INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

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…

Are You Lonesome Tonight?
By Vinita Dawra Nangia, India Times

If you are an intelligent people observer, you would have noticed two kinds of loners. Those who wear their loneliness comfortably. At ease with themselves, their gaze is steady and introspective. Friendly if someone approaches them, they aren’t unduly perturbed if left to their own devices.

Then there are those extremely uncomfortable with their loner status. They are awkward if someone talks to them, and more so when ignored. Bad social manners yes, but beyond that, you can figure these are lonely people who haven’t learnt to be comfortable with their aloneness.

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…

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…

I don’t fit in any boxes!
Everybody seems to have a place but me.
By Cary Tennis, salon.com

Dear Cary,

I wish I could fit into boxes. You know, the kind that people put each other in to understand each other. The kind that help people relate and find common ground. The kind that help people make friends and know where to look for friends.

But every time I try to get into one, the people inside say I don’t fit.

I tried the “married” box, but everyone in it said, “You’re 26 and you’ve been married for five years? Why the hell’d you do that?”

I tried the “parents” box, but they said, “Sure, you can hang out with us. So you’re a dad? That’s great. Let’s talk about our fancy new houses and 401Ks.”

I even tried the “employed” box, but everyone said, “Oh, you and your fancy Ph.D. are way too smart for us. Why don’t you go play with all of your intellectual buddies.”

The last time I tried the “guys” box, they said, “You look like you’re 16 and need a sandwich, dude. Go play some video games or something.” But I can’t help it. I’ve got a high metabolism and an aversion to dairy. And meat. And I like video games.

I even asked my wife if I could get into the “husband” box, and she told me that she thinks I’m a bit too goofy and abstract to be a real husband.

So I’m standing out here all alone, outside all of these boxes full of people, wondering who the hell am I and whose 40-year-old midlife crisis I’m about to have. Any ideas?

Out of the Box

Continue reading…

Are personality tests biased against introverts?
I need a job but I don’t want to be stereotyped as a crazy loner.
By Cary Tennis, salon.com

Jun. 19, 2006 | Dear Cary,

I am currently searching for a job (I’m not choosy, I just need to pay the bills) and have run into a bit of dilemma.

It’s about the personality tests that have become so ubiquitous even for jobs that require no more skills than sandwich making and tending the cash register.

Now I am basically an ethical, honorable, hardworking person. I don’t do drugs, I’m not mentally ill and I don’t break the law. Unfortunately, I have the “wrong” personality type for many of the jobs I am seeking. I am an introvert. However, the assumption that this somehow means that I am incapable of interacting with the public in a friendly and appropriate manner drives me crazy.

While extroverts have the option of never being alone if they don’t wish to, the introvert must always deal with people on some level. True, they may feel more drained at the end of the day, but that doesn’t mean that the stress is going to cause them to huddle in the corner gibbering or perhaps bring a gun to work and open fire.

Only an idiot would honestly answer “Strongly Agree” to questions such as “I prefer to be alone,” on a test. How many times is the crazed serial killer described by neighbors as “a nice quiet person who kept to himself”? American society is biased against introverts, and it’s little wonder that people would try to “cheat” or “fake” out the personality tests they’re given. They know they can do the job and just want a fair chance to prove it.

The sad thing is that if the pattern of my answers reveals me to be a liar or unethical, it really won’t be an accurate reflection of my personality, just the portrait of someone who’s desperate to pay her bills on time.

So what do you think?

Conflicted

Continue reading…

Too often, people mis-equate what it means to be an individual with being a freak. Individualism, according to most, unfortunately, means anyone who bucks the norm, be it Frank Lloyd Wright or a psychotic young punk who drowns himself in booze and marijuana. This definition of individualism is not individualism—it is freakism.

A freak’s favorite holiday is Halloween—in which every person comes dressed in a monstrous and grotesque outfit, exerting their differentation from everyone else. The freak wants to create a pretty rainbow, with every person being distinctly different from one another. Differentation is the most primary value to a freak.

The individualist, on the other hand, rejects rebellions for rebellion’s sake—just as he rejects tradition for tradition’s sake. The individualist does not have as a criterion that he is different from other people in order to be an individual. The individualist understands that individualism has one criterion—that you are the sole controller of your destiny. The individualist is one who, at all times, takes on the responsiblity of thinking for one’s self.

Continue reading “Freaks vs Individuals”

Field Guide to the Loner: The Real Insiders
Loners are pitied in our up-with-people culture. But the introvert reaps secret joy from the solitary life.
By Elizabeth Svoboda, Psychology Today

Miina Matsuoka lives by herself in New York City. She owns two cats and routinely screens her calls. But, before you jump to conclusions, note that she is comfortable hobnobbing in any of five languages for her job as business manager at an international lighting-design firm. She just strongly prefers not to socialize—opting instead for long baths, DVDs, and immersion in her art projects. She does have good, close friends, and goes dancing about once a month, but afterward feels a strong need to “hide and recoup.” In our society, where extroverts make up three-quarters of the population, loners (except Henry David Thoreau) are pegged as creepy or pathetic. But soloists like Matsuoka can function just fine in the world—they simply prefer traveling through their own interior universe.

Loners often hear from well-meaning peers that they need to be more social, but the implication that they’re merely black-and-white opposites of their bubbly peers misses the point. Introverts aren’t just less sociable than extroverts; they also engage with the world in fundamentally different ways.

Continue reading…

The mob thinks we are maladjusted. Of course we are adjusted just fine, not to their frequency. They take it personally. They take offense. Feel hurt. Get angry. They do not blame owls for coming out at night, yet they blame us for being as we are. Because it involves them, or at least they believe it does, they assemble the troops and call us names. Crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Aloof. Afraid. Lacking in social skills. Bizarre. Unable to connect. Incapable of love. Freaks. Geeks. Sad. Lonely. Selfish. Secretive. Ungrateful. Unfriendly. Serial killers.

The mob wants friends along when doing errands, working out at the gym, at the movies. The mob depends on advice. Eating alone in decent restaurants horrifies the mob, saddens the mob, embarrasses the mob. The mob wants friends. The mob needs to be loved. It lives to be loved. Or hated, with that conjoined fervor with which mobs face their enemies. Both love and hate are all about engagement. About being linked with humanity generally, as a policy. Loners have nothing against love but are more careful about it. Sometimes just one fantastic someone is enough.

As a minority, we puzzle over nonloners, their strange values. Why do they require constant affirmation, validation, company, support? Are they babies or what? What bothers them about being alone? What are they so afraid of? Why can’t they be more like us? Loners live among the mob, so the mob mistakes us for its own, presuming and assuming. When the mob gets too close, the truth is revealed. Running or walking away, chased or free, any which way, we tell the mob in effect I don’t need you. Hell hath no fury like a majority scorned.

Continue reading “One is (Not) the Loneliest Number”

There’s power in numbers. Take two, for example. Two is the proper minimum of people who are supposed to be sitting at a table in a restaurant. At least, that’s what the Mel’s Drive-In busboys insinuate by putting two place settings at your table when you’re obviously alone. Two has the power to wield attention. But what power does one have?

[…]

I sped down Hollywood Boulevard cranking the Move song “Omnibus” and enjoyed the cool air slapping me in the face. I mean, you would think that waiters would give really speedy service to people sitting alone, to hurry up and get them out of there so that a couple who could give them a bigger tip could be seated. But most of the time, we parties of one are…

Continue reading “Dancing With Myself”

“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”

The little country mouse looked at the trap, and he looked at the cheese, and he looked at the little city mouse. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I think I will go home. I’d rather have barley and grain to eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried prunes and cheese and be frightened to death all the time!”

The Country Mouse and the City Mouse

Jung believed that objects fascinate extroverts. It is through objects that extroverts are able to define themselves and, therefore, interact with their surroundings. They take delight in themselves and people and are “open, sociable and jovial, or at least friendly and approachable…on good terms with everybody, or quarrel with everybody, but always relate to them in some way, and in turn (are) affected by them.”

Extroverts can adjust easily to existing conditions. They like to be “the life of the party” or “in the spotlight.” They feel the most at ease when they are surrounded by a group of “enthusiastic” people and, in many cases, they are able to lure large amounts of people toward them. They possess a “need to join in and ‘get with it’ and the capacity to endure bustle and noise of every kind, and actually find them enjoyable.”

Introverts, on the other hand, define themselves through personal revelations. They look inside themselves (instead of to others) to circumscribe the type of individual they are. They are usually more serene and appear more distant than extroverts. “Their emotions, passions, and powerful impulses lie dormant under the surface of their equanimity. They try to hold their ground against outside influences by giving them low value, by letting in only flashes and snippets of what is happening, or by staying aloof from them altogether.”

They define not only their individuality based on their own personal revelations, but their decision-making as well is constructed within themselves. They seldom look to others for answers of how to live or who to be. According to Jung, “crowds, majority views, public opinion, popular enthusiasm never convince him of anything but merely make him creep still deeper into his shell.” *