INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

“In a line-up that included one of the biggest jerks I’ve ever worked with in the music world, Bo Diddley was an unassuming breath-of-fresh-air. He was the only one who came alone, without even a family member or a manager. He was kind, polite and quiet—quiet until he hit the stage. His was probably one of the biggest transformations between on and off-stage personas that I’ve ever seen.”*

“When I first became famous, it really freaked me out. You see, I’m a very different person onstage—very different. I have a job to do and I ain’t got time to be throwing the bull. I decided right from the beginning of my career I’d give it all I got, put on the most outrageous show I could. I’m two people, really. Up there, I’m Bo Diddley. At home, I’m Ellas McDaniel, the same plain, straight dude all the time.” —Bo Diddley

“For INFPs, the dominant quality in their lives is a deep-felt caring and idealism about people. They experience this intense caring most often in their relationships with others but they may also experience it around ideas, projects, or any involvement they see as important. INFPs are often skilled communicators and are naturally drawn to ideas that embody a concern for human potential. INFPs live in the inner world of values and ideals, but what people often first encounter with the INFP in the outer world is their adaptability and concern for possibilities.”*

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.” —John Lennon

Related: Famous INFPs

“For INTPs the driving force in their lives is to understand whatever phenomenon is the focus of their attention. They want to make sense of the world —as a concept—and they often enjoy opportunities to be creative. INTPs are logical, analytical, and detached in their approach to the world; they naturally question and critique ideas and events as they strive for understanding. INTPs usually have little need to control the outer world, or to bring order to it, and they often appear very flexible and adaptable in their lifestyle.”*

My religion professor in college, Dr. Bernard Boyd, was one of the most colorful people I have ever known. The wonderful stories he told brought his teachings to life in a way his students would have never believed possible. One of his best was about Albert Einstein.

While young Boyd was a seminary student at Princeton, Dr. Einstein was a professor there, well-known for his absent-minded ways. On more than one occasion, Boyd saw the famous theoretician and scientist wandering aimlessly in the middle of the street licking an ice cream cone, totally oblivious to traffic and the potential threat to his life.

One day, late for a class, Boyd was rushing down the library steps and accidentally bumped into Dr. Einstein, almost knocking the two of them down. Stunned, he realized who it was and hurriedly apologized. Einstein was polite and said not to worry about it. What happened next was a complete surprise. The almost-speechless Boyd suddenly blathered, “Why don’t you come to my room tonight around 8 and meet some of my friends.” Einstein said that sounded like fun, and promised he’d be there.

Boyd spent the rest of the day telling all his friends to come by his room that evening because “Big Al” was going to be there. When they asked, “Who’s Big Al?” he responded vaguely, “It’ll be fun. Just come.” So they did. A small crowd gathered in anticipation of meeting Big Al, who, as almost always, was late.

Around 8:20 a few people were starting to leave, when suddenly Albert Einstein appeared and asked for Bernard Boyd. At first some of the friends thought the man was an impostor, even a hired prankster, but they soon realized it really was Albert Einstein in the flesh.

Dr. Boyd related that Albert Einstein was colorful, lively, and very friendly, answered lots of questions and participated in a “bull session” so typical of anyone’s college days.

A few years later, Einstein passed away and gave humanity and science one last great lesson. Einstein had always been widely regarded as one of the greatest minds on the planet, if not the greatest of all time. Scientists had a special curiosity to study his brain after his death, so he granted their wish—under one condition. He handed the scientists a sealed envelope with specific instructions that the contents be read only after the scientists finished their research, which took place at Cornell University.

After weeks of intensive study of his brain and much debate among the scientists, they called a press conference to present their findings. They had indeed uncovered a major difference between Einstein’s brain and everyone else’s, but it was not the difference anyone had expected. Einstein’s brain was about three-fourths the size of a normal human adult’s. Other than that, there was absolutely no discernible distinction.

Following that incredible press announcement, the sealed envelope was opened to reveal a single sentence. It read, “I do not consider myself to be especially smarter than any other human, but I do have a particularly vivid imagination.”

“Our only limits are in our imagination.” —Albert Einstein

Source

“For INFJs the dominant quality in their lives is their attention to the inner world of possibilities, ideas, and symbols. Knowing by way of insight is paramount for INFJs, and they often manifest a deep concern for people and relationships as well. INFJs often have deep interests in creative expression as well as issues of spirituality and human development. While the energy and attention of INFJs are naturally drawn to the inner world of ideas and insights, what people often first encounter with INFJs is their drive for closure and for the application of their ideas to people’s concerns.”*

“I have such a rich spiritual life. Most people take drugs to experience that. I’ve only smoked two joints in my life—once at the Grosvenor House in London and it made me so hungry I nearly ate the furniture—and the other time at a party near here. I stared at a TV test pattern for 14 hours. I don’t need drugs to have imaginative fantasies.” She points to a doormat on the balcony—Welcome UFOs and aliens—and says she doesn’t take herself too seriously. “How can I? I’m used to people thinking I’m wacky but what I’ve said for 30 years is now mainstream. I don’t feel I told you so. I’m prepared to be misunderstood. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of soul searching, but I’ve finally come to know who I am.” —Shirley MacLaine

“People always feel compelled to sum you up, to presume that they have you and can describe you. But there are many stories inside of me and a lot I want to achieve outside of one flat note.” —H. Ledger

“I’m shy. People get confused. They think, as an actor you can get up and be confident on the screen. Why aren’t you like this in normal life? Why can’t you act in your social life? Because I can’t!” —H. Ledger

“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 ]

“Through the years, I have encountered people and been involved in events that have had huge impacts, knocked off rough corners, lifted me to the heights of joy, plunged me into the depth of sorrow and anguish, taught me to laugh, especially at myself—in other words, my life experiences and the people with whom I shared them have been my teachers.

“At times, I have felt like a helpless bit of flotsam, at one moment stranded in a placid backwater that knew not, cared not, that I was there, then swept out to be hurled about in an unfeeling sea. At other times, I felt I was being sucked under by strong, unknowing currents toward annihilation. Yet somehow, looking back through my life, with its downs and its ups, its despairs and its joys, I believe that I was following some overall plan—though to be sure there were many times when I strayed from the course. Yet I was never truly lost. It seems to me now that the flotsam speck was being gently nudged or fiercely blown along a very specific route by an unseen, intangible wind. The flotsam speck that was—that is—me.

[…]

“The genes that were handed down to me by my parents were created long, long ago. And my inherited traits were molded by the people and the events surrounding my early years.

[…]

“My mother, Vanne, now aged ninety-four, has always loved to tell stories about my early fascination with animals and concern for their welfare. One of her favorites is of the time when, around the age of eighteen months, I collected a whole handful of earthworms from the London garden and took them to bed with me.

“‘Jane,’ she said, staring at the wriggling collection, ‘if you keep them here they’ll die. They need the earth.’

“So I hurriedly collected up all the worms and toddled back with them into the garden.

“Soon after this, we went to stay with some friends who had a house near a wild rocky beach in Cornwall. When we went down to the sea, I was enthralled by the tide pools and their teeming life. No one realized that the seashells I carried back to the house in my bucket were all alive. When Vanne came up to my room, she found little bright yellow sea snails crawling everywhere—the bedroom floor, up the walls, behind the wardrobe. When she explained that the snails would die when taken from the sea, I became hysterical. The entire household, she says, had instantly to drop what it was doing and help me collect the snails so that they could be rushed back to the sea.”

—Jane Goodall (The Jane Goodall Institute)

“Because I’m small and soft-spoken, people think that I’m fragile, submissive, and subservient. And, for some reason, they think, ‘Oh, we need to protect her. We need to take care of her.’ Don’t underestimate me. People pat me on the head and I go to myself, ‘Oh, and aren’t they going to be surprised?’” —Calista Flockhart

Via salon.com:

Boy oh boy, does this topic touch a nerve.

After spending many happy years in academia where quiet thoughtfulness is not considered a character flaw, I have been having one helluva time back in the real world. It feels like I’ve been thrown, kicking and screaming, back into high school. People either want to take advantage of me, belittle me, or ignore me completely.

I don’t need medication, as I’ve been told by well-meaning but clueless family members. I’m not a cold fish because I don’t flaunt and flirt my way around a party. I can’t believe that actual adults actually feel the need to poke and prod another adult into talking more. I do not lack confidence or self-esteem because I’m not constantly puffing out my chest, expressing my Very Important Opinions, or tooting my own horn. I am not a snob. I am not a misanthrope. I love people. I am genuinely interested in people. I love to listen to them, I love to watch them and study them. I even love to talk to them from time to time when they’re nice and not pushy.

I enjoyed the greatest pleasure of my life falling in love with a charming extrovert and suffered the deepest pain of my life losing him because he didn’t get it and he couldn’t see me.

I need a freakin’ support group, but I don’t think they exist…we really are an aggrieved minority, but we suffer in silence.

—No Name Given