The INTP Experience - Chapter 2: Overload

**This article has been moved to its new, permanent home at THE INTP EXPERIENCE. See you there!**

Blowing on the Embers

just me
in a forest
high over
the highway
Orion tilts
loosens his belt
and Andromeda
smiles overhead

just me
in a forest
by a stove fire
in the dark
the radio
weaves
at the edge
of my consciousness
like old movies
I've seen before

just me
in a forest
two nightfalls
two dawns
three hundred miles
and I'm not
such a bad companion
after all

The INTP Experience - Chapter 1: Why Do I Feel Disconnected?

**This article has been moved to its new, permanent home at THE INTP EXPERIENCE. See you there!**

File this Under "Spectacular"

This video is one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

Here's the setup. Apparently, there a few people out there who believe they have some kind of mystical kung fu powers, whereby they can smack you down and rain Holy Hell upon you without even making physical contact with your body. I don't know. Perhaps they twist around your Chi or something.

So, one of these "masters" decided to challenge a MMA fighter (mixed martial arts) to a bout. He even offered a reward of $5,000 if the guy could beat him. This video first shows him flexing his magical muscles on his students, then he proceeds to the fight, where he is quickly beaten senseless.

Here is my logical analysis. 1. By observing his body language and assuming that no person would knowingly throw away $5,000, get punched several times in the face, and suffer total humiliation voluntarily, I believe this guy really believed he had these powers. 2. By observing what appears to be extreme over-acting by his "students," and assuming that no actual blows are pummeling their bodies, I believe the students are knowingly faking their responses, perhaps in some sort of misguided respect towards their teacher or reluctance to disappoint him. 3. The teacher interpreted the reaction of the students as real, resulting in his confidence that any fighter would quickly suffer total defeat at his hands (or gesticulations).

Is this not the classic emperor-has-no-clothes situation?

How could this guy really believe his students' poor acting?

How could these students have knowingly set this guy up for such a spectacular fall?

Sometimes I wonder about our species. I really do.

Champion

to give anything for someone
how rare that is
a warrior
just
for you

Plugged

i keep reading
about the isolation
of social media
the dangers of disconnection
snipping the fleshy ties
but where was this amazing
network i apparently had
before these silvery electron ties
rose up and crushed
the rock and water tyranny
of distance and geography?

INTP

Have you ever heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? It’s a system, based on Jungian theory, for describing human personalities. In a nutshell, by using combinations of four traits, people can be sorted into one of 16 personality types. Surprisingly, when you find your type, it does a really good job in explaining and predicting how you interact with the world.

Not to bore you with tons of background, the four elements that make up Myers-Briggs are these traits: (1) introverting or extraverting, (2) sensing or intuiting, (3) thinking or feeling, and (4) judging or perceiving. Which you are depends on: (1) do you tend to get energy more from being with people (extraverting) or by being alone (introverting); (2) do you tend to understand the world with your five senses and live in the here and now (sensing) or do you tend to think about things inside your head and understand things through your own interpretations (intuiting); (3) do you tend to make decisions by thinking though a problem (thinking) or by deciding how you feel about it (feeling); and (4) do you prefer to live with the structure and order of having decisions made in advance (judging) or do you prefer to wait and observe and have your decisions depend on the situation as it unfolds (perceiving)? There are tests which hit these questions from all angles in order to sort you into your personality type.

So what am I? INTP. That means introverting, intuiting, thinking, perceiving. It is one of the four rational personality types.

As a rational, I have a drive to pour information into my brain and find structures, predictable patterns, and logical connections in the world. I believe that things can be understood by careful examination and analysis. That is my comfort zone. Rationals differ from the Guardians, who want to follow and maintain rules and traditions, the Artisans, who want to immerse in the present and experience life to the fullest, and the Idealists, who want harmony and eternal connections in the world.

INTP’s are also known as Architects. It is one of the more uncommon types, representing 1 – 2% of the population. (Yeah, Jason, we already knew you were weird.) Because of that, it’s not unusual for INTP’s to feel out of step with the people around them. (Again, not news Jason. Move on.)

One of the extra challenges for INTP’s is the difficult, chaotic, and often scary relationship they have with feelings. Does that surprise you about me? Maybe, maybe not. Since understanding feelings is the last skill to develop in INTP’s, they can go through a kind of emotion renaissance as they age and acquire all those hard life lessons. In the 5+ years that The Clarity of Night has existed, you have been privy to a sort of overdrive time in my development, when I have sought to drop a hand grenade in the pants of my emotions and blow them wide open. That way, I can dissect them and analyze them. I can reach a truce. It’s probably why my writing so often has an almost palpable emotional pulse. And why the emotions are rarely simple and one dimensional. In my writing, I’ve eagerly stuffed myself in the skin of others and really tried to embrace what others feel. Of course, if I’m being brutally honest (which I just reminded myself to be), I probably often take a piece of what I’m actually feeling and build scenes where I can condense it and turn the volume way up. It is a window into me trying to come to grips with its nature and meaning.

Sometimes rationals are likened to Mr. Spock from Star Trek--unemotional, distant, and clothed in logic. The truth is totally the opposite. Emotion is tantalizing, wondrous, and deliciously dangerous. The problem is that emotion feels too big, too hot to handle, and it scares the crap out of us. Logic is where we flee to when the emotions threaten to sweep us away.

Maybe my writing has become almost like emotional impressionism. What I portray is purer, more exaggerated, and more interpretive than real life. Maybe I want to be Monet. Give me the essence of moods and environments. The color and shapes. That’s where I want to begin. Details are just a few brush strokes on the surface. Not the purpose of the portraits I try to paint.

Or more likely, I probably just get the paints all over my shirt. But as an INTP, I’ll always be driven to keep grappling with the questions.

Hors D'Oeuvres for the Brain #2

How Much are You Prepared to Give?

offers that are such a pleasure to bestow
transactions of smiles
have no real cost, you know
if you are really prepared to give
it leaves you lessened
a sacrifice of strength to let another grow

Hors D'Oeuvres for the Brain #1

Time Heals

Time doesn’t heal wounds. It coats them in bad cement and turns them into kitschy lawn ornaments.

Personal Architecture (While Eating in a Restaurant)

my cousin said long ago
what a horrible experience it was
to eat lunch in a restaurant alone
I used to be self-conscious about it
when I did
but dared myself to walk in and sit down anyway
now, in this crowded restaurant
in Chinatown
I realize it doesn't bother me at all
the noise and conversations fall like rain
while I remain comfortably dry
maybe I've had enough years
and reminders
to accept my place in the world

(TO ALL: May the new year bring you seen and unforeseen changes for the better. Happy 2011!!)

The Turning

With this year dimming to yet another close, do you know what direction you're traveling? Do you know what you stand for?

Trans-Actions

do something for one
and gain a task
do it again
if they should ask
but do a something
for yourself
if you want the joy to last

Time Flies (in Retrospect)

"That's a long way off."

"Yes."

"I can't even think that far ahead."

"Understandable."

"In fact, it's almost not worth thinking about right now."

"I hear you, but I'll make you a little promise. It'll be here before you know it. In a flash. And when you look back, there will just be a bunch of living in between."

Purple Flowers

"You don't have to tell me this, you know. Really."

"So I went there the next summer. Not quite a year after. The forest was so green. The air smelled so rich. There were birds flitting around in the treetops. But I don't know what kind they were. A pretty spot. I can't deny that."

"Are you okay?"

"He liked to go there. I guess I understand why. But he never talked about it. What he was doing there. I always thought it was an escape. To recharge, you know? To unwind. Meditate. He talked so little about things. I thought he had his own way of dealing with things bothering him. He had his own way for a lot of things."

"That's where...."

"I wish they found him sooner. He had to have considered that, didn't he? It was almost as if he didn't want to be found. There's animals up there. Insects. They were pretty hard on him. I only saw one of the pictures the police took. And only for one second. I still can't get it out of my head. I know once you're dead, it doesn't matter. But still."

"I'm sorry."

"So I was standing there thinking about what he did, and I saw this little purple flower growing on the exact same spot. Weird, you know? Like it was marking the place where he pulled the trigger. And I thought about how he was part of that flower. Part of his nutrients, for lack of better term. And those animals who couldn't help but scavenge from him. It's their nature. He was in their bones, running around again."

"I think he would have liked that."

"But who am I to complain, really? People have a right to live. Or not. I'm not the one who gets to decide. But do you know what does stick with me? How so many things can never, never be undone. I think about that a lot. We don't realize it the way we should. We think things will smooth out, go back, get better, just fix themselves again. But they don't. What's done is done."

"True. We can only do what we can do. But sometimes that's a lot."

"So all these things happen to us, and we limp along, the walking wounded, getting a little worse with each passing day. If you get to the end with just a couple of fractures and a case of arthritis, you're lucky as hell. I, on the other hand, probably have a leg blown off and a prosthetic arm by now."

"But no hikes to the forest, right?"

"Nope. I guess I don't mind hopping and flopping around for a while longer."

Irreplaceable

With each day eroding
The power to have in our hands
Only ghosts will grin to receive us
If we sit through our moments to stand

Never Surrender

Just a little uncertainty
Can bring you down
And nobody wants to know you now
And nobody wants to show you how
So if you're lost and on your own
You can never surrender
--Corey Hart, Never Surrender

"Surrender is the answer."

"I don't think so."

"When you kneel down to things greater than you, you know true peace."

"And why does kneeling equate with peace?"

"It's the letting go. The rest. The not-having-to-fight. You can't do it on your own. You must know that. You need someone to carry you in the end. And you can only get picked up when you surrender."

"So, when you surrender, the burdens go away."

"Yes!"

"I see. But don't you lose a lot more than burdens when you kneel?"

"Nothing that you need. Nothing that you miss."

"That's only true if your pain is so huge that it totally eclipses everything else."

"What else? There's only confusion and self-destruction. Who needs those? When you let go of those, you have only rest."

"But having full responsibility for your life is not just a burden. You have the power to create your own world, your own reality."

"You don't create reality."

"We create reality all the time. Computers are real, aren't they? They have fundamentally changed how we experience life."

"I suppose."

"But it can be hard to follow your heart. You can get all sorts of push-back."

"Push-back?"

"Sure. It might come from others. They may judge you. They may try to knock you down for following your own path instead of theirs. Or, it might come from yourself. You might harbor traumas, self-hatred. Or you might deeply doubt yourself."

"You don't know the power of surrender."

"No, I think I do. It's the perfect state of the known. The certain. The predictable. But the price is control over your own life."

"You're just being stubborn. I understand. You're not ready to let go."

"Or, maybe you're frustrated that I'm not doing what you're telling me to do. Or that you want me to stop doing what's bad for you."

"Some day you'll choose to be truly happy. You'll choose to accept your place in the world."

"I sincerely hope I don't."

"But you will."

"I'm a person who needs to make my place in the world. Not accept the one handed to me. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it really hurts. But I wouldn't have it any other way."

(*For you personality type aficionados out there, this is an imagined conversation between a rational and a guardian, two types which can be polar opposites.)

Comments Link

Father and Son

If they were right, I'd agree
But it's them they know, not me
There's a way, and I know
I have to go away
I know I have to go
     --Cat Stevens, Father and Son

I understand things through their opposites. Their failures.

It's the way I'm drawn to songs about failed love and pain, because they show me what love should never do. Cat Stevens' song is like that. Not about love, but something more basic, more fundamental.

Two personalities clashing. One full of life--wanting to experience, wanting to rush forward.

Young.

One wanting to spare pain, mistakes, and straying badly off course.

Old.

And they've passed each other in the middle. The father is not the mentor. Not a wealth of understanding, guidance, and acceptance. The son is not the re-ignition of passion. Not the recaptured lust for life.

I understand this failure, this absence. I understand what I've missed. I understand why certain movies have been hitting me so hard lately.

I understand things through their opposites. But I'd like to ask Cat Stevens a question, in case he knows.

Where do you go after you've gone away?

Overheard (Almost)

"He's the kind of friend you want to have. Whatever you need, he's there."

"Okay."

"Not many people realize there's a big difference between intending to do something for someone, and actually doing it."

"Yep. Amen."

"No, really. I'm serious. He's one of those people who does it, every single time."

Nodding with a wobble to the left. "Cool." Then to the right. "I guess."

Seventy Miles Per Hour

    traveling 70 miles per hour

    you could rush to here

    or maybe here

...and it might not matter

    or you could wrap yourself in this single spot

...and it might not matter either

Beer Philosophers #3

"Dude. You know how they say that if you die a martyr, you get 72 virgins in the afterlife?"

"Maybe. Yeah. Kind of like a suicide bomber retirement plan, I guess."

"I wish I lived over there when they announced that. When they made the big announcement."

"Why?"

"Think about it! 72 virgins!"

"That's a lot of virgins."

"You can say that again."

"Wouldn't it be enough to have, say, three?"

"That's not the point. Where do you think they get all those virgins? 72 and 72 and 72. Adds up pretty fast."

"Definitely."

"Does anybody ever consider, though, that paradise for these martyrs does double duty as hell for virgins?"

"Huh.... Excellent point."

"Think about it. Getting rounded up with 71 other girls and being assigned to some scrubby asshole. Talk about adding insult to injury."

"As if dying a virgin wasn't bad enough."

"So, imagine the day they figure all this out and make the big announcement. At some point, the virgins must figure out what's going to happen to them if they die before doing the deed."

"Yeah. Bad day."

"So, if you're one of them. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that being a virgin is serious liability."

"And?"

"Well, I'm thinking I need to jump on anything that moves."

"Now you're seeing my logic."

"Wow. Millions of them."

"Yep. Millions."

"Actually, you'd be doing them a great service. You'd be saving them from hell."

"Beautiful, I know."

(Contemplating awhile.)

"Dude, why are you shaking your head? You're a genius."

"In all seriousness, the world is a fucked up place."

"I'll drink to that."