soigneerin
New member
- Joined
- May 5, 2017
- Messages
- 13
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
I've so far spent a week on researching MBTI and cognitive functions, and even though I seem to have hunches on who I am, I will keep it a secret and let you decide. The main reason I want to get a final answer on my type is so that I could confidently choose which aspects of my personality should I emphasize on when improving myself. I tend to be slightly obsessed with power, and power comes from proper actions and decisions, but those depend on knowledge and confidence. I hope you'll help me solve the knowledge and confidence part of my self-improvement chain here. Thanks in advance.
Sorry if this is long, but I tried to make it as functional as possible.
Information and reality: I tend to intake as much information that surrounds me as possible, but I never dig too deep into it. I’m more comfortable with seeing reality as a “web†of interconnected symbols, pictures, objects, smells, colors, shapes, etc. For me it does not matter much what arcane truths are hidden beneath the surface, what matters to me is whether my reality “web†has taken an authentic enough form to guide me in life, whether that reality “web†is fleshed-out and reliable enough to help me make the right decisions and understand every situation.
Knowledge: I tend to have rather strange interests for my age (politics, philosophy, psychology, military, religion), and due to this I tend to more often succeed in holding a conversation with people usually 20 years older than me, and quite enjoy it. Conversations within my age group either don’t start at all, or end awkwardly and abruptly, but conversations with older people can last up to 3-4 hours until I have physical pain in my throat.
Making up my mind: I tend to come to conclusions about many things on my own. It takes an enormous amount of time for me to arrive at a solid conclusion even in the simplest of topics, but once I do, I am ready to defend that conclusion to death, with a sword in one hand and a flag in the other. I cannot say that my conclusions are very empirical. I refer to solid facts and data at the start of the process, but I finalize it mostly based on what my intuition decides. I’m so dependent on intuition in my life, that I’ve come to consciously delegate to it decision almost on a daily basis. Even in things as stupid as deciding whether I should walk on the right or left side of the road, which is “safer†and “more efficient in the endâ€.
Since I tend to defend my conclusions so rigorously, that is why I don’t take “concluding†very lightly. My life depends on the “correct†conclusion, or what I perceive as correct. And in order for that conclusion to be “correctâ€, both my logic and my intuition need to agree with it. (after lengthy internal battles)
Debates: Once I have arrived at my “correct†conclusion, I maintain confidence in it based on how much effort I’ve put into it, and based on how much my “correct†answer defines me (even if I’m factually incorrect), because I don’t feel like betraying my intuition nor my logic, in favor of someone else’s. So ultimately, I enter debates with what seems to be logical empirical data, but as the debate progresses, I start caring less about the truth, and more about domination. I need to subject people to my reality, because I believe that if we all learn to live by my rules and my visions, we will become more efficient as a collective. The weird thing is, I actually always regret entering debates, but that happens only after the debate ended. When I realized I ended up hurting the person even though it wasn’t my intention, I was merely passionate about my theory or my conclusion.
Skills and competence: Whenever I talk to a “smart†person, and by “smart†I mean someone who’s eloquent and seems to possess knowledge on many subjects, if that person mentions a topic or fact which I have never heard of before, I will feel intimidated by it. If that person knows about more things than I know, it means I’m weaker, and I can’t stand being weak. As soon as I understand that the person is definitely more knowledgeable and “savvy†than me, I will become less active in the conversation and more worried about being perceived as stupid. My strategy is “the less I say the less likely will I reveal my ignorance to himâ€. Once our, now one-sided conversation ends, and we part ways - as soon as I will become alone - my first knee-jerk reaction will be to look up the topics he spoke of, and include that knowledge into my “reality webâ€, so that next time we speak, I will be at least half-prepared to take the “challenge†of the conversation.
My external image: Until around 18 years old I didn’t care much about what I was wearing. Both of my parents were however quite “elegant†and “smartâ€, not too many colors, with a heavy leaning towards classical styles, cold, smart, aristocratic. So even though I didn’t care about my attire, the clothes they bought me met mediocre standards. After 20 years old however, I dove head-deep into experimenting with different elegant styles that would fit me, I picked a strict pattern of colors (beige, black, white), and developed an “efficient†style which would make my clothes appropriate for a business meeting, a romantic date in the city, or a general stroll outside. The clothes I wear are mostly strict, but with a slight playful flare. I tend to spend a lot of money and time on buying the right item to wear (I spent 2 months searching for the right jacket last summer), but I don’t have a large selection of clothes, as I tend to wear the same ensembles.
My demands are: I don’t want to waste too much time deciding what to wear everyday, so I need something I can wear everyday, but at the same time it must look elegant and of good quality fabric. (most of my clothes tend to be quite expensive, but my overall wardrobe is extremely small)
Concentration and problem solving I: I cannot solve a problem unless I have a passion for it, or unless I’m challenged to it.
The passion part is simple - if I like the subject the problem relates to, I can spend endless time, sleepless nights, neglecting my health and my surroundings, just to solve it. As an example, I spent 2 years solving a problem related to one of my passions, and I thought about it everyday, although with different intensity.
The challenge part is as follows - I tend to avoid problems that don’t interest me, but if my competence is challenged (i.e. if my reputation is of that IT guy, and I need to maintain that reputation), then if someone approaches me with an IT-related problem, I will spend 12 hours sitting on the chair, not going to the bathroom, not eating, until that problem is solved. In this situation, I am less interested in finding the solution for solution’s sake, but more in finding the solution to prove my competence, that I live up to my name as “that IT guyâ€. Sometimes I spent weeks on such problems, and if I would fail to solve it, I would be completely devastated inside, and feel unworthy.
Problem solving II: Usually I prefer to solve problems in a comfortable environment with no stress nor rush. However I often end up finding myself in situations when I’m pressing my assignments too close to the deadline, or am in general just ambushed by responsibility out of nowhere. My first response is silent panic and loss, but my second response is always the same: I know I must solve the problem no matter what, and the best way to do it is to use efficient methods: tables, structures, charts, hierarchies. If the problem is related to a broken laptop, then I quickly brainstorm everything that could be potentially wrong with it, put all those “potential problems†into a list, sort the list into a hierarchy based either by likelihood, or by risk/danger criteria. And start trouble-shooting based on that list. If the task however isn’t to fix a broken machine, but to write an essay, I would take as many sources relevant to my topic, dump bits and pieces I find important into one very ugly salad, then pull that salad apart piece by piece into separate categories based on context or relevance, then put those categories into a hierarchy, and then by the time I am writing my first draft, all I really have to do is rephrase my hierarchical-salad, because the essay is kinda already done, without me actually “writing†it.
Final notes:
Fights: I was always the introverted silent guy in school, but I was never subject to bullying unlike other silent/withdrawn types. In junior school I actually enjoyed physical fights, because they allowed me to unleash my “creative†potential in making “cool kicks†and “cool punchesâ€. And internally I am even today quite excited about it, it’s very ecstatic to feel the freedom a fight provides. But despite my desire to experience violence, today when I am faced with a potential fight scenario, I usually don’t do it and try to resolve the situation peacefully. Mainly because I know as an adult I won’t be efficient in a fight due to lack of training, and lack of efficiency can cause problems. I might hurt myself unnecessarily, or hurt my opponent in a way that might land me in jail. So no matter how much I desire to “release†physically, I never do it due to fear of incompetence.
Socializing: closer to high-school and college years, people often referred to me as “the james-bond villainâ€, and my favorite phrase in one of my language classes was “I want to conquer the world.†I used to overuse that phrase to compensate for my lack of knowledge of the language, since I was kinda bored with that particular class (even though I am multilingual since childhood and constantly try to tackle new languages on my own)
People know that approaching me is difficult, because (1) I hate small-talk, as there simply isn’t anything more inefficient and time-wasteful than small-talk, and (2) if someone manages to drag me into a conversation, it will soon transform into a debate, and the debate will soon transform into a game of domination, with me desiring the throne against all odds.
The most recent response I get from people when we touch upon complicated subjects is this:
- “Okay, I know you’re studying this in university or otherwise have learned it elsewhere, I know the depth of your knowledge on this topic is greater than mine, and I frankly don’t want to talk about that with you. Can’t we just mingle and socialize?â€
To which the inner-voice inside my head responds:
- “But socializing for the sake of socializing, is a waste of time. It’s inefficient. Imagine how much of that time I could actually devote to improving myself. Instead of talking 2 hours to you about nothing, I could spend 2 hours learning French verb tenses.â€
I don’t respond this way out-loud however. My pronounced external response to him is just “Okay.†And then I withdraw from the conversation, and let him take the lead, after which things become awkward.
The reason I dislike small-talk is also the reason why I’ve recently stopped playing games or watching movies. If these things cannot improve me directly, then I am spending my life away on emptiness, and thinking of that horrifies me.
Emotions: I usually tend to stay somewhat in touch with my emotions, although I do have a love-hate relationship with them. I know they’re there, and in most cases I know why they behave the way they do, but more often I tend to either suppress them or pretend like the cause is something else. I don’t want to waste my time on them, because I find them useless in the long term.
Regarding other peoples’ emotions, since I have high standards of “emotional durability†for myself, I end up projecting those standards on others as well. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve unintentionally hurt a person. But I tend to understand their pain only post-factum. My friends aside, the greatest victim of my external coldness is my father. So far 3 times in my life, my insensitivity destroyed my relationship with him. Sometimes we didn’t talk for 2-3 years just because I refused to acknowledge that there is a logical reason for him to feel hurt.
Obsession with structures: When I was 14 years old, I started writing my own improvised “constitution†for a “secret society†I came up with for reasons unknown. I took great care and interest in writing what seemed like a very precise legal document, defining the groups, the responsibilities, the sanctions, the ideals, the functions, and interconnections between different members of that “secret societyâ€. In my late teens, during the global MMORPG craze, I spent 5 years managing a guild of 200 people, and later ascending to the position of an “advisor†that had to behave as a mediator between the gaming community and the server admins. My primary contribution in both of these positions was structuring and restructuring hierarchy and interconnections between different members, probably for efficiency purposes, although I could happily do it all day for no reason whatsoever. I was often nominated to different leadership positions, but preferred to give that position away to a more extroverted person, while staying close to him and influencing his decisions.
Sorry if this is long, but I tried to make it as functional as possible.
Information and reality: I tend to intake as much information that surrounds me as possible, but I never dig too deep into it. I’m more comfortable with seeing reality as a “web†of interconnected symbols, pictures, objects, smells, colors, shapes, etc. For me it does not matter much what arcane truths are hidden beneath the surface, what matters to me is whether my reality “web†has taken an authentic enough form to guide me in life, whether that reality “web†is fleshed-out and reliable enough to help me make the right decisions and understand every situation.
Knowledge: I tend to have rather strange interests for my age (politics, philosophy, psychology, military, religion), and due to this I tend to more often succeed in holding a conversation with people usually 20 years older than me, and quite enjoy it. Conversations within my age group either don’t start at all, or end awkwardly and abruptly, but conversations with older people can last up to 3-4 hours until I have physical pain in my throat.
Making up my mind: I tend to come to conclusions about many things on my own. It takes an enormous amount of time for me to arrive at a solid conclusion even in the simplest of topics, but once I do, I am ready to defend that conclusion to death, with a sword in one hand and a flag in the other. I cannot say that my conclusions are very empirical. I refer to solid facts and data at the start of the process, but I finalize it mostly based on what my intuition decides. I’m so dependent on intuition in my life, that I’ve come to consciously delegate to it decision almost on a daily basis. Even in things as stupid as deciding whether I should walk on the right or left side of the road, which is “safer†and “more efficient in the endâ€.
Since I tend to defend my conclusions so rigorously, that is why I don’t take “concluding†very lightly. My life depends on the “correct†conclusion, or what I perceive as correct. And in order for that conclusion to be “correctâ€, both my logic and my intuition need to agree with it. (after lengthy internal battles)
Debates: Once I have arrived at my “correct†conclusion, I maintain confidence in it based on how much effort I’ve put into it, and based on how much my “correct†answer defines me (even if I’m factually incorrect), because I don’t feel like betraying my intuition nor my logic, in favor of someone else’s. So ultimately, I enter debates with what seems to be logical empirical data, but as the debate progresses, I start caring less about the truth, and more about domination. I need to subject people to my reality, because I believe that if we all learn to live by my rules and my visions, we will become more efficient as a collective. The weird thing is, I actually always regret entering debates, but that happens only after the debate ended. When I realized I ended up hurting the person even though it wasn’t my intention, I was merely passionate about my theory or my conclusion.
Skills and competence: Whenever I talk to a “smart†person, and by “smart†I mean someone who’s eloquent and seems to possess knowledge on many subjects, if that person mentions a topic or fact which I have never heard of before, I will feel intimidated by it. If that person knows about more things than I know, it means I’m weaker, and I can’t stand being weak. As soon as I understand that the person is definitely more knowledgeable and “savvy†than me, I will become less active in the conversation and more worried about being perceived as stupid. My strategy is “the less I say the less likely will I reveal my ignorance to himâ€. Once our, now one-sided conversation ends, and we part ways - as soon as I will become alone - my first knee-jerk reaction will be to look up the topics he spoke of, and include that knowledge into my “reality webâ€, so that next time we speak, I will be at least half-prepared to take the “challenge†of the conversation.
My external image: Until around 18 years old I didn’t care much about what I was wearing. Both of my parents were however quite “elegant†and “smartâ€, not too many colors, with a heavy leaning towards classical styles, cold, smart, aristocratic. So even though I didn’t care about my attire, the clothes they bought me met mediocre standards. After 20 years old however, I dove head-deep into experimenting with different elegant styles that would fit me, I picked a strict pattern of colors (beige, black, white), and developed an “efficient†style which would make my clothes appropriate for a business meeting, a romantic date in the city, or a general stroll outside. The clothes I wear are mostly strict, but with a slight playful flare. I tend to spend a lot of money and time on buying the right item to wear (I spent 2 months searching for the right jacket last summer), but I don’t have a large selection of clothes, as I tend to wear the same ensembles.
My demands are: I don’t want to waste too much time deciding what to wear everyday, so I need something I can wear everyday, but at the same time it must look elegant and of good quality fabric. (most of my clothes tend to be quite expensive, but my overall wardrobe is extremely small)
Concentration and problem solving I: I cannot solve a problem unless I have a passion for it, or unless I’m challenged to it.
The passion part is simple - if I like the subject the problem relates to, I can spend endless time, sleepless nights, neglecting my health and my surroundings, just to solve it. As an example, I spent 2 years solving a problem related to one of my passions, and I thought about it everyday, although with different intensity.
The challenge part is as follows - I tend to avoid problems that don’t interest me, but if my competence is challenged (i.e. if my reputation is of that IT guy, and I need to maintain that reputation), then if someone approaches me with an IT-related problem, I will spend 12 hours sitting on the chair, not going to the bathroom, not eating, until that problem is solved. In this situation, I am less interested in finding the solution for solution’s sake, but more in finding the solution to prove my competence, that I live up to my name as “that IT guyâ€. Sometimes I spent weeks on such problems, and if I would fail to solve it, I would be completely devastated inside, and feel unworthy.
Problem solving II: Usually I prefer to solve problems in a comfortable environment with no stress nor rush. However I often end up finding myself in situations when I’m pressing my assignments too close to the deadline, or am in general just ambushed by responsibility out of nowhere. My first response is silent panic and loss, but my second response is always the same: I know I must solve the problem no matter what, and the best way to do it is to use efficient methods: tables, structures, charts, hierarchies. If the problem is related to a broken laptop, then I quickly brainstorm everything that could be potentially wrong with it, put all those “potential problems†into a list, sort the list into a hierarchy based either by likelihood, or by risk/danger criteria. And start trouble-shooting based on that list. If the task however isn’t to fix a broken machine, but to write an essay, I would take as many sources relevant to my topic, dump bits and pieces I find important into one very ugly salad, then pull that salad apart piece by piece into separate categories based on context or relevance, then put those categories into a hierarchy, and then by the time I am writing my first draft, all I really have to do is rephrase my hierarchical-salad, because the essay is kinda already done, without me actually “writing†it.
Final notes:
Fights: I was always the introverted silent guy in school, but I was never subject to bullying unlike other silent/withdrawn types. In junior school I actually enjoyed physical fights, because they allowed me to unleash my “creative†potential in making “cool kicks†and “cool punchesâ€. And internally I am even today quite excited about it, it’s very ecstatic to feel the freedom a fight provides. But despite my desire to experience violence, today when I am faced with a potential fight scenario, I usually don’t do it and try to resolve the situation peacefully. Mainly because I know as an adult I won’t be efficient in a fight due to lack of training, and lack of efficiency can cause problems. I might hurt myself unnecessarily, or hurt my opponent in a way that might land me in jail. So no matter how much I desire to “release†physically, I never do it due to fear of incompetence.
Socializing: closer to high-school and college years, people often referred to me as “the james-bond villainâ€, and my favorite phrase in one of my language classes was “I want to conquer the world.†I used to overuse that phrase to compensate for my lack of knowledge of the language, since I was kinda bored with that particular class (even though I am multilingual since childhood and constantly try to tackle new languages on my own)
People know that approaching me is difficult, because (1) I hate small-talk, as there simply isn’t anything more inefficient and time-wasteful than small-talk, and (2) if someone manages to drag me into a conversation, it will soon transform into a debate, and the debate will soon transform into a game of domination, with me desiring the throne against all odds.
The most recent response I get from people when we touch upon complicated subjects is this:
- “Okay, I know you’re studying this in university or otherwise have learned it elsewhere, I know the depth of your knowledge on this topic is greater than mine, and I frankly don’t want to talk about that with you. Can’t we just mingle and socialize?â€
To which the inner-voice inside my head responds:
- “But socializing for the sake of socializing, is a waste of time. It’s inefficient. Imagine how much of that time I could actually devote to improving myself. Instead of talking 2 hours to you about nothing, I could spend 2 hours learning French verb tenses.â€
I don’t respond this way out-loud however. My pronounced external response to him is just “Okay.†And then I withdraw from the conversation, and let him take the lead, after which things become awkward.
The reason I dislike small-talk is also the reason why I’ve recently stopped playing games or watching movies. If these things cannot improve me directly, then I am spending my life away on emptiness, and thinking of that horrifies me.
Emotions: I usually tend to stay somewhat in touch with my emotions, although I do have a love-hate relationship with them. I know they’re there, and in most cases I know why they behave the way they do, but more often I tend to either suppress them or pretend like the cause is something else. I don’t want to waste my time on them, because I find them useless in the long term.
Regarding other peoples’ emotions, since I have high standards of “emotional durability†for myself, I end up projecting those standards on others as well. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve unintentionally hurt a person. But I tend to understand their pain only post-factum. My friends aside, the greatest victim of my external coldness is my father. So far 3 times in my life, my insensitivity destroyed my relationship with him. Sometimes we didn’t talk for 2-3 years just because I refused to acknowledge that there is a logical reason for him to feel hurt.
Obsession with structures: When I was 14 years old, I started writing my own improvised “constitution†for a “secret society†I came up with for reasons unknown. I took great care and interest in writing what seemed like a very precise legal document, defining the groups, the responsibilities, the sanctions, the ideals, the functions, and interconnections between different members of that “secret societyâ€. In my late teens, during the global MMORPG craze, I spent 5 years managing a guild of 200 people, and later ascending to the position of an “advisor†that had to behave as a mediator between the gaming community and the server admins. My primary contribution in both of these positions was structuring and restructuring hierarchy and interconnections between different members, probably for efficiency purposes, although I could happily do it all day for no reason whatsoever. I was often nominated to different leadership positions, but preferred to give that position away to a more extroverted person, while staying close to him and influencing his decisions.
