So now my goal in life is not to have to hit the eye of the storm, but to catch it in the whisper. To get it the first time. I think the thing, the one thing that has allowed me to certainly achieve both material success and spiritual success, is the ability to listen to my instinct. I call it my inner voice. It doesn’t matter what you call it—nature, instinct, higher power. It’s the ability to understand the difference between what your heart is saying and what your head is saying.

Continue reading…

“Who am I? It matters not that you know who I am; it is of little importance. This clay garment is one of a pilgrim journeying in the name of peace. It is what you cannot see that is so very important.” —Peace Pilgrim

From 1953 to 1981, a silver haired woman calling herself only “Peace Pilgrim” walked more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace.

“When I started out, my hair had started to turn to silver. My friends thought I was crazy. There was not one word of encouragement from them. They thought I would surely kill myself, walking all over. But that didn’t bother me. I just went ahead and did what I had to do. They didn’t know that with inner peace I felt plugged into the source of universal energy, which never runs out. There was much pressure to compromise my beliefs, but I would not be dissuaded. Lovingly, I informed my well-meaning friends of the existence of two widely divergent paths in life and of the free will within all to make their choice. There is a well-worn road which is pleasing to the senses and gratifies worldly desires, but leads to nowhere. And there is the less traveled path, which requires purifications and relinquishments, but results in untold blessings.”

Continue reading “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, Peace Pilgrim Website

The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I wrote the prose poem, “The Invitation,” one night after returning home from a party. It came in a quiet moment late at night when tiredness stopped my head from censoring the words that flowed from my heart onto the page. I don’t usually attend parties but, on this occasion—berating myself for being antisocial—I made an effort to go and be friendly. I returned home feeling frustrated, dissatisfied with the superficial level of the social interaction at the party. I longed for something else.

Continue reading…

“The way toward wholeness is made of wrong turns and fateful detours.” —Carl Jung

“People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.” —Ramona L. Anderson

“I know the potential of my depth scares most people because for many years it terrified me. I would shop, sleep, drink, use drugs, travel, work, eat, jog, flirt, go to bars, dance, have sex, go to school, have hobbies, read books, get married, have a child, quit work, fast…anything just to avoid getting to know my inner self.

[…]

“Until recently, I have always attracted myself to superficial people—an obvious mirror reflection of myself at the time. Because the power within myself scared me, I allowed myself to choose external distractions while avoiding getting to know my internal self.

[…]

“This is just one of the many reasons I chose to become a writer. To sit down and discuss subjects like this with others face-to-face is draining on both of us. Writing allows enough food for thought to others and myself without becoming a hefty tax on the energy supplies and provides a safe, non-threatening forum whereby the reader can put the message down at any time and return to it when he or she is ready. Writing puts boundaries on our fears and acts as a protective barrier against mental, emotional, physical and spiritual stress.”

Continue reading…

“It can be of enormous benefit when one is sitting in the darkness of the soul, feeling isolated, shut out and cut off, to know that there are other people like us in the world; that we are not alone in the universe.”

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate to others the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.” —Carl Jung

“Emma, in seventh grade, was deeply moved by a television program about the Czechoslovakian struggle for freedom from the U.S.S.R. She lay awake most of the night and the next morning she started, haltingly, to describe to some of the other girls in her class the pain and bewilderment of the Czechoslovakian women. The other girls looked her up and down, raised their eyebrows, and ostentatiously walked away. Emma realized her ‘mistake,’ and the next day she engaged the girls in a spirited conversation about clothes and make-up. They accepted her back…”

Continue reading “The ‘Me’ Behind the Mask”

“I’m sought after and well-liked by the campers; in this particular instance, I’m coming to see that the conversations that I have with them are shallow, brief, and come to no conclusions besides, ‘You’re so funny! Let’s take a picture!’ And, when I try to ask them what’s going on with their group or home life, for the most part I get puzzled looks and quick attempts to back out of the conversation. Sometimes I have a good conversation, but they’re few and far between. I’m plagued with a desire to dig deeper into them but seem to have no way to. Therefore, I’m tempted more and more by the green room, my computer, and my journal; loneliness.”

Continue reading “To Be Young, Gifted, and Lonely”

“I travelled solo to Spain and was staying for one month so I posted a note for a travelling companion. I got a response from a man (gay and perfect!) who could meet up and travel with me. We got along really well but he went to Greece while I had another five days of holiday left. I never thought I would feel disoriented and alone on my first trip to Europe but there I was feeling really blue. I was getting so desperate that I even tried to change my return ticket, but…”

Continue reading “She Deals With Loneliness on the Road”

“Learning to use loneliness rather than avoiding or fearing it can be an important means of increasing personal power. Many gifted adults are lonely because of a lack of true peers. Feeling comfortable with oneself, having a wide variety of interests, knowing that there are some people who value at least parts of themselves, and viewing lonely times as a chance of further self-care and self-exploration, are ways of growing in personal power.”

Continue reading “Can You Hear the Flowers Sing?”

There are those who, on hearing that the tintype photographer John A. Coffer lives without car, phone or plumbing, might call him a Luddite. This, he insists, is not true — for one thing, he has a computer. He even has a computer room. The walls are bales of hay, the roof is tin, and the power source is a 75-watt solar panel outside in the pasture. Mr. Coffer, who lives on a 48-acre farm in the Finger Lakes, built his computer room in March. It’s lasted nicely through heavy rains and if it falls apart, Mr. Coffer says, no matter: He’s invested all of $15 in it.

The big question: why does Mr. Coffer choose to live like this? “Modern living was always too fast for me,” he said. “I was not good at 20th-century living.”

“I used to do all that, go to singles bars,” Mr. Coffer said. “It was cheap. It just wasn’t fulfilling. I don’t want to live up to other people’s expectations. I own this land, 50 acres free and clear. I’ve got a lot of money in the bank. I’ve been in galleries in New York. And yet girls go, ‘He doesn’t have a phone.’ ” Mr. Coffer rarely curses, but speaking about women, he does. They’ll chase down a guy 10 feet in debt over his head, working at some dead-end job, who’s got a phone and a car, he said angrily.

Continue reading…

“There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.” —Greta Garbo

Her penchant for privacy broke all of Hollywood’s rules. Except at the start of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres, answered no fan mail. In a rare statement to reporters she acknowledged, ‘’I feel able to express myself only through my roles, not in words, and that is why I try to avoid talking to the press.'’

Every day, the woman in black walked through New York’s Central Park to feed the squirrels. Wearing huge sunglasses, she was careful not to look at anyone as she moved slowly along the paths. She rarely spoke. To locals, she was just another New York oddball, but this fragile and isolated figure had once been the most famous and admired actress in the world, feted for her beauty and poise. This was screen legend Greta Garbo.

Little is known about her later life because she protected her privacy so fiercely, famously declaring, “I want to be left alone.”

Garbo hadn’t always shunned the spotlight. In fact, as a young girl growing up in Sweden, Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, dreamt of fame as a way to escape from the brutality and poverty of her life. Hers is the classic rags-to-riches tale.

Born on September 18, 1905, to Karl Alfred and Anna Lovisa, she was the youngest of three children. With her parents, sister Alva and brother Sven, she lived in one of Stockholm’s poorest districts in a tiny apartment with no hot water.

Karl was an alcoholic and the family often went without food so he could buy whiskey. His youngest daughter withdrew from the pain, creating a fantasy world as a respite from reality.

“I have always been moody. When I was just a little child, as early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone. I detest crowds, don’t like many people. I used to crawl into a corner and sit and think, think things over. When just a baby, I was always figuring, wondering what it was all about—just why we were living.

“Children should be allowed to think when they please; should not been pestered. ’Go and play now,’ their mothers and fathers tell them. They shouldn’t do that, thinking means so much to even small children.

“When I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t wondering what it was all about, this living; I was dreaming. Dreaming how I could become a player (actress).

“No one of my people were on the stage. It was just born in me, I guess. Why, when I was just a little thing, I had some water colors. Just as other children have water colors. Only I drew pictures on myself. Rather than on paper, I used to paint my lips, my cheeks, paint pictures on me. I thought that was the way actresses painted.”

She told Karl that she loved pretending to be characters in stories “because I hate life around us.”

[…]

Garbo developed an enigmatic screen persona that captivated fans but at the height of her career in 1941, at the age of thirty-six, she left Hollywood, never to make another film.

Source(s): [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]