1. What would make an NTJ who is so completely sure of something (and is decidedly pleased by it as well) completely stop one day and decide to "give up" or "stop" this shenanigan because it "just wasn't right"? (There's going to have to be some backround for this one, isn't there?)
There are several conceivable possibilities whereby this may occur. First, an NT might wake up one day and have an epiphany. As such, the NT's worldview is refreshed and the NT may see things from a new and higher level of abstraction. With this new perspective, the NT may reason that what he or she was doing was silly, useless, misplaced energy, or a poor allocation of time and resources. Accordingly, they decide to stop the activity. Second, the sudden urge to stop something could be grounded in a particular emotion. Or, an emotion could lead to a particular type of rationalization to support the emotion. In the former case, the person may one day become disgusted by the activity or realize they hate it and that they were ignoring their true feelings for a long time. In the latter case, perhaps the activity was looked down upon by a certain person or social group injuring the NT's pride causing them to dislike it or begin to rationalize why it should be stopped. This became clear to me when a friend at school constantly invented reasons to reinforce his emotions. For years this person was talking about med school and the MCAT and so forth. Like me, he was at the library until 3am some nights (most nights) working hard. Then, when the time came to apply he applied to a Master's in Physio, and I asked about med school and the MCAT and he went into a long siloquy about how uninterested he was in being a doctor, that he found having to touch patients disgusting, and so forth. Moreover, I found the very vivid and emotionally-charged words he was using particularly interesting, as he'd completely turned 180 and reconstructed reality so that this job was dirty, filthy, over-rated, and uninteresting. The reality deep down is that he wasn't going to get accepted and so he invented a pretext for why it's something he wasn't interested in. But rather than saying something for what it is, the truth is shrouded in all this pretense to make him feel better about himself. Well, I looked at him with irony both because he didn't follow through with the execution of his plan nor even try it out of fear of failure. Instead, he opted for something smaller, easier to manage, and more conquerable, like a person who upon losing a game of table tennis searches for a timid and weak opponent they can beat only to reaffirm a superficial sense of strength. Anyhow, emotions (fear) prevented this person from executing his plan and exporing the parameters of his true potential. And vanity required that he invent a pretext and paint doctors as bogeymen. The reality, however, is that he's just a drop in the ocean--people do this all the time.
2. These all involve emotional expression of some sort by the way. Except this one, as it isn't a question.
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3. This one goes out to all NT's: Do you suddenly and inexplicably get so attatched to something that despite your best efforts to try and "logic yourself out of this shit" you're still WAY excited or attatched?
Sure. I agree with Thomas Hobbes when he says that reason is a slave to passion. A simple way to prove his thesis is to imagine a person being starved of food and drink. Eventually, appetite (the desire for food and drink) will motivate a person to get food and water. Likewise, reason is used instrumentally to satisfy our desires. For example, one may want a Porsche...reason can be used as a calculus to attain this. As a result, more often than not people don't "logic themselves out of their desires, but support their desires by logic." Logic itself is very loose. Take conditional logic for example (if p, then q). 'If I want to be a lawyer, then I will have to go to law school. If I want to go to law school, I will need a high GPA and LSAT score. If I want a high GPA and LSAT score, then....' The point is that logic can help one get from A to B but usually cannot answer is B desirable? It is if B is necessary to get to C, but is C desirable? To make it clear, medicine is instrumental inasfar as it can allow one to live longer, but is living longer better? That's a philosophical question and highly contingent on what a person desires and how they define the good life. (For example, some rock stars of the booming
50s may have been of the opinion that it's better to live fast and die young. Thus, is it every fully possible to remain independent of desire? Probably not. Take a stock trader for example. The stock trader might reason that emotions stifle judgment when it comes to decisions on when to trade stock. In this sense, the disciplined broker may suppress his emotions in favor of dispassionate contemplation, but the desire for wealth and affluence is itself a sublimation of emotion. Indeed, a perfect rational would starve to death while questioning the what ifs, it is through appetite and desire that the intellect is informed to go searching for food. Yet, people can be more or less rational. For instance, in The Brothers Karamozov, Dimitry (the sensual) is driven by appetite and passion, and is often broke from spending all of his money. This is an example of someone who is driven very much by short-term excitation and stimulation and in effect does things that harm him in the long-run. Similarly, one could imagine a chipmunk that licks up a puddle of heroine and dies shortly after. It is a short-run increase in sensation, but is antithetical to long-run happiness. Conversely, one can overcome cravings, resent, hostility, envy, most desires, and takes a highly dispassionate approach to life. In short, the answer to your question will depend on how the the activity relates to short-term versus long-term goals.
4. Have you ever "lost" your emotions? (No snarky comments about not having them in the first place because goddamnit I feel for things, just not everything.)
Not lost, but possibly buried or set alseep. I regard most of my emotions as sleeping pitbulls and better alseep then awake both for myself and others. That said, there are F-types who I come across now and then who will try to awaken the pitbull. Still, because I don't address emotions directly they will come out in my tone of voice at times. So for instance, it is not uncommon for one to call me aggressive. Or the other day I was in the library and this girl asked me something and thought I was attacking her. It made me smile, but I do come off as forceful sometimes. Now, certain emotions I understand very well, such as greed and disgust. But jealousy and envy are non-existent for me. I am not jealous or envious of anyone, and wouldn't like to be anyone except myself. However, some emotions have been sleeping for so long that if they make their way out they are very out of tune with environment and what is generally socially accepted. Furthermore, when my best friend died I was the only one (of my friends and family who gave speechs) who didn't cry during my speech. Not only this, but I delivered my speech exactly how I'd rehersed it in my mind--even right down to emphasizing certain words with certain added emotional/tonal emphasis. Yes, I delivered the speech mechanically though with elegance and precise diction like a politician or lobbyist. No, I didn't lose my emotions but I used self-discipline to put them on hold.
5. When you've lost someone very close to you (they didn't die, and this is one of those rare people you call good friends and trust with many, many things) and basically the situation calls for either droping all emotinoal connections and/or "starting over", do you still feel hopeful for what was lost? In one of the only things you can say you care about, is it relatively easy to give up?
I don't know what I feel. Hence, why I do not trust emotions. Let someone who is more in touch with their emotions answer this one.