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[INTP] noise-oholics, calm-ophobes

terrencemcb

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this post is too long but whatever, i hope people respond anyway.

in Lullaby, Palahniuk says something like, "Orwell had it backwards. Big brother isn't watching you. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of his hat. Keeping you distracted while your imagination withers."

I've found that my overall efficacy significantly improves when I altogether cease listening to music and watching movies. I've tried this mental diet before, and experienced cool results, but I've always reverted back to losing myself in mp3's and movie rentals. It's like they melt something important, like the precious tiny amount of 'J' I have in me. I space out, forget time, and lose any resolve for taking care of my responsibilities. For me, movies and music are very addictive.

I glanced at Lullaby in a bookstore and I liked what he said about people being afraid of their own thoughts, afraid of silence, so they "spray the air with someone else's mood".

That and the Orwell bit made me re-realize how disconnected I've become from my own mind, how i've been nearly catatonic, how i've favored distraction over any kind of measurable progress for the last 3 years, favored immediate gratification over everything.

This is the third time i've resolved to eradicate 'mind polution' from my life. I've been without music/movies for a full day now. I can think more clearly. I feel more inclined to take care of myself. And I was actually on time to work tonight. which is incredible. but of course I'm afraid my resolve won't last several more days. No major life strategy I've implemented has lasted more than a week. But I do have hope that i can make something stick, after learning that, on average, smokers quit 8 times before they can permanently resist.

My biggest motivator maybe is my father--he watches American Idol (which boggles my mind), he's always playing a dvd on his laptop while sorting papers, watching taped sitcoms on the kitchen tv while he does dishes, and has earphones on while hanging laundry, and it seems every week he gets STUPIDER AND STUPIDER. My motivation is not wanting to be like him. I resent him.

I know i can't go the rest of my life w/out seeing a movie or listening to an album, and i shouldn't want to since they're part of why we're here--to create. But i want 'me to own them', not the other way around.

My question to forum members is are any of you like me? Does music confuse you, make you listless, make you disappear into your mind. Does television/movies hypnotize you, pacify you, make you forget time, lose your drive? Make you generally fail at life, forget stuff, be chronically late? If you go on youtube or watch videos elsewhere on the internet do you also subsequently kiss several hours goodbye each time, just always wanting more, to absorb more, to know more? Do you come out of hypnosis spells from this stuff feeling totally pathetic because you couldn't/ didn't know when/how to stop? If so ...

I'd like to know: what tricks do you use to get you to do stuff right? to WANT to do right? How do you regulate your impulses? Do any of you have a central idea that governs you? Do you have a quest or some goal/ constant threatening reminder that keeps you in line? I know we each need to find our own way, but I'm still curious to know ...

How do you make yourself function correctly?
 

Xander

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Errm I must confess I've lost days in front of the TV and not noticed until it was too late. Now I kinda use such media as the timer itself. I'll set myself the target of completing whatever before this song plays out.

I deliberately play music when doing mindless chores as I find then my brain doesn't argue and slow me down doing the task at hand so you could say I improve with media, within that limited field of boring task and decent music.
 

cafe

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I Like to watch TV, listen to music, and watch movies, but I really don't very often. The kids are usually using the TV (which isn't conducive to anyone listening to music) and when I rent movies, I forget to return them, so I run up late fees. Sometimes when the kids are at school, I will think "Oh. Hey. It's quiet. I can listen to music." and I do. But most of the time I don't think of it, or I want the brief time of quiet that I can get.

TV/movies are too distracting for doing chores and music isn't distracting enough most of the time. I like spoken word, like a good interview or an audiobook. It's just distracting enough to keep me from running back to my computer. The computer, not the things you describe, is what distracts me from getting things done.

BTW, kudos to your dad. It sounds like he keeps pretty busy around the house doing stuff that, to be honest, really isn't a whole lot of fun. If TV, etc helps him to do it, more power to him.
 

Xander

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The computer, not the things you describe, are what distracts me from getting things done.
Oh hell yeah. I'd forgotten about this little pandora's box of timelessness. The whole "I'll just..." and then the days gone. Damn them!!

Computer games, the good ones, are all absorbing. I've ended up desperate for a smoke and a cup of coffee, tired, hungry and yet almost unable to stop playing. Mind you though too long without such a switch off period and I'm stressed anyhow. It's all in the balance.
 

kuranes

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Eno talks about the kind of music and entertainment that has this zombifying or over-stimulating effect. His quiet pieces are therefore designed to purposely serve as background "wallpaper" music that is conducive to thinking/meditation. Of course someone might say "Isn't silence better?" and maybe at times it is. Sometimes its good to mask the sound of the neighbors arguing or the dogs outside barking etc. with something.

There are also times when one wants to be a zombie - and just go straight into alpha wave.
 

terrencemcb

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BTW, kudos to your dad..

no. what i was driving at is: he's lost touch with himself and his mind is draining (while it putrefies) like cottage cheese sitting in the bath tub. he keeps himself busy and distracted with petty tasks, vacuous pop music, and fantasy in the form of dvd's, so he can remain oblivious most of the time to how awful his life really is. How his family dislikes him, how he's gotten fat, has credit card debt, and is so bad at his job that he has to use his inheritance to pay bills (and his parents aren't dead yet). He's addicted to noise; he's a noise-oholic like the thread name says--it's his opiate. That's what's happening to me--where the last 3 years of my life have gone. It's a bad thing and I want to break it off. so i posted because i was wondering if anyone had a trick to help them keep their own weaknesses in check they'd share to help a nice fellow intp, or, if you're not intp, a nice fellow mbti "enthusiast".

guy I used to work with at pizza hut said he wanted to compose music, and for a motivator he tacked up his paychecks to remind himself of the lousy wages he was making and where his life was being spent.

another guy there, who i was talking to about college and how I couldn't stand learning things i didn't need to know, said he coaxes himself to go through it by thinking of college like a game. and if he get's an A--he wins!(yay)

i know what i need--and that's greed. or indignation. or extreme love. some really intense emotion and the lame thing about being an intp is i'm removed from emotion at large. I'm complacent and don't want to get out of my family's house bad enough so long as i'm mostly left alone and can still see my girlfriend.

give someone a challenge and they become a survivor, henry miller said (paraphrase), safety is the surest killer of ambition. i should just blindly move out or something but logic stays me, saying it's unnecessary and risky and expensive. but should i delay progress & stagnate longer in the interest of saving a few hundred bones. or should i just unpause my life right now and take a chance. (and just musing there; i know no one else can make that decision for me.)
 

terrencemcb

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I deliberately play music when doing mindless chores as I find then my brain doesn't argue and slow me down doing the task at hand so you could say I improve with media, within that limited field of boring task and decent music.

my chores performance also improves w/ tunes. i love bonnie prince billy for doing dishes, or any other banal, perfunctory daily task. and pet shop boys (so happy!) for cleaning my room. and i like doing aerobics sometimes (gyrating) to 'public castration is a good idea' by swans.

but my problem is i have a really hard time deciding when enough is enough. the work cd is like a gateway drug--it leads to worse and excess. a cd played with good intentions for working eventually steals my attention when the task is over--it erodes my thoughts and compels me to surrender my attention so as to hear the lyrics and notice all my favorite little parts of the tracks. and then i want to hear another album that would feel like a good follow-up even though music time is over. and then i'm rearranging my cd book. &so on. till i've lost __ hour(s) :doh: I have this insatiable desire to endlessly test all my cd's and odd mp3's for replay value, to determine which ones are the best and which fall away, &that would be something like nailing down my personality and maybe revealing something important about my identity.

the most ludicrous challenge i've given myself, maybe, is to create the perfect mix cd--one i'd never get tired of, w/ harmonious variety, pacing, flow between tracks, etc. and that's near impossible. i'd be rather embarrassed to confess how many hours i've spent on that little project, if I could even recall how many.
 

Xander

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my chores performance also improves w/ tunes. i love bonnie prince billy for doing dishes, or any other banal, perfunctory daily task. and pet shop boys (so happy!) for cleaning my room. and i like doing aerobics sometimes (gyrating) to 'public castration is a good idea' by swans.

but my problem is i have a really hard time deciding when enough is enough. the work cd is like a gateway drug--it leads to worse and excess. a cd played with good intentions for working eventually steals my attention when the task is over--it erodes my thoughts and compels me to surrender my attention so as to hear the lyrics and notice all my favorite little parts of the tracks. and then i want to hear another album that would feel like a good follow-up even though music time is over. and then i'm rearranging my cd book. &so on. till i've lost __ hour(s) :doh: I have this insatiable desire to endlessly test all my cd's and odd mp3's for replay value, to determine which ones are the best and which fall away, &that would be something like nailing down my personality and maybe revealing something important about my identity.

the most ludicrous challenge i've given myself, maybe, is to create the perfect mix cd--one i'd never get tired of, w/ harmonious variety, pacing, flow between tracks, etc. and that's near impossible. i'd be rather embarrassed to confess how many hours i've spent on that little project, if I could even recall how many.
Yeah I get the same when absorbed in tinkering with my PC. It's just your Achilles heel. Personally I try to ensure that I plan a deadline and then stick to it. Well the P version of sticking to a deadline that is, +/- half the time alloted in addition ;)
 

terrencemcb

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quiet pieces are therefore designed to purposely serve as background "wallpaper" music that is conducive to thinking/meditation.

even arvo part's 'alina' i want off while i contemplate the online chess board, or write a research paper. for me, complete silence is crucial.

i kind of (sort of) like aphex twin's ambient stuff, but it's still a distraction if i'm making an important decision. and eno i just hate--everything down to his name
 

terrencemcb

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Personally I try to ensure that I plan a deadline and then stick to it. Well the P version of sticking to a deadline that is, +/- half the time alloted in addition ;)

yeah, i guess all us INTP's can really do is impose deadlines on ourselves. (i just promised myself another 10 minutes on this forum and that's it) I take advantage of immovable obligations, like being on time for work, by indulging just before i have to go in. so i have to cut it short or there'll be bad consequences.

what do you do when you "tinker w/ your pc"?
 

kuranes

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even arvo part's 'alina' i want off while i contemplate the online chess board, or write a research paper. for me, complete silence is crucial.

i kind of (sort of) like aphex twin's ambient stuff, but it's still a distraction if i'm making an important decision. and eno i just hate--everything down to his name

But can you get complete silence in your neighborhood ? I know that I often cannot. I can "tune out" distractions if they are a constant drone, but if they are intermittant and alternatively loud and not so loud, i cannot tune them out. Hence music or a "surf machine" etc.

I have just started buying Part.
 

Xander

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yeah, i take advantage of immovable obligations, like being on time for work, by indulging just before i have to go in. so i have to cut it short or there'll be bad consequences. what do you do when you "tinker w/ your pc"?
EVERYTHING :D

I'm known as the bloke who can fix em and crash em with equal fervour :devil:

Overclocking, software optimisation, new programs, benchmarks, rewiring, new cooling solutions (not solutions as in summint in water you understand)... all kinds of stuff. I build them, rebuild them and tinker around with them like a mechanic and his car. I'm like a Chav of the PC world :D
 

Wolf

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I don't own a TV. My mother brought a radio, which annoys me. My only outside world link is this laptop right here.

While I will watch a movie every now and then, I couldn't do it daily like my father.
 

cafe

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no. what i was driving at is: he's lost touch with himself and his mind is draining (while it putrefies) like cottage cheese sitting in the bath tub. he keeps himself busy and distracted with petty tasks, vacuous pop music, and fantasy in the form of dvd's, so he can remain oblivious most of the time to how awful his life really is. How his family dislikes him, how he's gotten fat, has credit card debt, and is so bad at his job that he has to use his inheritance to pay bills (and his parents aren't dead yet). He's addicted to noise; he's a noise-oholic like the thread name says--it's his opiate. That's what's happening to me--where the last 3 years of my life have gone. It's a bad thing and I want to break it off. so i posted because i was wondering if anyone had a trick to help them keep their own weaknesses in check they'd share to help a nice fellow intp, or, if you're not intp, a nice fellow mbti "enthusiast
What tools do you use to cope with the overwhelming mundanity of having a family to support and care for and the difficulty of making it in today's economic climate? Don't you find it difficult at all to work so many of your waking hours only to find yourself never getting ahead and your own children resenting you, despite doing the best you can and sacrificing your time, energy, and individuality for their comfort and well-being?
 

Xander

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Noise-oholic...mundanity...

:thinking:

Get yourself a hobby where you do stuff. Perhaps get one that requires arranging (ie getting mates together) so it has inbuilt limits.

It just seems like you've got excess brain power and instead of using it your tying it up in knots in music. Kinda like passive expression. Try active expression... ooo try singing or playing in a band. Seriously though alter the outlet slightly and it's effects can be radically different.
 

terrencemcb

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But can you get complete silence in your neighborhood ?

my neighborhood is ok. sometimes a kid likes to shoot hoops while i'm trying to fall asleep. but most of the unwelcome noise comes from my parents' complaining to each other, which carries into my room. For that i have a pair of silencer ear muffs. they don't block the noise but muffle it, which makes it easier to concentrate, and would be nicer were it not for their firm pressure on my skull, but for me they're better than ambient music i think--which sort of cancels the rest out but also adds a bit to the problem
 

terrencemcb

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What tools do you use to cope with the overwhelming mundanity of having a family to support and care for and the difficulty of making it in today's economic climate? Don't you find it difficult at all to work so many of your waking hours only to find yourself never getting ahead and your own children resenting you, despite doing the best you can and sacrificing your time, energy, and individuality for their comfort and well-being?

Hahaha i shouldn't argue this with a parent. of course it would be nice of me to help out more so they could have some time to get ahead. but they don't ask. and i feel it's fine if I don't help b/c if i did--i'd never see a return on that sacrifice of mine. My father would just watch more television. My mother would read more bible. Neither of them are firm enough (at least as of right now) to aspire to something greater than what they are now.

Fortunately i don't have family to support and won't until i'm sure i can do it with fiscal ease, and am pleased enough with my personal development that I can ignore it for the ensuing 20 years while I rear a child or childs.

the thing is with my father--he's not sacrificing anything for his family. he's only looking out for himself, being a fellow NT, and occasionally gives out of guilt. he has a house for himself, and so what if I, the son, keep living there--I doesn't consume very much. I even buy some of my own food. my dad makes lunch for himself, and what's mixing a little extra tuna salad for the others. how much effort does it take to include an extra can of tuna? or an extra egg in the omelette? let someone exist in a room that would otherwise be unused? He spends inordinate amounts of money on things he doesn't need. That's why we don't have any living room furniture. ----->
 

Xander

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most of the unwelcome noise comes from my parents' complaining to each other
I think therein lies the heart of your trouble. Perhaps if that were tackled then you wouldn't hide in your music so readily? Perhaps your father too?
 

terrencemcb

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.... and individuality for their comfort and well-being?
instead of furnishing a room that could bring the family together, he buys movies that occupy cardboard boxes, antique toys that sit in the basement. and a big screen tv for him to zone out in front of. And our family has never had a vacation. Not one.

I've asked him about his plans, ambitions, that sort, and he says he just want to try to improve at his current job. He doesn't use his degree in film. He's given up his dream of writing screenplays. He never reads. Never does anything constructive. He's a lost cause.

if he was any sort of a worthwhile human being he would level with me, recruit my help with chores so he can get off his ass and look for a job he can actually do. if he really wanted to get ahead he would be taking pains to do so. it's a matter of desire, and here--it just ain't is.
 

kuranes

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He's given up his dream of writing screenplays.

Have you tried sympathizing with him about this ? I realize that this wouldn't have a direct effect on the noise your OP spoke of, but it might serve as a sort of temporary "family gathering" in lieu of a special room for that purpose.
 
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