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[ENTP] The Limits of Awesomeness (alternatively, Common ENTP Issues)

Qre:us

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I have no idea if these are common ENTP issues, these are common to me, and another ENTP (Aramis) with whom I had this discussion with regarding some of these issues. Feel free to share your thoughts, vehement disagreements and/or platitudes...

1. Procrastination

Why it happens?

Some reasonings:

- Because there are so many interesting things to do and see that limiting oneself to one thing of focus, makes it feel as if there's other amazing and amusing stuff I may be missing out on.

- Needing to tip the stimulation-threshold. Biggest motivation: chaos. As such, if a situation is not inherently chaotic to begin with, it doesn't seem important enough to put in effort to tackle...just yet. So, letting it go unattended, letting the situation turn into a mountain from a molehill makes it feel like, finally, NOW it's a challenge. Let's get to work. Do or die. Can I make it? Can I? Can I? Ohhh....let's see. And, then, slipping right through the crack at the last minute, heart palpitating, adrenaline rushing, coming out the other side, triumphant. It's a high, and thus, part of an addictive cycle.

- Leading with Ne: it gathers, and gathers and still finds more and more stuff that could be relevant, so it gathers some more. The gathering is really a process of amalgamating the BIG PICTURE. As the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - in being able to understand the whole - the parts seem negligible for understanding (as long as the BIG PICTURE has sunk in, if I zoom in on a part, Ti can easily justify why that part is included in the BIG PICTURE). And, understanding the BIG PICTURE often feels like an all or nothing thing. In that, there's no slow dawning of understanding. It just *clicks* that one time. So again, time, and slowly, methodically learning a material seems unnecessary and not worth the effort, if my mind doesn't naturally work like that in the first place.

2. Detesting ROUTINE

It makes me want to pull my hair out, because it feels claustrophobic and like Ne can't breathe, like it's deliberately being suffocated, chained and caged. As I said to Aramis, who agreed, "I detest that I detest routine." It's a vicious cycle. :(

3. FUNK != FUN

At the root of it, again, is motivation. I can go into bouts of funkdom, where the world just feels "bleh". This I consider the lows that Ne hits, where it seemingly hits an imaginary brick wall of its own making, and refuses to move beyond it. And, I often find myself seeing me from a 3rd perspective, an outsider watching myself, often frustrated and disgusted with my own self, and my inability to move out of the funk. I often admire and resent my friends' ability at self-discipline in this regard, forcing themselves to do it because it HAS to get done.

However, no amount of pep-talk, self ass-kicking, can motivate me into momentum. It's hedonistic in its nature, in that it has to "WANT" (as long as it is in the realm of HAVE TO, that shit isn't moving, it has to transfer to a WANT)......otherwise, an army could try, and I wouldn't move out of the funk. Something, some way of looking at the situation has to tickle the "want" aspect of my psyche, and then, the tenacious pitbull of focus will come out to get 'er done. Until then, though...........

4. My motto in life: E.F.F.O.R.T

Everything that I do or are propelled into action to do, usually boils down to, "Is it worth the effort?"

This is why, I may often find short-cuts to do something. When I was younger, I would shoot for the optimal, in that if 100% existed, it was either I make an effort because that 100% is mine, or I won't do it in the first place. However, after seeing that with effort, I can [answer found to my question of "Can I do it?"], that motivation also passed, and now it's more about figuring out the least amount of effort needed to not face any real consequences and still "make it".

5. Life Tarries not with yesterday

I have to make a conscious effort to self-reflect and focus on the past. While doing so, it feels quite frustrating because I get a feeling of brain-itch like it's annoying to look back, and it gets boring really, really fast, such that my concentration flies away. If a lesson is to be learned from something, I usually learn it when the magnitude of the consequence hits me, and after that, I don't really see a point of revisiting old memories as it seems like a revisionist's task, which fudges accuracy. And, at the end of the day, you can't do shit while wasting time thinking of "what could have been" [<- I find such thoughts quite annoying]. What it boils down to is, Either I did it, or I didn't, there's no "almost doing it".....move the fuck on already.

[however, if I am in the "funk" stage, this type of past-thinking is on repeat - I find that it's my way of self-flaggelation as I'm angry at myself for my funk.]

6. Including/considering input from others in the final decision-making process

I am very resistant to interference into perceived problems of mine's without asking for direct input. Juvenilely, this will prompt me to do the exact opposite of what the other person suggests or ignore them completely. And, one problem area of mine's is that, I might not opt for "talking it out" when it comes to a problem between myself and another, given that the issue, as perceived by me, has already been addressed between self and the other, at least a few times beforehand, without seeing any change in them [i.e., repeat of previous times]. Then, whatever decision I make, I do not give the other a fair chance to have a say [e.g., ending a relationship] - I will have reached my decision all by myself, and execute it to completion, as by then, "input" is too late. I am very resistant to making a decision, until I feel that the moment cannot go without a decision, and once that moment is reached, everything is shut out. I'm very stubborn in my decisiveness. Appealing to my emotions will be a very hard task, at that stage.

7. Arrogance/Annoyance

It's a cycle.

See this exchange for reference:

Which brings up another issue: people often cannot understand our sarcastic, self-mockery, and confuse it for arrogance.

True dat.

ETA: Actually that assumption of arrogance or conceit annoys me quite a lot.

YES! One character trait that really, really, really bothers the fuck out of me, is arrogance/pretentiousness. :steam:

If ever I am arrogant, it's because I'm consciously putting on that act - usually to make a point to someone who has annoyed me for some reason that I'd likely classify under "douchebag" or "righteous ignoramous".



8. One-upmanship/Competitiveness

9. Fleeting/Flightiness of perceived attention/affection for others

10. Inability to look at self from a 1st-person perspective

11. Do you mean what you say?

12. Apparent walking/talking contradictions

13. Feeling limited by limits



[more to come....]
 
Last edited:

Night

Boring old fossil
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2. Hilarity

3. Ready. Fire. Aim.
 

Qre:us

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3. Ready. Fire. Aim.

I see what you did there.


It's not completely untrue. :whistling:

***

[I will be adding to the OP, as Aramis and myself discussed some issues that we thought could be relevant to other ENTPs, and I have that whole chat convo copied. It's now going through it, and summarizing the stuff......wait for it....]
 

JAVO

.
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
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...Aramis and myself discussed some issues...
This collaboration is mildly unsettling. :ninja:

Extraverted intuition. (If you've got it, that's all I need to say. :cheese:)

Conquest of an idea inadvertently leading to conquest in real life.

Talk and action > thought (typical extravertism ;))
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

Guest
I found while I was driving that I strongly detest things ending, or arriving at a destination. It's an extreme take on the means rather than the end. It seems to cause me distress because this is the reason why I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere in life, or rather at this point in life, I'm sure something will force me to change.
 

yenom

Alexander the Terrible
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
1,755
procrastination
unrealistic ambitions and overoptimism
impulsiveness
lack of planning
risk taking to the point of self destructiveness
act first think later issues
overcombative
 

yenom

Alexander the Terrible
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
1,755
.

1. Procrastination

Why it happens?

Some reasonings:

- Because there are so many interesting things to do and see that limiting oneself to one thing of focus, makes it feel as if there's other amazing and amusing stuff I may be missing out on.

- Needing to tip the stimulation-threshold. Biggest motivation: chaos. As such, if a situation is not inherently chaotic to begin with, it doesn't seem important enough to put in effort to tackle...just yet. So, letting it go unattended, letting the situation turn into a mountain from a molehill makes it feel like, finally, NOW it's a challenge. Let's get to work. Do or die. Can I make it? Can I? Can I? Ohhh....let's see. And, then, slipping right through the crack at the last minute, heart palpitating, adrenaline rushing, coming out the other side, triumphant. It's a high, and thus, part of an addictive cycle.

- Leading with Ne: it gathers, and gathers and still finds more and more stuff that could be relevant, so it gathers some more. The gathering is really a process of amalgamating the BIG PICTURE. As the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - in being able to understand the whole - the parts seem negligible for understanding (as long as the BIG PICTURE has sunk in, if I zoom in on a part, Ti can easily justify why that part is included in the BIG PICTURE). And, understanding the BIG PICTURE often feels like an all or nothing thing. In that, there's no slow dawning of understanding. It just *clicks* that one time. So again, time, and slowly, methodically learning a material seems unnecessary and not worth the effort, if my mind doesn't naturally work like that in the first place.


The biggest issue is laziness and procrastination, but I kind of have a solution for that already.

The other being arrogance and pushing things to the limit.
Doing things without thinking about the consequences.
 

yenom

Alexander the Terrible
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Aug 3, 2008
Messages
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Si tard issues- not paying attention to details, ignoring problems unitl the last minute, being forgetful, losing stuff and forget where you put it, conflict with SJs etc. prone to forgetting things, absent mindedness

Te tard issues-not being organized, losing things, being irresponsible, fucking with authority figures, not working hard at job, being easily distracted,
being chaotic, not meeting deadlines, being overflexible

Fi/Fe tard issues -raping people in arguements, insensitive to other people's suffering, inflated ego issues, selfish and only see things in self perspecitve, inability to be considerate and care about other people, being blunt and overagrressive

J tard issues-unorganized, hates planning, acts first, plan later, being overspontaneous, laziness procrastination, being late, being impulsive, makes suicidal decisions, overreckless, etc
 

forzen

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Procrastination happens when ENTP used Ni as it is an opposing function, when an ENTP thinks to do something and they know the result... well it's not shiny so they loosed interest. Not to mention that experiences are categorizes so said ENTP sees alot of experiences that have common traits, and because Ne likes to play connect the dots, the ENTP would jump into conclusions that there is nothing to learn and that experience is probably not worth doing because it will probably be boring (minor details aside).
 

Salomé

meh
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You forgot: verbosity. ;)
I think your entire OP could be summarized thus:
Needing to tip the stimulation-threshold.

It wore me out just reading it.
I sometimes envy the energy and self-assuredness of my extroverted kin, but I'm happy to sacrifice that for the Zen of introversion.:)
 

ZPowers

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As proven by this thread's title, at least you guys have no issues with modesty.
 

Qre:us

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As proven by this thread's title, at least you guys have no issues with modesty.

Which brings up another issue: people often cannot understand our sarcastic, self-mockery, and confuse it for arrogance.

That's the punchline - does the audience buy it? (it helps weed out which audience would be boring and/or too clueless to interact with, in the long run)
 

mrcockburn

Aquaria
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dooode...

As proven by this thread's title, at least you guys have no issues with modesty.

If we don't promote ourselves, who will? The INTPs? :hi:
 

fill

"Everything in its place"
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You summed up my problems well.

Here's one of my half blessings, half curses:
Ne Inconsitency

This works well for creative tasks, troubleshooting, and "researching," but it kills me in social situations as I'll seem like a completely different person on different occasions and days. I tend to cycle around, say, five different "types" of Ne, usually determined by which I had just finished with. I wouldn't notice this if I never talked to certain people. For example, I may meet a group of people for the first time and they think I'm really clever, then another time seeing them I act very awkward and unaware of what's going on; for the third time seeing these people I'm back to clever, but maybe not the sort of humor I first approached them with. Finally, I'll see them again and be back to how I was the first time I met them.

Again, this is natural and awesome when it comes to tasks that don't involve social situations, and it may be solved by simply remembering the "type" of intuition I use with different people and flip the switches in my head to have a consistent behavior with them before they get weirded out. Also, I'd say people have also caught me in "the funk" as well, which I seem slow inattentive and uninterested in what's going on; this usually doesn't interest people.
 

capricorn009

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It is hard...even being an ENTJ...lol. My four main interests are computer
science, foreign languages, study of classic literature, and music/drama. I
am a mix of sociable and spontaneous, and pensive/nostalgic as if always
thinking all the time. I decided to focus on computer science and languages
as a career after some recent chains of events.
 

Kasper

Diabolical
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1. Procrastination

2. Detesting ROUTINE

3. FUNK != FUN

There with you 100% on those ones.


5. Life Tarries not with yesterday

I have to make a conscious effort to self-reflect and focus on the past. While doing so, it feels quite frustrating because I get a feeling of brain-itch like it's annoying to look back, and it gets boring really, really fast, such that my concentration flies away. If a lesson is to be learned from something, I usually learn it when the magnitude of the consequence hits me, and after that, I don't really see a point of revisiting old memories as it seems like a revisionist's task, which fudges accuracy. And, at the end of the day, you can't do shit while wasting time thinking of "what could have been" [<- I find such thoughts quite annoying]. What it boils down to is, Either I did it, or I didn't, there's no "almost doing it".....move the fuck on already.

I'm not entirely on par with that one though. It depends on how important it is to revise old memories, it's not uncommon for me, especially the younger me, to miss some the lessons to come out of a situation so I will self-reflect and return to get that information. Self-reflection is a big part of my thoughts.

That said I do live in the future most of the time, and I don't have a desire to hold onto old memories so generally don't try.


3. Ready. Fire. Aim.

Indeed!


Which brings up another issue: people often cannot understand our sarcastic, self-mockery, and confuse it for arrogance.

True dat.

ETA: Actually that assumption of arrogance or conceit annoys me quite a lot.
 

Qre:us

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I'm not entirely on par with that one though. It depends on how important it is to revise old memories, it's not uncommon for me, especially the younger me, to miss some the lessons to come out of a situation so I will self-reflect and return to get that information. Self-reflection is a big part of my thoughts.

That said I do live in the future most of the time, and I don't have a desire to hold onto old memories so generally don't try.

With age, it has become more effortless, but I have had to consciously make myself self-reflect. Otherwise, visiting the past/self-reflection, inevitably took on the form of brooding (like the "funk" I alluded to previously).

I self-reflect in other ways, but those have a more detached quality to them. For example, I often will go back to stuff that I've recently experienced and question why I did the actions I did, why the other players did what they did, etc.

***

Which reminds me of another issue I have:

I am still trying to consciously work on figuring out how I can "self-reflect" about what I want. I have a hard time assigning any kind of "want" in long term ways. It's always context-dependent. Hard to explain, but, I can't know what I truly would want unless the situation happens! I can't play with the concept of "want" at a theoretical level. Weird. So yeah, I've been trying to work on figuring that out - which I believe will help me with seeing some long-term goals, and working towards their fruition.

*sigh*

All I really want is the freedom to not really want for anything, so I am freed up to just experience. Just be. Just search, find, wonder, and see what's around the next bend. Beyond that, really, what is "want"?

I'm ambivalent about whether I want a long-term relationship, whether I want marriage, whether I may want kids, what exactly I see of my career path 10-20 years down the line, where I see myself settling, what kind of lifestyle I see for myself, etc, etc.....all so hazy when I try to answer.

ETA: Actually that assumption of arrogance or conceit annoys me quite a lot.

YES! One character trait that really, really, really bothers the fuck out of me, is arrogance/pretentiousness. :steam:

If ever I am arrogant, it's because I'm consciously putting on that act - usually to make a point to someone who has annoyed me for some reason that I'd likely classify under "douchebag" or "righteous ignoramous".
 

Kasper

Diabolical
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I struggle to determine long term goals because I can see it as limiting options by making a decision, there are too many variables for that, what does work for me however is visualising where I want to be and how I want to feel about it. Literally looking at images to get a frame on the feeling I want can help.

Like with my job for example, it's not the specific position, or specific company, it's the things that go with it. I know I want freedom, flexibility, responsibility, leadership opportunity and so on. Getting a grasp on things like that, and knowing the kind of satisfaction I want from a job can give me enough to know my end goal, then comes the fun of finding something that fits it.
 

Fluxkom

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I am still trying to consciously work on figuring out how I can "self-reflect" about what I want. I have a hard time assigning any kind of "want" in long term ways. It's always context-dependent. Hard to explain, but, I can't know what I truly would want unless the situation happens! I can't play with the concept of "want" at a theoretical level. Weird. So yeah, I've been trying to work on figuring that out - which I believe will help me with seeing some long-term goals, and working towards their fruition.

This is THE issue for me as well. I just don't know what I want from life. It seems like every possibility is viable and interesting. So I just cruise through life letting things happen as they happen and steering away from events if they don't look pleasent. But it's all very uncoordinated.
 
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