INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

I’d been living in London when my world turned upside down and I’d had to come home. By the time my plane landed back in Sydney, all I had left was a carry on bag full of clothes and a world of troubles. No one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown.

Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.

So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words “FREE HUGS” on both sides.

And, for 15 minutes, people just stared right through me. The first person who stopped tapped me on the shoulder and told me how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. I got down on one knee, we put our arms around each other and, when we parted, she was smiling.

Everyone has problems and, for sure, mine haven’t compared. But to see someone who was once frowning smile, even for a moment, is worth it every time.

—Juan Mann

“There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And, while I don’t expect you to save the world, I do think it’s not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary, and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair, and disrespect.” —Nikki Giovanni

“Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8-color boxes, but what I’m really looking for is the 64-color box with the sharpener on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I’ve got a few missing. It’s okay, though, because I’ve got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem, though, in that I only seem to meet the 8-color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation. So, when I meet someone who’s an 8-color type I’m like, ‘Hey girl, magenta!’ and she’s like, ‘Oh, you mean purple!’ and she goes off on her purple thing, and I’m like, ‘No…I want magenta!’” —John Mayer

“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

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them—words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it.  That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.” —Stephen King

“Loneliness is the deal. Loneliness is the last great taboo. If we don’t accept loneliness, then capitalism wins hands down. Because capitalism is all about trying to convince people that you can distract yourself, that you can make it better. And it ain’t true.” —Tilda Swinton

“On average, for every year of life you have, it takes about two years to understand exactly what happened. Most people never catch up and die confused. That’s why hermits sit on top of mountains: they’re cutting down their input of experiences, so that their understanding can catch up.” —Guy Browning

“Gail had grown up very lonely in an emotionally distant family, with parents who did not freely give their love and relatives who were also cold and distant.”

Continue reading “Alone for the Holidays”

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.

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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

“I think modern society—especially in the United States—has a set of biases that make it difficult for sensitive men to learn about, and come to terms with, their sensitivity. Apart from those who simply ignore the possibility that they might be a HSM, I think there are also significant numbers who may be aware of their sensitivity, but are hesitant or afraid that anyone else might find out. Sadly, I get the sense that most HS men live lives of quiet suffering—many choosing to ‘narcoticize’ the pain of not fitting in with alcohol, drugs, or other addictions. Maybe you’re an HSM, reading these words. And maybe you’ll recognize yourself, somewhere in all this. In retrospect, I can now look at many ‘choice points’ in my life where my being a HSM had an influence on the…”

Continue reading “Highly-Sensitive Men: The Hidden HSPs?”

When I first returned to the United States, as a fifteen year-old girl, having lived my entire life as an American abroad, I came face-to-face with the ugly monster of Alienation. I didn’t fit in, I didn’t belong. I was a fish out of water.

I felt isolated and alone. Mostly, I felt hopeless—as if nothing I could do would make any sort of difference, would connect me with anyone or anything of meaning or substance, so what was the use of trying?

What did make me feel plugged in and alive and worthwhile, however, was singing or listening to music. Which I did, endlessly, in my basement. My guitar and my stereo were my ticket in—to my soul, to my feelings—and then my ticket out—to my community, my tribe, my friends.

“Music heals the soul and moves the spirit,” says Amy Tappe. Well, ain’t that the truth. When I listened to Janis Ian sing about feeling alienated and alone in “At Seventeen” there, in the bowels of my basement in Canton, Massachusetts, I felt alive, seen and understood. Her words, and her music, reached out and into me. Music, in fact, was what drew me out of my shell, out of my head, out of my isolation and into the warm and wacky world of theatre in Junior High and High school. Music was my saving grace. It pulled me out of myself and into the warm and loving of community of other like-minded kids who also felt alienated and alone, misunderstood and lonely. Bound together by our love for music and, tangentially, for performing, we created community—a family, really. United by a single cause—Get the play on its feet, opening night is around the corner!!!—we laughed and struggled together, discovering our commonalities and respecting our foibles, our uniqueness. 

I learned something powerful at that early age: Even in the face of deep, dark feelings of alienation and isolation, if I could make the choice to take action and involve myself in something meaningful and share it with loving people, that feeling of not belonging, of alienation, would lessen.

“People want lives wherein everyone is a friendly relative, and no act or object is without holiness.” (When the reverse happens), “we feel like a fish out of water.” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. said those words.

Accepting myself for who I am, and then sharing myself, my heart, my abilities, with other people, I felt—and still feel—more like a leaping, joyous dolphin in a school of leaping joyous dolphin than a fish out of water.

And so, when I watch my teenage stepsons slouch around, bored, living for the TV set, content with doing as little as possible, locked in the belief that “it’s all useless anyway, so why bother, what’s the point,” it breaks my heart. I feel their sense of hopelessness like a shroud on my own heart. What is it that makes many of our young kids feel so hopeless, so alienated? Is it because our families have gotten so much smaller? Or because we move around so much more? Is it because friends and family are more disposable, coming and going and coming and going? Is it because they are often left alone, with little to do but to kick around and become as one with the TV set or other, more insidious addictions?

Whatever the reasons, many of our children are kicking listlessly on the edge of hopelessness and alienation. It’s reflected, for example, in the abysmal voting turnout among our youth. How can we help them to understand that, just by their mere presence, they are worthy and important; and that their actions, their choices are vital and significant—that they and “it,” whatever “it” is, does matter.  How can we convey to them what Dr. Martin Luther King said so eloquently: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” How can we help our children to care; to step out from the listless shadows and leap into vibrant connection with themselves, their fellow human beings, and the greater world around them?

I look back to my childhood, and those tumultuous teenage years, and I remember that it took magic to make me care, to make my passions kick, to muster my will to take action, to want to make a difference…the magic of music, the magic of theatre. My hope is that each and every one of  our children, each and every one of us, at any age, can find and then fan into a roaring flame their particular magic, the fire that sets them in motion and makes them take action for themselves but, most especially, for others. Because, as Albert Einstein said, “Only a life lived for others is worth living.”

I used the word WILL in that last paragraph. WILL. Our will is a powerful thing. In order to take on problems, rather than running away from them, it requires WILL. In order to move from a place of isolation and alienatation, it requires WILL.

George C. Boeree says: “Will is pulling aside present distress in order to reach future delight—or staying hopeful, even eager in the face of anxiety. Or taking on problems with the intentions of solving them.”

So WILL is the key. It takes will to make a choice and then take action on it. It takes will to decide to stop settling for being on the fringe and to not only ask more of yourself but to ACT on that decision. 

Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.”

Passionately curious! Isn’t that a wonderful phrase? Let’s encourage ourselves to be passionately curious—about ourselves, about each other. If we can muster the WILL to become passionately curious, we will find ourselves moving together, working together, our hearts and souls engaged and on fire with life. And those feelings of alienation won’t stand a chance.

As Lucy Larcom so beautiful suggested: “If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.”

And that’s why I’m here today, to warm the coldness of this world with the fire in my heart and soul, through my words and my music.

Source: “Alienation” (Eleni Kelakos)