Predictable Emotions (and other Random Thoughts)

[Iriohm]

Along the way, some people will try to tell you that there are logical ways to predict emotional situations. I.E. That someone who feels like they have no friends will simply walk up one day and ask to be friends, rather than resorting to beating you up to make themselves feel better. This never, ever happens.

Indeed. It never happens, or happens very rarely. You see it in movies all the time, and once you think about it, it actually does make sense. You may be relatively logical, but it's hard maintaining that logic if you've suffered a severe wrong, and it's much, much harder if severe wrong is all you've known.

But no one thinks that. Everyone expects that the bully is cruel, not that their merely reflecting the cruelty of others. Everyone expects that the antagonist is evil, not that they genuinely believe they're in the right.

In short, everyone needs something to feel angry at without also feeling guilty. Why is that? Why do so many people teach that you can predict emotions logically?

And then, there are the INFPs. INFPs seem to me to be innately innocent. They envision an ideal world, and act according to there rather than here. Everyone is redeemable, everyone is good inside, some people just get lost along the way.
The problem is that excessive innocence is something that simultaneously attracts me and aggravates me. I can't help feeling like that creepy uncle when around such people, even if I'm there to protect them (which I usually am).
Then their are the INFPs that've been "broken into". They alternate naivete with cynicism to varying degrees, and usually come off as a more balanced person because of it; an idealistic vision that has somehow survived contact with the harsh reality of life. That is the ideal, I believe, and it's something I strive for.

Have any of you played Baldur's Gate II? Do any of you remember Aerie? That. Heartbreaking, but irritating, which inspires guilt, which makes it even more irritating. It's irritates me.

Also, I recently saw a movie that ended the following way (not going to mention names): the villain turns out to be a twisted good guy, sacrificing millions to save billions, turning the world from impending holocaust into a shiny new utopia. One good guy accepts things, sad that so many had to die, but essentially over it (especially considering the result). The other good guy is...very angry. He yells, and screams, and tries to attack the "bad" guy for killing all those people.

That, and stories in which the good guys win, but it's almost an empty victory, because you realize that the bad guy was in the right: evil in the short term, but good in the long term. The most effective way to uniting others is to unite them against a common enemy. Stagnation invites decay, while death breeds stronger life.

In conclusion, morality only takes you so far. There has to be a point where you can step back and say "this guy killed a ton of people, but created a paradise out of the mess, and is therefore excused from my revenge". Thoughts?

 

[Chunes]

In conclusion, morality only takes you so far. There has to be a point where you can step back and say "this guy killed a ton of people, but created a paradise out of the mess, and is therefore excused from my revenge".

Not to only focus on this statement, but it sums up the idea nicely as a means vs. end argument.

INFPs usually strongly favor good, upstanding means at potentially the risk of ineffective ends. "I didn't kill those people, but we still live in a hell because of it."

It may not even occur to these sorts of thinkers that they could be in the wrong.

This is simply one of those paradoxes inherently built into the universe to fascinate people like me to no end.

Morals are bunk, because the same action is good or bad depending on your perspective. Maybe even necessary and impossible. One thing I've learned on my journey—there is no black or white. None. Anywhere. Anytime. Whatsoever. People die due to these sorts of decisions all the time, and until you're involved in that sort of thing you just can't see..

 

[Iriohm]

Cynic vs. Idealist. That's happened. A lot.

What's creepy is when an INFP "goes bad". I'm not even sure I know what that looks like, but I imagine they'd be more...fallen, then evil, like that small humanoid figure dressed in black, standing next to this guy, not overtly a bad person, or even relatively dangerous, yet still, somehow, much worse than his/her counterpart.

I used a lot of commas there. Yep. I did. I also made up that entire situation.

It seems we're built to classify, separating everything into the "Us" pile or "Them" pile, which is sad.