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[NF] Intensity

FunnyDigestion

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All my life I've had a fascination with intensity. I can't really be satisfied unless things get to the point of threshhold, even if only for a fleeting moment. It made me very weird very quickly, weirder than most people ever become as a little kid roaming around the world of kids.

Do you really have to go through hell on earth to get anywhere good-- & repeatedly? That's what I tend to do, but as a belief, I don't really agree with it.

Maybe comfort isn't in the opposite direction from knowledge.

What direction??? Where are we, what am I talking about anyway... but that's the intensity coming back in.

The past few years I've been thinking about the things regular people say, picking apart the substance of small-scale communication, pleasantries & things like "How are you?" The meaning is very hidden in these things, the meaning isn't in the words so much as the fact that when you say them it's like throwing a bright colorful stream of yarn at someone across a grassy ground, hitting them upside the head with a soft, pleasurable impact.. rather satisfying.
 

Lily flower

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I love intensity, too. We have also had to go through a lot to get to good places. I wish we could find an easier way, but I don't know if there is one.
 

FunnyDigestion

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I love intensity, too. We have also had to go through a lot to get to good places. I wish we could find an easier way, but I don't know if there is one.

Yeah, I remember reading once that for an infant, the experience of being born is so traumatic that it's immediately repressed from memory... it makes you think about how important pain is to being alive... hmmm. I guess that's also depressing in a way. Dunno why I'm in such an introspective mood today. :)
 

Bamboozle

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Sounds interesting, [MENTION=13370]FunnyDigestion[/MENTION]. What do you really mean by 'intensity'? It's just that I'm coming at it, having thought a lot in the past week about the Enneagram instincts—particularly the sexual instinct. So what do you mean? You speak of thresholds and pain but you don't seem to mean pain exclusively. Connection to an experience?
 

FunnyDigestion

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Sounds interesting, [MENTION=13370]FunnyDigestion[/MENTION]. What do you really mean by 'intensity'? It's just that I'm coming at it, having thought a lot in the past week about the Enneagram instincts—particularly the sexual instinct. So what do you mean? You speak of thresholds and pain but you don't seem to mean pain exclusively. Connection to an experience?

I guess I just mean the point where everything you know becomes irrelevant, because you're in something you've never experienced before. Like in slasher horror movies, the most intense parts are when the murder's happening-- everything gets really insane & anything can happen.
 

BAJ

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I guess I just mean the point where everything you know becomes irrelevant, because you're in something you've never experienced before. Like in slasher horror movies, the most intense parts are when the murder's happening-- everything gets really insane & anything can happen.


I guess my life has been intense at times.

There is something I call the "existential doorway". When you really realize that you could die because your life doesn't matter...once you really reach that point, then you realize those things which upset you also don't matter. Then there is sort of a release.

Thus, I used to languish in depression for long periods of time, and I still do sometimes. There's a lot of stuff. Yet, if it gets really bad, then I try to intensify the feeling by examining everything sad in my whole life. I try to imagine everything horrible and depression worthy, and I stack it all up on top. I try to feel everything at once. That is, I try to intensify the feeling.

This is less of an intellectual thing. That is, I can't just intellectually say, "Hey dude, it ain't nothing." I have to intensify it and feel it.

But now I know the release is there, so I try to intensify things.

I guess you could say I used to drown. Now I get in the same muck, but I swim instead.
 

CuriousFeeling

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I'm kind of an intense personality in general, so I am attracted to intensity. Not graphic violence or roughness or anything, but I quite enjoy aesthetic, musical, intellectual, and romantic intensity.
 

sulfit

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you are probably sx/so or sx/sp in enneagram instinctual stackings, those are the ones that are preoccupied with intense experiences :)
 

FunnyDigestion

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you are probably sx/so or sx/sp in enneagram instinctual stackings, those are the ones that are preoccupied with intense experiences :)

Yeah that's what I am. sometimes i feel like an ENFP because I'm so driven by connection & sexual feelings. But this thread was mainly to prompt others to discuss.

Do you guys care about intensity? What is intense to you? etc
 

CuriousFeeling

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Yeah that's what I am. sometimes i feel like an ENFP because I'm so driven by connection & sexual feelings. But this thread was mainly to prompt others to discuss.

Do you guys care about intensity? What is intense to you? etc

I like intensity in moderation, even though I enjoy it. I'm unsure how to put into words just what I define is intense in general, but I can offer examples of things that are intense to me. For instance, I do quite enjoy intense passion... especially passionate displays of love for instance, but I like the passion to be something that I have to search for and unlock, something to tap into. I also like intensely intellectual things as well... deep thinking, the higher level of thinking a conversation goes for me, the more I feel like my mind (and my soul) is reaching ionization energy, to use a chemistry term. It's like I want to get my soul on fire ready to take off in a glow. More intellectual and emotional fireworks.

While I don't care for totally rough and violent music and art and films, I enjoy music and art that is intense emotionally in general. I have a couple examples of pieces I find particularly intense that I find is a bit thrilling to listen to:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-pqRMasPQ"]Shostakovich- Symphony No. 10- Allegro[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDHWEmMa-5k"]Tomita- Infernal Dance- Firebird Suite[/YOUTUBE]

The whole of this piece:
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZbMOq_Ge8"]Stravinsky- Rite of Spring part 1[/YOUTUBE]
 

Coriolis

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The past few years I've been thinking about the things regular people say, picking apart the substance of small-scale communication, pleasantries & things like "How are you?" The meaning is very hidden in these things, the meaning isn't in the words so much as the fact that when you say them it's like throwing a bright colorful stream of yarn at someone across a grassy ground, hitting them upside the head with a soft, pleasurable impact.. rather satisfying.
To me, this type of encounter is the antithesis of intensity - just superficial flutterings that are as annoying as a housefly buzzing around me while I am trying to do something. The intensity I seek is in my own actions and interactions, and is related to the focus and concentration (concentratedness?) of the experience. It involves my being able to engage my whole self in the experience, whatever that may be.
 

mmhmm

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i like intensity. but i don't know why i'm attracted to intensity.
i wonder if it's because i'm impatient so i like high dosages
at once. or perhaps because i'm always 'somewhere else'
and i think i need a higher dosage to tether me in the present
moment? or maybe because i'm always winging it, and the
more i have to wing it with is better? or maybe a combination
of some sort.
 
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