INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

“A somewhat strident message about why I write: If you think that money will protect you from potential pain and suffering, you are misguided. Money will certainly oil the wheels and give you a more comfortable ride but, when it comes to loss, pain, and suffering—when that hits, money will not get you out of it. Beauty fades, youth grows older, things change, success is relative. Love? Do you really know what that is? Have you gone beyond your own ego to find out? Do you know how many old people are fading away in geriatric homes, institutions, or stuck in some isolated little apartment somewhere? In this society, they are marginalised. They are out, finished. They are you/me/us some time down the line. If you are poor, who will value you? In this society, you count for almost nothing. If you are sick, or weak, or disabled in some way, will you be treated with respect, empathy, or dignity? And the religious institutions, the governments, the power brokers, the corporations, the media. Do they care? Are they compassionate? Are they humane, decent? We have our heads in the sand. I write to communicate what I truly feel. The outrage, the disappointment, the frustration, the sadness, the confusion. And I wonder—am I the only one who feels this way? Apparently not.” —Annie Lennox

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Old souls have a universal perspective. They are not so much involved in family issues like Child souls, or tribal issues like Juvenile souls, or national issues like Young souls, or global issues like Mature souls. Old souls see the cosmic picture. Old souls see themselves and others as parts of a larger system—another Synthesis Process perception. Their attention is on the workings of this system. They see how all parts of the system relate to each other rather than getting lost in the petty details. The depth of wisdom of Old souls shows in their eyes. They have a direct, penetrating stare—it looks right through you, seeming to know. Profound issues are their concern, not the trivial. In their efficiency, they want to get right to the heart of the matter and skip all the superficialities.

When old souls “party,” they usually sit around and just talk. In dating situations, they do not need to go anywhere (like to a movie) or do anything (like play games) as a means to developing social intimacy. If the basis for psychological intimacy is not quickly apparent to the old soul, he will not put himself through much trouble to develop it. It is difficult for old souls to weld unions with people that they have not been together with in numerous past lifetimes.

Continue reading “The Old Soul Age”

“Contrary to popular belief, giftedness is not characterized by high intelligence alone…”*

“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”

Characteristics of Gifted Adults
Giftedness Self-Test

Giftedness: There appears to be three sorts of childhoods and three sorts of adult social adaptations. The first of these may be called “the committed strategy.” These individuals were born into upper middle-class families with gifted and well-educated parents and often with gifted siblings. They sometimes even had famous relatives. They attended prestigious colleges, became doctors, lawyers, professors, or joined some other prestigious occupation, and have friends with similar histories. They are the optimally-adjusted. They are also the ones most likely to disbelieve that the exceptionally-gifted can have serious adjustment problems.

The second kind of social adaptation may be called “the marginal strategy.” These individuals were typically born into a lower socio-economic class without gifted parents, gifted siblings, or gifted friends. Often, they did not go to college at all but, instead, went right to work immediately after high school, or even before. And, although they may superficially appear to have made a good adjustment to their work and friends, neither work nor friends can completely engage their attention. They hunger for more intellectual challenge and more real companionship than their social environment can supply. So they resort to leading a double life. They compartmentalize their life into a public sphere and a private sphere. In public, they go through the motions of fulfilling their social roles, whatever they are, but, in private, they pursue goals of their own. They are often omnivorous readers and sometimes unusually expert amateurs in specialized subjects. The “double life strategy” might even be called the genius ploy, as many geniuses in history have worked at menial tasks in order to free themselves for more important work. Socrates, you will remember was a stone mason, Spinoza was a lens grinder, and even Jesus was a carpenter. The exceptionally-gifted adult who works as a parking lot attendant while creating new mathematics has adopted an honored way of life and deserves respect for his courage, not criticism for failing to live up to his abilities. Those conformists who adopt the committed strategy may be pillars of their community and make the world go around but, historically, those with truly original minds have more often adopted the double life tactic. They are ones among the gifted who are most likely to make the world go forward.

And finally there are “the dropouts.” These sometimes bizarre individuals were often born into families in which one or more of the parents were not only exceptionally gifted but exceptionally maladjusted themselves. This is the worst possible social environment that a gifted child can be thrust into. His parents, often driven by egocentric ambitions of their own, may use him to gratify their own needs for accomplishment. He is, to all intents and purposes, not a living human being to them, but a performing animal, or even an experiment. That is what happened to Sidis, and may be the explanation for all those gifted who “burn out” as he did.

Source: TPS

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.

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“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

“On the whole, people don’t tell you to ‘lighten up’ because they’re concerned for your emotional well-being. They do it because they are uncomfortable with your feelings and because they don’t really want to go where you are.

“Because we all really only know what it’s like inside our own heads, it can take a while to figure out how you are different from other people. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I am, to a larger degree than normal, serious, passionate, imaginative and emotionally intense. Why is this something I’ve been shamed for?”

Continue reading “I Don’t Lighten Up”

“Ever since I was a tiny girl, I’ve been the kind of person who feels joy so intensely that it hurts. I would lie in bed, age 6, and press my hand down on my heart when I was really really happy because it felt like my heart would come out of my chest. When I’ve been in love with someone, that’s what it feels like.

“I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“If I can’t love someone like that, if I have to ‘tone it down’ in order to get a mate, then obviously love is not for me. Because I can’t. I can’t tone it down. I have the presence of mind to know that that very intensity is really the best thing about me, and if I have a gift to give? It is THAT. And I can’t compartmentalize it - although I have tried that too.”

Continue reading “Me and Salieri”

“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.”

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“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

Here’s what I hear:

* sensitive—“must be gay” (am not)
* nice person/genuine
* opinionated but fair-minded (tolerant)
* thinks too much
* not focused
* can get into head trips
* literal learner/thinker (meaning you have to spell it out if it starts getting too abstract like chemistry)
* always late
* stares into space
* not good at understanding other’s motives (am a sucker for what looks like honest emotion and am manipulated this way)
* has a sense of wonder
* great moderator
* brown-noser
* petty
* he’s a good guy
* have a hard time asking for what’s mine

I’m an INFP adoptee. Talk about confusing trying to learn who you are. Adopted parents test as ENFJ and INFJ. Birthparents, I believe, are INFP (bmom) and INTP (bfather), but with a lot of childhood damage that was never fixed so they’re a bit strange to me. With my adopted parents, I felt like I was raised in bootcamp, “Hut, hut, hut!” Those J’s are tyrannical. Along with the T’s.

Someone else mentioned it wasn’t okay to be themselves in their family. This was me, also. I became an ENTJ to be okay growing up. Didn’t have a clue who I was until late my 20’s. Thank God I waited until 40 to get married. I would’ve been divorced twice by now.

Was popular in high school. Was the one popular person who also identified with the outcasts. Seemed to find what everyone had in common and built on that.

Started work in Corporate America. Got fired—was too honest when the blame bottle spinned on me. Honesty is NOT the best policy in the working world. Lesson learned.

Can relate to the guy who talked about team sports being somewhat of a struggle. The team-bonding thing is so much easier if you’re an extroverted non-sensitive man.

I dated many women. I always found that they liked me and said what a great father I would be. But did this matter to them? In large part, no. They still married—or got excited about—the alpha, non-emotional, screw-them-in-business, have-an-affair-but-you-get-a-big-lifesyle guys.

I listen to some of them complain about their husbands now but I don’t feel sorry for them. They wanted that. This led me to learn to change the people I hung out with. I agree with someone who said “find people who appreciate you for you.” That’s a great demonstration of good self-esteem and one that took me until 40 to learn.

My wife is also an INFP. It’s not easy being married to someone who’s like you in terms of sexual chemistry. I find the sexual attraction thing more with other personality types—the women T’s and J’s. But, this I learned, had more to do with my associating intimacy with rejection (or someone not getting me).

The sparks weren’t as bright with my wife at first but, man, we are friends through everything. I think that’s the healthier way to go.

Definitely not what you’d see on Oprah. Forget what our culture says about you “just knowing.” It’s bull crap coffee table stuff. I know people who’ve said that and gotten divorced a few years later. Essentially, they married their opposites and it didn’t last. The gulf was too wide. Either that or their marriages didn’t resemble anything more than lifestyle/economic arrangements.

I would say heaven and earth are themes for me—trying to balance the practical with the spiritual. Oh, how I envy those who are comfortable not asking the big questions! Sometimes, I wish I could just go on with my life like they do and work, accumulate, then die—without ever having to get my brain messy. Instead, I’m absorbed with “what did that mean?” over and over.

Still I wouldn’t trade my INFP status. I think the rest of the population needs us to bring things from unreality into reality. We are that bridge. To my way of thinking, it makes them all drones.

I found a way to make money in a niche advertising business where I’m my own boss. I don’t have to dress up, impress a boss, show up for meetings on time or kiss anyone’s ass. I recommend this if you can find it. I think INFPs are sort of scapegoated in groups at work.

Peace to you all.

Related: Male INFPs/HSPs (2)

Intelligent conversation is one of life’s pleasures. I love nothing better than to engage in conversation with someone who has ideas to share, different perspectives, and is interesting. An intelligent conversation is food for the brain. All too sadly, not everyone can carry on an intelligent conversation. This has less to do with their intelligence quotient (IQ) than with their emotional quotient (EQ). Only a self-aware, self-confident person with excellent social skills has the ability to engage in intelligent conversation.

Intelligent conversation happens when people come together with a win/win attitude, don’t try to change anyone’s opinion, and are open to new ideas. Intelligent conversation is the bridge to greater understanding. People engage in intelligent conversation for no other reason but to explore, discover, and learn. There is no other agenda.

People who struggle with, or cannot hold, an intelligent conversation come with an agenda. They want to thrust their ideas onto others, get their point across, and will resort to personal attacks if necessary. They come with a win/lose mentality and are not interested in learning and discovering. His or her idea is the only one that matters, and anyone who doesn’t agree is a threat. Intelligent conversation with these types of people is impossible and dangerous.

There are times when we can be in the middle of what we think is an intelligent conversation and discover that we are not. Don’t try to deal rationally with such a person. It won’t work. Their only concern is themselves and their ideas. If they feel threatened in anyway, they will attack. The best thing you can do is remove yourself from the discussion. It is possible to continue the conversation. Just know it won’t be an intelligent one.

Don’t assume everyone wants an intelligent conversation. There are people who are not capable. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to converse with them. It just means that the conversation will be shallow and meaningless, which can be all right at times. Not every conversation has to be enlightening.

Source

“David Keirsey proposes the Dolphin as the totem animal for NFs. Dolphins use their powerful and complex sonar system (intuition) to navigate and feel their way through this world. Their sonar is very dependable, but sometimes interference—from both outside and within—plays havoc with their sensors and they receive scrambled signals. Sonar is the dolphin’s life-force. Dolphins are affiliative creatures, and mate for life. Sharks are the dolphin’s natural enemies. But dolphins can take out the sharks by swimming underneath them and knocking them out.”*

Thoreau once said that every writer’s duty was to give “first and last, a simple and sincere account of their own life.” More than his sage words reached 26-year old singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan. In preparing the songs for her latest release, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” the Canadian songstress, perhaps inspired by Thoreau’s Walden experience, retreated to an isolated cabin in the mountains for nearly seven months of meditation and soul-searching. “It was just an amazing time for me,” she relates.

The results of her temporary sabbatical are intensely personal, emotionally rich, dark, moody, stirring songs. Listening to them, one can almost hear McLachlan going through cathartic changes, making discoveries about herself and her life. Indeed, several times during this interview, Sarah talked about the songwriting process as self-therapy. “It’s given me so much, as far as learning about myself,” she says. […]

Continue reading “Sarah McLachlan Finds Her Own Walden Pond”