INFP Introverts: The 64-Color Box

“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.” —Dorothea Lange

“A grocery store check-out clerk once wrote to advice-columnist Ann Landers to complain that she had seen people buy ‘luxury’ food items, like birthday cakes and bags of shrimp, with their food stamps. The writer went on to say that she thought all those people on welfare who treated themselves to such non-necessities were ‘lazy and wasteful.’

“A few weeks later, Landers’ column was devoted entirely to people who had responded to the grocery clerk. One woman wrote:

“‘I didn’t buy a cake, but I did buy a big bag of shrimp with food stamps. So what? My husband had been working at a plant for fifteen years when it shut down. The shrimp casserole I made was for our wedding anniversary dinner and lasted three days. Perhaps the grocery clerk who criticized that woman would have a different view of life after walking a mile in my shoes.’

“Another woman wrote:

“‘I’m the woman who bought the $17 cake and paid for it with food stamps. I thought the check-out woman in the store would burn a hole through me with her eyes. What she didn’t know is the cake was for my little girl’s birthday. It will be her last. She has bone cancer and will probably be gone within six to eight months.’

“You never know what other people are dealing with.”

Source

“This is a story about four people named
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done
and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that,
because it was Everybody’s job.
Everybody thought Anybody could do it,
but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody,
when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.”

—Author Unknown

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part that is within our reach. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”

—Clarissa Pinkola-Estes

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.” —Kahlil Gibran

“They’re an odd couple in every sense, but a monkey and a pigeon have become inseparable at an animal sanctuary in China. The 12-week-old macaque—who was abandoned by his mother—was close to death when it was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province. After being taken to an animal hospital, his health began to improve but he seemed spiritless—until he developed a friendship with a white pigeon.

“The blossoming relationship helped to revive the macaque who has developed a new lease on life, say staff at the sanctuary. Now, the unlikely duo are never far from each other’s side—but they aren’t the only ones to strike up an unusual friendship. Earlier this year, a pig adopted a tiger cub and raised him along with her piglets because his mother couldn’t feed him. And, in 2005, a baby deer named Mi-Lu befriended lurcher Geoffrey at the Knowsley Animal Park in Merseyside after she was rejected by her mother.” Source

“Perhaps the animal spirit is so great that one day it may inspire compassion in the human heart.” —Nan Sea Love

“Some people think only intellect counts—knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.” —Dean Koontz

“Why was my dad’s funeral the saddest day of my life? When I gave everybody the opportunity to say something about my dad at his funeral, nobody said a word. I was too numb to think of anything to say. I was shocked that none of his ten brothers and sisters—or his mom—said a word.”

Continue reading “How Will People Remember You?”

David Foster Wallace: Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally-retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally-retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what’s always distinguished bad writing—flat characters, a narrative world that’s cliched and not recognizably human, etc.—is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world.

Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is?

In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies C.P.R. to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness.

Fiction’s about what it is to be a human being. If you operate, which most of us do, from the premise that there are things about the contemporary United States that make it distinctively hard to be a real human being, then maybe half of fiction’s job is to dramatize what it is that makes it tough. The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still “are” human beings, now.

I just think that fiction that isn’t exploring what it means to be human today isn’t art.

We’ve all got this “literary” fiction that simply monotones that we’re all becoming less and less human, that presents characters without souls or love, characters who really are exhaustively describable in terms of what brands of stuff they wear, and we all buy the books and go like “golly, what a mordantly effective commentary on contemporary materialism!”

But we already “know” U.S. culture is materialistic. This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn’t engage anybody. What’s engaging and artistically real is, taking it as axiomatic that the present is grotesquely materialistic, how is it that we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price? And can these capacities be made to thrive? And if so, how, and if not why not?

The magic of fiction is that it addresses and antagonizes the loneliness that dominates people.

“If you have attempted to fit whatever mold and failed to do so, you are probably lucky. You may be an exile of some sort, but you have sheltered your soul. There is an odd phenomenon that occurs when one keeps trying to fit and fails. Even though the outcast is driven away, she is, at the same time, driven right into the arms of her psychic and true kin, whether these be a course of study, an art form, or a group of people. It is worse to stay where one does not belong at all than to wander about lost for a while and looking for the psychic and soulful kinship one requires. It is never a mistake to search for what one requires. Never.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A tribe elder is talking with a young boy. “I am so very tired because I have two wolves inside of me and they are having a ferocious fight,” he says to the boy.

The child glances up at him with eyes wide with fright and curiosity. “What are they fighting about?”

“One wolf is full of hatred, anger, lies, blame, fear, ego, greed and regret. The other wolf wants love, compassion, truth, meaning, justice, peace and joy,” says the elder.

The little boy, concerned for his old friend, asks “And which wolf will win?”

“Whichever one I feed the most,” the elder replies.

—Native American Wisdom, “Two Wolves”

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
The pessimist complains about the wind;
the optimist expects it to change;
and the realist adjusts the sails.

—William Arthur Ward, “To Risk”

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters, whatever name we give it what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Continue reading…

Dies Slowly
Pablo Neruda

Dies slowly he who transforms himself into a slave of habit, repeating every day the same routines, who does not change brands, does not risk wearing a new color, nor talking to those he doesn’t know.

Dies slowly he who makes television his guru.

Dies slowly he who avoids passion, who prefers black to white and the tiny dot on the “i” instead of a whirlpool of emotions.

Dies slowly he who does not overthrow the table when unhappy at work, who does not risk the certain for the uncertain to go toward the dream that is keeping him awake. Who does not, at least once in life, flee from sound thinking.

Dies slowly he who does not travel, does not read, does not listen to music, who does not find grace in himself.

Dies slowly he who destroys his self-love, who does not accept help from another.

Dies slowly he who passes his days complaining of his bad luck or the incessant rain.

Dies slowly he who abandons a project before starting it, who does not ask about a subject he does not know, or who does not answer when asked about something he does know.

Dies slowly he who does not share his emotions, joys and sadness, who does not trust, who does not even try.

Dies slowly he who does not intend on excelling, who does not learn from the lessons on the road of life, who does not love or allow love in return.

Let’s avoid death in soft quotes, remembering always that to be alive demands an effort much greater than breathing.

Change. But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed.
     
Sit in another chair, on the other side of the table. Later on, change tables.
     
When you go out, walk on the other side of the street. Then change your route. Walk down other streets, observing closely the places you pass by.

Take other buses. Change your wardrobe for a while; give away your old shoes and walk barefoot for a few days—even if only at home.
     
Take off a whole afternoon and stroll about freely, listening to the birds or the noise of the cars.

Open and shut drawers and doors with your left hand.

Sleep on the other side of the bed. Then try sleeping in other beds.
     
Watch other TV programs, read other books, live other romances—even of only in your imagination.

Sleep until later. Go to bed earlier.

Learn a new word a day.

Eat a little less, eat a little more, eat differently; choose new seasonings, new colors, things you have never dared to experiment. Lunch in other places, go to other restaurants, order another kind of drink and buy bread at another bakery. Lunch earlier, have dinner later, or vice-versa.

Try something new every day: a new side, a new method, a new flavor, a new way, a new pleasure, a new position.
     
Pick another market, another make of soap, another toothpaste.
     
Take a bath at different times of the day.
     
Use pens with different colors.
     
Go visit other places.
     
Love more and more and in different ways. Even when you think that the other will be frightened, suggest what you have always dreamed about doing when you make love.
     
Change your bag, your wallet, your suitcases, buy new glasses, write other poems.
     
Open an account in another bank, go to other cinemas, other hairdressers, other theaters, visit new museums.
     
Change. And think seriously of finding another job, another activity, work that is more like what you expect from life, more dignified, more human.
     
If you cannot find reasons to be free, invent them: be creative.
     
And grab the chance to take a long, enjoyable trip—preferably without any destination.
     
Try new things. Change again. Make another change. Experiment with something else.
     
You will certainly know better things and worse things than those you already know, but that does not matter. What matters most is change, movement, dynamism, energy.
     
Only what is dead does not change—and you are alive.

—Author Unknown
…

“Do more than exist; live. Do more than touch; feel. Do more than look; observe. Do more than read; absorb. Do more than hear; listen. Do more than listen; understand. Do more than think; ponder. Do more than talk; say something.” —Author Unknown

“Many are those who talk like the roar of the sea but their lives are shallow and stagnant like rotting marshes. Many are those who lift their heads above the mountain tops but their spirits remain dormant in the obscurity of the caverns. Believing is a fine thing but placing those beliefs into execution is a test of strength.” —Kahlil Gibran

One day, the father of an extremely wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the purpose of exposing him to the lives of poor people. They spent a few days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

“Oh yeah,” said the son.

“So, tell me, what did you learn?”

The son answered, “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us but they serve others. We buy our food but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us but they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”

…

“As thinkers, mankind has ever divided into two sects, materialists and idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final and say, the senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealists on the power of thought and will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1842)