[MBTI General] The tale of a Badger, a Peacock, a lost Turkey and a focused Pigeon.

[Dr Mobius]

Harken close would be readers to this most unusual of tales, started as can be expected in the most unusual of places: because the placement of this tale is as important as its characters. The setting was of course The Swamp of The Shifting Sands where firm footing can disappear in an instant and the unexpected must always be expected; a favourite resting spot of the Badger who always managed to find a stable place to rest in such a turbulent area. The Peacock on the other hand positively loathed the swamp, no matter how hard it tried to keep its wings clean it always ended up with mud everywhere. As for the Turkey well no one was entirely sure what the turkey liked or disliked including the turkey itself, but as long as it tasted delicious no one was overly concerned. As for the Pigeon she wasn’t convinced that the swamp was real because if she closed her eyes it ceased to exist.

One day as the Badger was resting in the swamp the peacock landed next to him. The Peacock all a flutter asked the Badger “how on earth do you manage to find stable ground in this disgusting place?” To which the Badger replied: “Well the problem lies in how you are flying, it is just terrible to watch. Your wings don’t stretch out enough, your flap rate is completely irregular and worst of all your foot work is clumsy.”

The Peacock was most offended by the words of the Badger after all what did it know about flying? It decided the best course of action was a snarky reply. “I imagine such advice comes from your frequent successful attempts at flight.”

The Badger blushed at this comment and replied defensively: “Have you stopped and considered whether my advice is worth listening to?”

The Peacock at this point was becoming quite aggravated expecting the Badger to apologise for the rude remarks and decides that open honest communication is the way forward. The Peacock tells the Badger. “I think it is important to note that I have been flying for some seasons without so much as a ruffled feather, and perhaps it is not me with the problem, but you and some sort of issue with peacocks.”

The Badger at those words dug its claws into the swampy ground and drew itself up replying: “It most certainly is not my problem, you are simply being unreasonable and not looking at the facts and what’s more you are trying to push me around trying to make this about me!”

At this point in the story a passing Pigeon saw the argument taking place and out of curiosity decided to see what the problem was. Of course this move was met with some scepticism, the pigeon having a most unfortunate reputation in the bird world for being a rather odd bunch. I personally think it has to do with the fact that their brain is essentially a magnet, and who would trust someone with a magnet for a brain? You might as well call it a robot and have done with it.

The Pigeon landed in between the Badger and the Peacock mostly due to its horrible sense of personal space, and quickly said to the other two: “I have come to help you, you may of course thank me later; what is the problem?” The Peacock and the Badger both gave their side of the story to the Pigeon. The Pigeon having heard both sides of the story replies: “As a bird that is also able to easily find stable ground in this swamp, I believe that I have a deep understanding of the situation. Peacock your flying technique could most certainly do with some improvement and Badger as someone who cannot fly your advice is of limited benefit.”

The Pigeon unfortunately had created a very awkward silence; he had managed to offend both the Peacock and the Badger with his complete lack of tact and somewhat presumptuous entrance. Luckily, well considering latter events perhaps unluckily is the better word a Turkey jumped onto the scene. Turkeys are in the bird world something of an enigma, partially because if you ask them that is what they will tell you, and also their habit of pecking out eyes on whim.

The Turkey believing that its instincts have told it all it needs to know about the situation says “I feel that because I am a bird that can barely fly I am qualified to mitigate this argument about whether flying is better than life on the ground.”

The shock of the Turkey’s statement was palpable throughout the group; the Badger and Peacock because the Turkey had managed to get the wrong end of the stick. The Pigeon on the other hand had become obsessed with the Turkey at first sight some would call it love struck, I personally believe that the turkey had at some point swallowed a piece of iron and was probably playing havoc with the magnet brain.

The Turkey proceeded mistaking the astonished silence for silent applause. “Walking on the ground requires feet, while flying requires wings.” the Turkey said importantly.

The Badger and the Peacock had recovered enough to start regarding the Turkey with the kind of stares that would freeze magma. The Pigeon had started to peck at the Turkey’s feet because well to be completely honest I have absolutely no idea.

The Turkey completely oblivious to the current atmosphere continued in a pompous tone “I believe the solution is for Badger to learn how to fly and for Peacock to learn how to run, I believe the solution is to create a combination of them both I shall call it frunlying.”

This apparently broke the trance that the Pigeon was under it cried out “That has to be the single most idiotic idea I have ever heard!”

The Turkey glanced down in surprise apparently having only just noticed the pigeon, shrugged and proceeded to try out frunyling running around the swamp in a sort of bizarre run with the occasional jump.

The Pigeon having watched the Turkey for a few minutes decided that the problem wasn’t the Turkey but the perspective he had of the Turkey, he found a soft place to dig and proceeded to put his head in the hole to better hear the awful racked the Turkey was making.

The Peacock having spent the last half an hour bemused decided that being dignified and offended was the way to go, and took one last look at the Badger slammed its wings down with enough force to shatter windows and break doors and flick and awful lot of mud onto the Badger disappearing into the sky.
The Badger took one look at the Peacock flying into the distance shrugged and proceeded to find its favourite place to sleep a cosy little swamp log.

 

[skylights]

What?

 

[Dr Mobius]

What?

Fair enough, I was wondering whether I should put an explanation or not . I’m going to assume the question is twofold; what is it? And what is it doing here? I’ll answer it in reverse order, it’s here as my attempt to break out of my cocoon, I spend a lot of time reading forums, but I never really interact. So I decided to take some of my observations of the forum and put it together in a creative way (in my quite spasticated all or nothing social approach.). As for what it is, well it’s an allegorical story the four characters are representative of both a common theme and perspective, that has a very cyclical nature in this particular sub forum. If you want me to explain what it is all about I can if you would like? Don’t feel obliged to though I’m quite content to let it rest as is.

 

[skylights]

I would be interested to hear, yes, thank you.

 

[hazelsees]

The Turkey is ENFP
The Peacock is ENFJ
The Badger is INFP
and the Pigeon is INFJ?

(I just randomly gave each type an animal--not suggesting anything about any of the animals that would elevate or glorify another type over another.)

and this is how you, Trollogo, see the interactions that go on here at the NF forum?

 

[Dr Mobius]

I would be interested to hear, yes, thank you.

I suppose the easiest way to organise this is in a general essay format. So I’ll start with the a general overview of the original idea, then the major characters the Badger and Peacock, then the minor characters the Turkey and the Pigeon, followed by a summation.

The original idea for a story was to distil a common type dynamic to its most common variables, I chose the INFP and INFJ bash each other dynamic partly because it cycles through this forum so often and also as a nod to the cyclical nature of human thinking (history repeating itself, the wheels turn but things remain the same.) Which when you reduce the size from civilisations to a sub forum of dozens of active members also increases the speed at which events cycle through.

The next part was the main characters the Badger (INFP) and Peacock (INFJ). Now the INFP character had to be land based one, because the place where the badger dwelt was going to be a figurate Fi land a place where only those with innate knowledge have firm footing. I chose a Badger because they are both resilient and more importantly seem to be very self-contained creatures, which happily plod along until they feel threatened.

The INFJ’s are Peacocks, firstly because they needed to fly in opposition to the ground dwelling Badger, secondly the bird needed to be a believably awkward flyer, thirdly I cannot be the only one to notice a habit of being a bit flamboyant from INFJ’s, particularly the enneagram 4’s. And lastly the peacock is a well-known and much loved bird (It’s the national bird of India) for good reason.

The minor characters the Turkey and Pigeon respectively are ENFP and INTJ, now when I first started to write this they were essentially comic relief, a homage to when I would often find threads unrelated suddenly becoming about that particular star crossed love affair. But well that felt hollow and wasteful so I decided to use it to caricature the caricature of ENFP’s.

This was more about a personal pet peeve, as someone who knows quite a few ENFP’s of both genders I found the general fluffy consensus of them to be strange. Mainly because it is not a word I would use to describe the ones I know personally. At first I thought that maybe I had misunderstood the perspective…… but then I noticed a habit of ENFP’s across several forums changing their listed type, lower casing the e or putting a x in its place or simple changing to INFP’s in what appeared to be a move to be taken seriously. While I understand the reasoning I do think it is a pity, so I decided to use the caricature of ENFP’s and turn it on its head make the Turkey flaky and awkward and in your face and well a Turkey. And then I gave the Turkey a possible solution to the problem, and I dressed it up so the other characters would ignore it on pride alone, I mean frunlying. But if the other characters could have looked past their own preconceptions they may have found common ground.

So I was left with the Pigeon (INTJ), what was I supposed to do with it? In the end I let it act like a teenage INTJ which are a dime a dozen on typology forums. Anticlimactic I admit but taking pot shots at INTJ’s is quite fun and I thought that the pigeon hole reference in regards to the ENFP was at least semi relevant.

So in conclusion it was some observations about a particular dynamic which I made into a story, and then I posted it

The Turkey is ENFP
The Peacock is ENFJ
The Badger is INFP
and the Pigeon is INFJ?

(I just randomly gave each type an animal--not suggesting anything about any of the animals that would elevate or glorify another type over another.)

A 50/50 guess rate

and this is how you, Trollogo, see the interactions that go on here at the NF forum?

No this is how I see a particular cyclical dynamic, if I was to write about this sub forum I suspect it would more resemble a novella then it would a short story.

 

[hazelsees]

Very clever, Trollogo.
So...do you want to discuss your short story...or leave it at your explanation?

 

[Dr Mobius]

Very clever, Trollogo.
So...do you want to discuss your short story...or leave it at your explanation?

I am content either way, if you have some questions then feel free to ask.