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Not living in the here and now?

Jeffster

veteran attention whore
Joined
Jun 7, 2008
Messages
6,743
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ESFP
Enneagram
7w6
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sx
Being that PP's post and mine were similar: I don't think you quite get it, just as I don't quite get what it is to be a Sensor. You can read about it, but you can't know.

Part of the reason I can come up with something to say so quickly is because my mind is everywhere at once.

But the act of making a post is still in the now though, ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh? :huh: Right?
 

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
MBTI Type
INTP
But the act of making a post is still in the now though, ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh? :huh: Right?

Yeah, but I'm thinking of 12 other things as I'm doing it.

Also, it's official. Kelric and I now share a brain.
 

Jeffster

veteran attention whore
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Yeah, but I'm thinking of 12 other things as I'm doing it.

Well, hey, I'm thinking of four things as I reply to you right now.



ANN & NANCY'S BOOBS! Heee heee :doh: :D
 

The_Liquid_Laser

Glowy Goopy Goodness
Joined
Jul 11, 2007
Messages
3,376
MBTI Type
ENTP
It's like lacking the ability to focus on the thing that is right there in front of you. I don't know how many times I've sat down to study, with a strong desire to stay on task and get my work completed in an hour, then an hour goes by and I just realized I spent the whole time in fantasy land even though I tried my hardest to aviod it.

My wife loves it when I get tired, because then my Ti can no longer hold my Ne in check. Then I just start spouting out random silliness as I think of it. Also whenever I get a song stuck in my head I'm not just thinking of the song. I'm either changing the words or creating my own music video (or both).

For me it's like living in two worlds at once. My body does stuff in one world, while my mind thinks about things in the other (or sometimes my mind jumps from one world to the other and back). For example the other day a bunch of us actuaries were in a meeting discussing how to give thorough answers to test questions. All of these were technical insurance questions. Meanwhile my mind is thinking "What if a person had Tourette's syndrome, but it only affected them while they write?" Then I imagined myself answering the test questions while I had Tourette's of the hand, interspersing technical jargon with uncontrollable swearing. I tried my hardest not to sit there laughing to myself, because we were on conference call with about 30-40 people. After the meeting several people were commenting how boring the meeting was, while I was thinking how much I enjoyed myself. :)
 

Quinlan

Intriguing....
Joined
Apr 6, 2008
Messages
3,004
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ISFP
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9w1
It's like lacking the ability to focus on the thing that is right there in front of you. I don't know how many times I've sat down to study, with a strong desire to stay on task and get my work completed in an hour, then an hour goes by and I just realized I spent the whole time in fantasy land even though I tried my hardest to aviod it.

I'm the exact opposite, I get so focused on the thing I'm doing everything else around me seems to disappear. Pisses other people right off when they want to talk to me.
 

ladypinkington

Rubber Nipple Salesperson
Joined
Jul 19, 2007
Messages
1,126
MBTI Type
INFJ
My wife loves it when I get tired, because then my Ti can no longer hold my Ne in check. Then I just start spouting out random silliness as I think of it. Also whenever I get a song stuck in my head I'm not just thinking of the song. I'm either changing the words or creating my own music video (or both).

For me it's like living in two worlds at once. My body does stuff in one world, while my mind thinks about things in the other (or sometimes my mind jumps from one world to the other and back). For example the other day a bunch of us actuaries were in a meeting discussing how to give thorough answers to test questions. All of these were technical insurance questions. Meanwhile my mind is thinking "What if a person had Tourette's syndrome, but it only affected them while they write?" Then I imagined myself answering the test questions while I had Tourette's of the hand, interspersing technical jargon with uncontrollable swearing. I tried my hardest not to sit there laughing to myself, because we were on conference call with about 30-40 people. After the meeting several people were commenting how boring the meeting was, while I was thinking how much I enjoyed myself.


I haven't heard your mumbo jumbo in a while- I miss it very much.
In regards to your thought bubbles during your meeting, "That's gold Jerry that's gold!" I love your mind!

For my birthday maybe you could miss out a couple days of sleep and just walk me through your mind for a few hours. :)
LOL
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
5,903
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ENTJ
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7w8
Uhm, threads like this make me think I am a sensor...
 

LucrativeSid

New member
Joined
Oct 20, 2007
Messages
837
If I'm thinking or dreaming, I'm doing it in the present moment. It's an active process. It's not like I'm a time traveler. Are you failing to be in the present whenever you're thinking? Or whenever you're thinking of something that doesn't directly relate to your immediate physical surroundings?

Is being in the here and now like finding a state of flow? I do that a lot, but I probably spend more time thinking about possibilities. (But I can experience a flow-like state whether I'm thinking or doing. It can happen internally and externally.) If I'm writing, are we saying that I am being present because I'm typing, or that I'm in the future because I'm thinking of what to type?

The only time I think "not being in the here and now" would be a bad thing is when the person either needlessly obsesses over the past or thinks a lot about the future but never does anything at all. (Dreaming or thinking of the past or future builds ideas and beliefs in your brain, so you are actually kind of accomplishing something.)
 

Domino

ENFJ In Chains
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11,429
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If I were boobs, Jeffster would think of me a lot. :D
 

Tallulah

Emerging
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
6,009
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INTP
It's like lacking the ability to focus on the thing that is right there in front of you. I don't know how many times I've sat down to study, with a strong desire to stay on task and get my work completed in an hour, then an hour goes by and I just realized I spent the whole time in fantasy land even though I tried my hardest to aviod it.

YES. Exactly. If I sit down to do a project that should take me 30 minutes, it'll probably take 3 hours, because I'll be procrastinating, daydreaming, checking message boards, playing an arcade game, etc, etc.

For me it's like living in two worlds at once. My body does stuff in one world, while my mind thinks about things in the other (or sometimes my mind jumps from one world to the other and back). For example the other day a bunch of us actuaries were in a meeting discussing how to give thorough answers to test questions. All of these were technical insurance questions. Meanwhile my mind is thinking "What if a person had Tourette's syndrome, but it only affected them while they write?" Then I imagined myself answering the test questions while I had Tourette's of the hand, interspersing technical jargon with uncontrollable swearing. I tried my hardest not to sit there laughing to myself, because we were on conference call with about 30-40 people. After the meeting several people were commenting how boring the meeting was, while I was thinking how much I enjoyed myself. :)

This cracked me up SO MUCH.

If I were boobs, Jeffster would think of me a lot. :D

Truer words, my friend.
 

edcoaching

New member
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Jun 30, 2008
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752
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INFJ
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7
I also don't really trust my view of reality. For example, friends put together my outfits and tell me what jewelry to buy. I actually make some jewelry, but my husband (ESTP) always knows just what will improve the designs--I get his input before finalizing anything. I have to call on coping skills like studying the ^^$*& maps when using rental cars out of town or it could dangerous fast. I've run laps around the same nature reserve trail for 23 years and can still come to my senses and think Where am I? I don't recognize this as my mind drifts back to whatever fantasy/problem/idea it's contemplating. And unless I count out loud, I cannot get the right number of cups of flour into the bread machine.
 

"?"

New member
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May 2, 2007
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1,167
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TiSe
Thanks for your contribution, and I think you're right. This probably explains why I was more of a "dreamer" as a kid, as that Se hadn't developed fully. I still felt much more "here and now" than my older brother, but I was definitely more oblivious to things around me than I am now when I was focused on my own creations rather than real-life obligations.
I'm not sure that you are participating in this thread but I think that what you are alluding to is my thoughts on usage of the Ni at our teritiary level.
 

Firelie

Magical
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The only time I feel like I'm living in the present is when I'm drawing and focused on the person/object I'm drawing.
 

Jeffster

veteran attention whore
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I'm not sure that you are participating in this thread but I think that what you are alluding to is my thoughts on usage of the Ni at our teritiary level.

Yeah, I kinda get that. And as I got older, more often "Si" takes the place that "Ni" used to when I was a kid, because I fall back on memories of life experiences a lot more than daydreams about possibilities.

When I took that processes test, the results went Fi-Se-Si-Fe, with Ni pushed back to 5th or 6th place.
 
Joined
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Me. Too.


....


It only just occurred to me as I read your post this is odd.

me three. But I don't want to be an INTJ. :steam:

But the act of making a post is still in the now though, ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh? :huh: Right?
You're thinking too literally. ;) We live in the here and now but we usually don't enjoy it, so we think or talk about things unrelated or only tangentially related to the task at hand. edit: I just realized that could apply to sensors too..So we think or talk about things that could never possibly be directly related to any task at hand. Because that wouldn't be enjoyable.
 

Jeffster

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.So we think or talk about things that could never possibly be directly related to any task at hand. Because that wouldn't be enjoyable.

Wow.....wow...I feel like Stoned Homer when Flanders read him the entire Bible. :cheese:
 

Anja

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May 2, 2008
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2,967
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For at least half of my life I was always one step ahead of what I was doing at the moment. It used to be a real irritation to my husband who'd say things like, "Anja we just got home from shopping, a film, a meal out and now you want to go swimming. What is this?" But I finally decided that the one psychedelic catch-phrase the hippies got right was "Be here now" and started to practice mindfullness.

But not without a few mis-steps. The first was pursuing vipasana meditation which nearly drove me to madness with the empty-mind concept always out of reach.

As I age each moment does become less dispensible, more precious, so that has helped. Something I have difficulty with, though, is shifting gears. I don't know if that has an age component to it or whether it's a facet of mindfulness. But whatever I am doing absorbs my complete attention and it seems difficult for me to transition to a new activity. That had never been an issue before I started practicing living in the moment.
 
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