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[NT] Alienation

schism

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Jul 3, 2008
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3
MBTI Type
ENTJ
How you deal with other people that perceive you as weirder? Because you are open mind and express your ideas free.
 

Ilah

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Jul 13, 2008
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274
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INTJ
I tend to keep a lot of my more unusual things private.

Sometimes I will test the waters by telling people something mildly unusual and seeing what kind of reaction I get. If it is negative, I don't reveal more to them. If the reaction is neutral or postive I may reveal more.

Sometimes you can guess if they might react negatively before they say anything. Example: I would not try to talk to a fundamentalist Christian about past life experiences.

People who are eccentric tend to be more open minded about other people's excentric traits.

My personal experience is that people who listen to indie music or look different (dress, hair, make up) from the norm tend to be more open to eccentric people.

You can also search around for people who share the same eccentric traits/interests as you in person or on-line. You probably won't find a perfect match but you might find a person or group that shares one or two things with you.

Ilah
 

The Ü™

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May 26, 2007
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11,910
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INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I usually fantasize about getting even with them, even though I fear the incompetence of following through. Testing out different scenarios internally and brainstorming ways to stab the abuser. Some of them are fanciful, some of them would be realistic if I was given the situation to enact upon it. I'm a big believer in emotional torture -- it hurts more than anything.

I tend to get into this whole wishful thinking process where one day, I meet up with the former abuser and discover that he's changed into a nicer person. The tables will turn after I make him/her feel secure and then stab them in the back (figuratively) to remind them of the torture they put me through.

It's a rather poetic strategy, if you ask me. I just wish this opportunity will present itself one day.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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May 11, 2007
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7,263
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5w4
How you deal with other people that perceive you as weirder? Because you are open mind and express your ideas free.

I challenge them on what it means to be weird and tell them that we're all weird.
 

01011010

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Jun 22, 2008
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INxJ
I don't deal with them. I simply don't care what others think of me, unless it's work. In that case, I never say anything that would make them think I'm unconventional.
 

Mole

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Mar 20, 2008
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20,284
I was recently a witness in a murder trial. And during my cross-examination I told the jury that the environment in which the murder was committed was alienating.

And next day the Canberra Times reported my comment on alienation.
 

substitute

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May 27, 2007
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I be even more like it, until eventually they get used to it or at least, realize that it's not a threat and nothing to fear. I just carry on being myself and over a period people learn I'm trustworthy and decent, and then they start to imitate me. Honestly they do...

I started working in this community centre once where people were all wary of me to start with because of my 'eccentricity' as they put it (oh wow I never got called that before! not!), but like I say, I just ignored their apprehension and carried on being myself. Within a couple of months they were all using my catchphrases and someone said to me at one point "It's more fun when you're in the office, when you're not around it's really dull but when you come in somehow even though everyone starts playing and lightening up, more work gets done."

I think the worst thing is to start dampening yourself down and getting all precious about "oooh I'm not gonna share my ideas with this audience full of ingrates!" like some actor having a queenie strop. Just carry on. If you know you're good and your ideas are good and your work is good, all that leaves is for it to be proven, which it naturally will over time, and when that's proven, they'll have to accept you even despite themselves.

And seeing that you're not afraid to be a bit different, and that you get on better for it, gives other people the courage to show more of themselves. It just makes everything better, IMO. Cos what you have, typically, is a lot of people who all have their own individual personalities, style, sense of humour and knowledge, but everyone hides it for fear that the others won't like it. I walk into some rooms and feel almost knocked over by the stench of so much inhibition. I'm damn well not gonna inhibit myself - my weirdness, as they put it, is all part of my creative process. I gotta extravert it or I go downhill on all levels, I can't think straight. And like I say, once I start doing it, everyone else follows suit in their own way and the atmosphere just gets way better.

It's a pity though, that they only do it when I'm around. I've never stuck around a place long enough really, to get to the point where they do it by themselves now. I'd love that to happen.

edit - oh and Edahn's right, pretty much everyone's weird. Usually the people who put on the biggest front of normality are the ones with the biggest skeletons in their closets. The number of 'desperate housewives' in this world, with their picket fences and perfect lawns and 'nice' lives, who have secret eccentricities that they're terrified of anyone finding out is amazing. And you know, being known as the oddball means that people come to you and trust you with things they wouldn't confide in anyone else. Because they know you wouldn't judge them. Which is funny, cos if someone else told them their secret, you can bet they'd judge them right there, rather than sympathize and reciprocate the confidence. People project their own potential opinions onto others, so if they're judgemental, they fear other people will be. So the judgemental ones are usually the ones with the most hidden stuff.

In the past that's been a 'way in' for me with some of my most vocal detractors!! lol The reason they resented me so much was because they envied my openness and wished they had the courage to be themselves rather than hide it all behind a mask of respectability. When I've found out their skeletons and not judged them, and talked with them about it, they've ended up feeling closer to me than their own family, and have become the most loyal friends.

In fact that's what I'd define as normality: having no less weird shit than anyone else, but being good at hiding it and looking respectable. They still shit on the toilet like anyone else, dammit, and their shit ain't made of gold. You just gotta remember that what looks like them hating your ideas and hating you is 99% of the time them envying your courage. Hack through that over time, get to know them and win their trust, make them feel brave enough to open up a bit and free themselves from their inhibition and they'll become powerful supporters and patrons!
 

Xander

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Apr 24, 2007
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Hell I get called wierd by wierdos!!

You know what... I don't explain it at all. I don't even try. I don't really react to them. If they think me wierd then fine, to me it's obvious that what I say or do is grounded in evidence and experience and such but to them they just don't see it as I do or can't be bothered to try... As far as I'm concerned, I'm okay with being weird. I consider it far better to be branded as weird and different than as just another one in the flock... Who want's to be a sheep anyway?

Of course, if you're caught short or are irritable, there's always the NT standard... 'They're just stupid' :devil:
 

substitute

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Xander, there is the thing to be considered though, of British culture being generally more hospitable to the eccentric than American, to my knowledge...
 

Xander

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Xander, there is the thing to be considered though, of British culture being generally more hospitable to the eccentric than American, to my knowledge...
George Bush... President....hello...How accomodating does someone have to be?
 

disregard

mrs
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Apr 23, 2007
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It makes me feel stronger, in a nutshell.. but it is more.. It is a gift.. The gift of resistance.. The gift of struggle..

I appreciate it.
 

substitute

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George Bush... President....hello...How accomodating does someone have to be?

Haha, I did think actually after I wrote that, that the phrase "Only in America" over this side of the Atlantic generally refers to crazy/fucked up/ridiculous stuff and the kooks that produce it over there... which is kinda weird isn't it? I mean it's like on the one hand you have the America in the media, which increasingly as people spend less time out in the real world and more time being told what the real world is like through the media, becomes the America people think is real and/or want to imitate and be part of - which is conservative, with a high regard for normality and respectability, conformity, looking and sounding right, that general 'everyone looks the fucking same' ness that you get when looking at the celebrities in Hello! magazine and the rigid classification of kids in schools (freaks, jocks, nerds, ne'er shall they mix)... resulting in a paradoxical increase in intolerance for and denial of the unbelievable amount of diversity that actually exists all around them in their own towns.

It's like, as the horizons of each individual become smaller and smaller until eventually they live in a world of house-car-office-mall-car-house, people become invested in denying or contesting anything that threatens to expose the shallowness of that existence. Like nobody wants to face the idea that there's more to life than being told what you want to be and what you need to buy to be it, earning the money to buy it and buying it.

But I don't know why I'm saying all of this is America, when it's all over the world - particularly in English speaking countries where there's no language barrier to stem the flow of third-rate product-placement-rich media...


/rant
 

Ilah

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George Bush... President....hello...How accomodating does someone have to be?

Yes, but Americans make fun of him a lot, and not just for his political choices.

Ilah
 

Uytuun

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Yes, but Americans make fun of him a lot, and not just for his political choices.

He does kind of look like a monkey.
 

Xander

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Yes, but Americans make fun of him a lot, and not just for his political choices.

Ilah
Sorry, you voted him in first. Either you guys are REALLY tolerant, or you've got a masochistic sense of humour.
 

schism

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Innocent or not, we are all witness of the corporative world. "They say jump and you say how high".
 

substitute

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Innocent or not, we are all witness of the corporative world. "They say jump and you say how high".

Bollocks to that. I've raked in $40k a year from the government for the last 10 years for bringing up two kids and teaching them anti-establishment ideals and skills that will enable them to prosper outside of the corporate world, and I've obtained everything I possibly could direct from local sources and cottage industry, or made it myself from commandeered resources. What clothes I haven't woven and stitched myself have been second hand. I give as little as possible to the government or the corporate world. I give as much as possible to the people I see in need every day. That's the way I channel resources to where they should be, since I'm in a golden position to obtain large amounts of government money without any obligation to give anything back.

Fuck the man, maaan.
 

SensEye

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May 10, 2007
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How you deal with other people that perceive you as weirder? Because you are open mind and express your ideas free.
If I detect people thinking I'm weird, I often subtly segue into the following question:

"Imagine", I say, "if there was a class of people that was in some way superior to everybody else. I'm not saying there are such people, but just imagine there is. In your opinion, would those people be identical to everybody else, or different somehow?" Then I smile knowingly.

Unfortunately, 98% of the people I say this to miss the point.
 
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