[ISTP] Unhealthy ISTP

[Thalassa]

Then, according to MBTI you are then ISTJ becauce they are Si Te in the MBTI theory. ISTP is Ti Se.

OR are the functions described differently in socionics?

The functions are described differently in socionics, it's kind of confusing.

He strikes me as much more SP than SJ.

 

[phoenity]

I've noticed that too - animals with high intelligence especially, like parrots and dogs. Our horse Lady, she was one of "those". She was really stroppy and very self-willed, but had a good disposition and an amazing survival instinct. She didn't suffer fools, but enjoyed being patted and babied and brushed. When you rode her, you had to be aware of this duality with her. You never ever gave her full rein. She would have made a superb cowpony in the old west.

One afternoon, Sis and I were out. She was on our horse, dear lazy Bigfoot, and I was on Lady. We were coming up the highway toward home. Everything was shipshape until a large barking hound dog ran out of nowhere coming right for us. Lady *despised* dogs and despised being startled by them even more, so what happened next more or less was going to happen no matter what I did. I was used to riding Bigfoot who was a wide bodied stout Quarter Horse/Morgan. Lady was more compact and shiftier in her movements, so the next thing I know, I'm laying on my back in the middle of the old state road staring up at the sky wondering how the heck I got there, and I can hear my sister (who later told me that Bigfoot was startled by the dog too, but only bunny hopped a little - he wasn't the kind to react really) shouting, "Pink! Pink! Get up! Lady's gone after the dog! Stop her!"

So I peeled myself up off the pavement and saw my mount charging after the dog in someone's yard, and thought "Well, isn't this nice? We get to see a killing too. What a relaxing day." I managed to get to the side of the road (Yay for not being run over by cars!) and Lady came to me automatically to sniff me over. She put her head in my arms - an apology, no doubt. I walked her home (my whole body hurt) and she kept putting her head on my shoulder and rubbing her face on me in this gentle conciliatory gesture, like "Sorry! Don't be mad!" Normally she wasn't that apologetic for ANYTHING. lol

My dad also had a red-tick Australian cattle dog that could read lips. Freaky little animal! She knew what we were talking about. You could explain something to her in plain English and she'd get the gist of it. Very eerie!

Seems like she was aware that her reaction threw you off and that you were physically hurt by it.

It's amazing how conscious and receptive animals can be regarding emotional energy, and also amazing how we can innately understand those communications across species, as if love was universal among all life.

Ever since I was young, I've found it much easier to connect emotionally to animals rather than people. People's minds tend to complicate the emotions they experience and they aren't very easy at all for me to read, whereas animals experience very basic emotions just as they are in a child-like way.

I've tried that and I think I may be doing something wrong! I listen to my breathing and then start hyperventilating! LOL I'm useless!

So breathing happens naturally whether we pay attention to it or not, right? The depth of breath varies depending on our bodies' needs for respiration at that moment.

So when we turn our mind's attention to this ongoing, automatic bodily process, the key is not to overtake control of the breathing with the conscious mind. Perhaps this is what happens in the past causing you to hyperventilate? The breath is already happening before we turn our attention to it, it does not need to be controlled.

From my understanding, the key is to use our mind's attention to follow the breath, and for the mind and body to become one, rather than using our mind as an outside observer of the body.

The easiest position for me to relax in this way is lying on the floor flat on my back. I close my eyes so I can divert visual attention to the other senses. I place my hand on my stomach, maybe right over the navel, and I use my hand to feel the rise of my abdomen as my lungs fill with air, and then as it falls when my lungs empty. I listen to the sounds of air turbulence as it flows in and out through the tiny passages of my nose. Then I turn to the inside of my body, following the breath in and out, feeling the physical sensations occurring as air flows from the bottom of my lungs, up through my trachea, and finally out through my nose, and again as it flows back in.

As I get deeper into this process, feeling sensation goes beyond the breath and the lungs, into the rest of the body. Eventually, my body feels so relaxed as if it were melting into the floor, as all the feelings of muscle tension, soreness, and discomfort in my body, as well as all the feelings of stress and anxiety in my mind, was being released with each exhale.

Well, I'd have to say no, but I've also met living trees that felt "good" and "bad", like good energy or bad energy. Some trees want to be tended and looked after and hugged, and some trees feel like they'd hit you over the head with a frying pan if they could. Yeah I know. Weird.

Funny little aside: I was reading about a curator at the Smithsonian who tends the shell collection. I had no idea shells were so interesting. He made mention of some occurrence when the A/C broke and the drawers containing the shells (and sometimes their owners assumed dead) came to life with gooey critters. lol Life is a persistent thing and sometimes I have trouble separating the dead from the living.

I have to admit I've experienced, albeit fleeting moments, of feeling good or bad energy from people, places, or things. It's this gut feeling that arises out of nowhere I can identify. When it's good, I just go with the flow and enjoy it for what it is. When it's bad, Ti+Se takes over looking for anything that would make me feel that way, and when it finds nothing logical or sensible, for the most part it dismisses the feeling into almost nothing, but there's still always cautiousness in the back of my mind.

You have no idea how fascinating this is for me. I'm peeking into a brain wired backwards from mine. What comes to me unbidden must be summoned by you, and what eludes me heels to your unconscious command.

Yes, I have an idea

I wish my memory of the past and imagination was as vivid as yours, and I admire the way you're able to communicate that imagination by painting such a detailed picture using only words.

I feel like I experience memories and tell stories in the same way, but only about events that have happened recently. The more time passes from the event, more and more detail floats away along with it.

And that brings up another curiosity, how are memories stored in your mind?

I remember things in images and other sensations. Older memories I see as still photos, and the more time passes the more details fade away from that picture. Sometimes I can recall memories like a video playing back in my head. It seems like the more I'm immersed in the here-and-now of the experience, the more details I can absorb and store.

I'm not entirely sure, as instinct is so hard to explain.

It's like meeting someone and knowing exactly where they've been and where they'll wind up before I know the parts in the middle. I annoy my mother to no end when she's watching "Law and Order" and I stroll through at the beginning, say "X did it... " and later X *did* do it. ahahah! Maybe that's my internal ISTP triggering my liar alert.

My intuition is still something I'm trying to understand. Ni is particularly slippery, even to other Ns and to those who use Ni. It's like a rabbit warren of tunnels and once you go underground you're at the mercy of Ni's twisting and turning. Why it takes the left tunnel and not the right is like trying to understand why lightning bugs' butts blink and not their heads.

Hitchcock fan? He can drag out the suspense!

Some of those crime TV shows are too easy to predict the outcome, but sometimes it's fun to watch the drama and crime-solving unfold to see how they arrived at the conclusion.

Upon meeting someone, you say you know where they've been and where they'll end up. Is this intuition originally based on feeling, then adjusted by objective things you sense about this person?

Because I work the opposite way. Upon meeting someone, I don't know anything about their past or future because I can't observe things like that, so I have nothing from which to base subjective judgments. From the moment I meet them, I'm taking in objective information about that person, and the more time I spend observing and interacting with them, the more Ni+Fe subconsciously adjusts how I feel about them.

It never occurred to me that your feelings - esp if you're very present - could make you feel like you were drowning. I just assumed for the longest time that everyone was equally subjected to their feelings and had to deal with them in a uniform manner, but I was very mistaken. Even between me and my ENFP sister - our feelings move us very differently. Sometimes when an emotion is too powerful or vicious, I go into red alert and shut down all vital systems until the feeling has kicked itself out. I'm designed to handle very intense feelings, but even then, some of them hit like a tidal wave and my only concern is to survive it. Feelings go right through me - and not just my own. Those around me, even strangers. I have to shield myself from it or it can do damage I'm undoing for days or even weeks depending on how bad it was.

For example, my father is interested in war history. So am I. It tells a lot about people. But I have to recoil from the worst of it because it hits me so hard. We'd gotten him a tremendous book by Hampton Sides called "Ghost Soldiers" written about the formation and deployment of Special Forces in WW2 to liberate internment camps. Some of their personal stories are so gutting, I couldn't bear it.

I read about one Ranger who'd gone into a camp and carried a man out who weighed as much as a child and couldn't make it under his own power. This tough Ranger held him and granted him the mercy of dying on the other side of the fence in friendly arms. I couldn't stop crying for days. That poor man. Both of them. I was furious because that prisoner held on and held on through hideous conditions and despair only to die from relief and exhaustion (that stomps and stomps on my anger over death and need for justice), but I was also deeply profoundly moved by the depths of kindness shown by a Ranger that I knew would carry around that horrible moment inside his brain and body for the rest of his life. I want more than anything to be able to wipe such horrors from the minds of those cursed to bear them.

With my long long memory, I tend to relive such terrible moments in vivid Technicolor over and over, regardless of the passage of time. Which is why I have to protect myself from what I'm exposed to. It's a bullet in my brain, and you can't un-pull the trigger. People die their deaths with me, they live their lives with me. I pick up pictures of lost people in antique shops and feel the need to "save" them from oblivion.

I wasn't told for over a year that my horse had died. I was furious, but my father was right when I said I wanted to be with my horse when he died - he told me that it would have destroyed me to go through it with Bigfoot because I loved him so much. I would have internalized that and been shaken by it for the rest of my life. I don't take separations of this sort very well. Something in me is ripped at the seams.

I understand because I feel in the same way.

My great grandfather used to tell me stories about being a sniper in WWII. His stories were usually short and concise, so I would ask him questions because I was so curious and I thought it was cool. It wasn't until afterward that I considered how difficult it must have been for him recalling those memories, experiences where he was taking lives or his own was in danger of being taken. I would then be engulfed in this overwhelming feeling of regret that he had to experience war, and sadness that those experiences were with him for the rest of his life.

In the past, I experienced rationality and irrationality separately, as if in different states of mind. If feeling was too intense, I turned it off completely, and went back to my cold rationality, which was comfortable, but I felt nothing at all. I would go back and forth between these states of mind, experiencing each side in an all or nothing manner.

Recently, as I've become more acquainted with my shadow, I think I'm beginning to find a middle ground where I'm seeing the value of applying both rationality and irrationality to every situation. Part of being human is that there is a subjective and objective aspect to every experience.

I believe this is the key to the ISTP's legendary toughness and resilience. Tell me - what makes a BIG lasting impression on you? Something big enough to blow right through your short term and cannon-ball into your long term?

My ISTP bff used to look at me in silent distress when he saw me tangling with the specters that lived in my long term memory. He helped me get calm in the worst parts by talking me through it and grounding me in the present with something that was "safe".

Hmm...I'll have to think about this, I'm not sure what you're looking for.

I remember important things. Learning experiences like new knowledge and coming to a deeper understanding of something objective. I think I use Fe to gather information about people, and remember them primarily based on who they are inside, rather than what they are or the things they do.

With me there has to be a practical reason for storing information - like an evolved, deeper understanding of a thing or person.

Interesting! What sorts of things has your intuition been rummaging through?

Lately it's trying to come to a deeper understanding of how my body works. I sustained some injuries recently and had to do physical therapy to work back. What I realized was that I never had a good understanding of how my body worked mechanically, it just worked and I used it. It wasn't until I messed up the function through misuse and overuse that I realized I needed to understand in order to prevent it from happening again, and to be able to perform more efficiently than before.

So I'm trying to increase my body awareness. I'll pay attention to sensations, then use thinking and intuition to develop a deeper understanding of how it all works together.

It's evolving into a fascination with the human body. The more I study my own movement, trying to fix issues and increase efficiency, I also find I enjoy observing and studying others' movements, using my knowledge to help them do the same.

Perhaps this will evolve into a new career.

 

[Domino]

Seems like she was aware that her reaction threw you off and that you were physically hurt by it.

Yes, and she felt guilty! haha! She was my step-mother's cunning little horse and had a long career of purposefully and accidentally unseating people. She never meant any harm, just wanted to assert her "me-dom". Very ISTJ. She and my ESFP stepmother got on great even with the chronic wrangling. Lady would defend you against dogs any day.

It's amazing how conscious and receptive animals can be regarding emotional energy, and also amazing how we can innately understand those communications across species, as if love was universal among all life.

When I see wild animals cuddling and grooming each other, I'm sorry, but I have to think it's their form of love. Maybe that's anthropomorphic of me, lol. I agree with you about the line-crossing - affection is affection. Elephants gently handle each others' bones and weep.

Ever since I was young, I've found it much easier to connect emotionally to animals rather than people. People's minds tend to complicate the emotions they experience and they aren't very easy at all for me to read, whereas animals experience very basic emotions just as they are in a child-like way.

Animals are one way. They have a fixed set of criteria and needs and expectations. They don't go to a self-help seminar and return with "Who am I? What is my motivation? Does my husband secretly think I'm fat?"

So breathing happens naturally whether we pay attention to it or not, right? The depth of breath varies depending on our bodies' needs for respiration at that moment.

So when we turn our mind's attention to this ongoing, automatic bodily process, the key is not to overtake control of the breathing with the conscious mind. Perhaps this is what happens in the past causing you to hyperventilate? The breath is already happening before we turn our attention to it, it does not need to be controlled.

From my understanding, the key is to use our mind's attention to follow the breath, and for the mind and body to become one, rather than using our mind as an outside observer of the body.

The easiest position for me to relax in this way is lying on the floor flat on my back. I close my eyes so I can divert visual attention to the other senses. I place my hand on my stomach, maybe right over the navel, and I use my hand to feel the rise of my abdomen as my lungs fill with air, and then as it falls when my lungs empty. I listen to the sounds of air turbulence as it flows in and out through the tiny passages of my nose. Then I turn to the inside of my body, following the breath in and out, feeling the physical sensations occurring as air flows from the bottom of my lungs, up through my trachea, and finally out through my nose, and again as it flows back in.

LOL, I'm so daft!... This explanation makes SO much sense. I may actually be able to use it now. *sheepish laugh*

As I get deeper into this process, feeling sensation goes beyond the breath and the lungs, into the rest of the body. Eventually, my body feels so relaxed as if it were melting into the floor, as all the feelings of muscle tension, soreness, and discomfort in my body, as well as all the feelings of stress and anxiety in my mind, was being released with each exhale.

I once got my chi so focused I felt rather melty and I freaked out! lol What's the matter with me?!

I have to admit I've experienced, albeit fleeting moments, of feeling good or bad energy from people, places, or things. It's this gut feeling that arises out of nowhere I can identify. When it's good, I just go with the flow and enjoy it for what it is. When it's bad, Ti+Se takes over looking for anything that would make me feel that way, and when it finds nothing logical or sensible, for the most part it dismisses the feeling into almost nothing, but there's still always cautiousness in the back of my mind.

Places that have been "tainted" by violence or death seem to rise up out of the ground and shake me. I can tell where bodies were sometimes and feel the death. This is not something I value, nor is it something I can control. I've been this way since childhood.

Have you ever met a tree that was done harm, like gashed, diseased or chopped at, and it seemed to be angry?

I wish my memory of the past and imagination was as vivid as yours, and I admire the way you're able to communicate that imagination by painting such a detailed picture using only words.

I feel like I experience memories and tell stories in the same way, but only about events that have happened recently. The more time passes from the event, more and more detail floats away along with it.

Does that frustrate you?

And that brings up another curiosity, how are memories stored in your mind?

As multimedia objects. Words, sounds, smells, images, sensations. In their own little cross-referenced folders. My mind works as a trap for information. It's almost greedy in its collection so that nothing slips away from me willingly. I guess it's something like a black hole that draws information down and won't release it. People and things can feel frozen in time. That messes with my ability to move forward a lot, because these frozen people and things will feel just as alive and fresh as they did the day they entered the cryogenic deep freeze of my memory.

I can remember things as far back as 3 or 4 years old, crawling on the floor of my family's trailer and staring at the linoleum of the kitchen. I remember levels of detail about that trailer to the point where I could reconstruct it inside and out on paper and I was no older than 4 when we left it. It gives my father the creeps.

Having said that, I don't know why something sticks or what will stick. I can forget all manner of recent things, like what I ate, or who I just spoke to, just like anyone else. I can be kinda scatterbrained sometimes, actually. But as to the abyss where all the freezing happens, it's as if none of it can leave me. I want to snatch every last acorn of meaning and context and store it like a greedy squirrel. I've also kept over 15 years' worth of diaries, so that nothing can escape me. I guess I view experiences as "mine" and I get angry when I forget or am made to forget. On the other hand, there are things still jammed into the back of my brain like a cramped closet too full of clothes that I wish had never been there and would gladly get rid of.

I remember things in images and other sensations. Older memories I see as still photos, and the more time passes the more details fade away from that picture. Sometimes I can recall memories like a video playing back in my head. It seems like the more I'm immersed in the here-and-now of the experience, the more details I can absorb and store.

Even eating must be this amazing thing for SPs. How you can enjoy it so much in the moment as it's happening is just crazy. I wish that was me!

Upon meeting someone, you say you know where they've been and where they'll end up. Is this intuition originally based on feeling, then adjusted by objective things you sense about this person?

Here's where I may get a little existential on you, but I'll do my best.

When I meet someone, I can tell where they've been (meaning I know if they're a product of abuse, a good home, a moneyed background, etc) and what they may have in mind. I met a man once through a friend. They were roommates. This man was a very nice, polite, genteel sort of man, but I knew immediately that there was something "wrong", that he was withholding information from me. My sister had picked up on the same vibe and was becoming skittish. This air of violence that I couldn't place, because I had this feeling that it wasn't his fault. Not really. Something hanging on him. I asked him about it finally, and he was very startled, then sad because he'd had no intention of telling me about being raised by a violent drug-dealing brother who truly was a beast. It had left it's mark on him, and I could "feel" it in his body and "see" it in his eyes though nothing had given him away as such.

It's almost as if people are walking around with tags on them that I can read. Sometimes it's not the whole picture, just a sensation, like with the man in the above paragraph. But usually it's enough to show me who/what they are before I get to know them in depth and the mysteries are revealed.

Not to say I haven't sized someone up wrongly, because I have.

Because I work the opposite way. Upon meeting someone, I don't know anything about their past or future because I can't observe things like that, so I have nothing from which to base subjective judgments. From the moment I meet them, I'm taking in objective information about that person, and the more time I spend observing and interacting with them, the more Ni+Fe subconsciously adjusts how I feel about them.

Interesting! Do you feel this is an advantage or disadvantage?

My great grandfather used to tell me stories about being a sniper in WWII.

Wow. That must have been a REALLY intense experience for him.

With me there has to be a practical reason for storing information - like an evolved, deeper understanding of a thing or person.

Would you consider remembering intangible things about people like their laugh or color of their lipstick "practical"?

Perhaps this will evolve into a new career.

Indeed!!

 

[jixmixfix]

Then, according to MBTI you are then ISTJ becauce they are Si Te in the MBTI theory. ISTP is Ti Se.

OR are the functions described differently in socionics?

honestly i heard that too, but i am for sure ISTP MBTI fucked it up.

 

[phoenity]

Yes, and she felt guilty! haha! She was my step-mother's cunning little horse and had a long career of purposefully and accidentally unseating people. She never meant any harm, just wanted to assert her "me-dom". Very ISTJ. She and my ESFP stepmother got on great even with the chronic wrangling. Lady would defend you against dogs any day.

I wish I had a beast like that to defend me from dogs.

During my ride this weekend, I traveled about 10 miles down this one road where it seemed every other house had a loose dog sleeping on the front porch. Usually I could speed by before they saw me and presented any danger, just barking.

I came up on this one house where I could be spotted before I got to the house. As I passed it, I noticed there were two dogs at this house - one smaller dog immediately charged straight out from the porch but before he got halfway to me I was already gone. At the same time I could see the other dog, a large black lab, dart immediately towards the opposite corner of his yard, in the direction I was heading. I immediately knew he was one smart puppy and that he could be trouble. I maintained my speed until he started closing his line on me, then I stood up and sprinted away. I looked over and noticed him gracefully sprinting as fast as he could through the field along side me. I encouraged him to keep up by shouting, "Come on boy!"

He didn't mean any harm - he just wanted to see how fast I could run

When I see wild animals cuddling and grooming each other, I'm sorry, but I have to think it's their form of love. Maybe that's anthropomorphic of me, lol. I agree with you about the line-crossing - affection is affection. Elephants gently handle each others' bones and weep.

I don't see how it could be anything else.

Animals are one way. They have a fixed set of criteria and needs and expectations. They don't go to a self-help seminar and return with "Who am I? What is my motivation? Does my husband secretly think I'm fat?"

LOL, I'm so daft!... This explanation makes SO much sense. I may actually be able to use it now. *sheepish laugh*


I once got my chi so focused I felt rather melty and I freaked out! lol What's the matter with me?!

Nothing's the matter with you. Do you know why you freaked out?

I can sort of relate though. When I hang out with my NT friends, they really get me into my head, and out of the moment. One time we were discussing the cosmos. My thoughts started thinking about the room we were in, and how it was simply part of a larger structure, and how all environments are contained within and part of a larger environment. So then I start thinking about the largest box, way outside of our universe, what is the box that all of space is contained in, and what's outside of that box? Who knows how much time I spent in my head trying to envision how it could possibly work, but I remember bringing myself back down to earth by realizing in was in this room, and I could only physically get so far outside this room, so whatever was at the end of space did not matter at this moment. And then I was back. Whew!

It's always very intense and interesting when I daydream like that but at the same time I feel like that type of thinking is so endless I could get lost in it and be there forever.

Places that have been "tainted" by violence or death seem to rise up out of the ground and shake me. I can tell where bodies were sometimes and feel the death. This is not something I value, nor is it something I can control. I've been this way since childhood.

Have you ever met a tree that was done harm, like gashed, diseased or chopped at, and it seemed to be angry?

When I leave the moment to think about past events that have occurred in a place, beyond what I can see right now, trying to envision what it could have looked like, I do get this chilling feeling that runs deep through my bones. It's not a comfortable place to be for long.

I like visiting supposedly haunted places. Hearing stories about the deaths and hauntings puts me into this mindset trying to imagine them, and I get deep bone chills and adrenaline pumping, while Ti+Se keeps me tethered to the reality just enough to know that there is nothing going on that I can sense. It's pretty cool being in between.

I can't say I've ever met an angry tree, but maybe I've just not paid close enough attention.

I did come across a tree on a hike this weekend that had things carved all over it. I stopped there for a minute and looked at the writings, wondering how old they were, and where those people are now. Then the flies buzzing around my head, into my eyes and ears distracted me and reminded me to keep moving.

Does that frustrate you?

I've never thought about it that way. I would have to say no, because they aren't gone forever. It's almost as if the memory gets deeper and further away, I can recall less things about it from memory, but if I ever revisit that in real life, I remember everything.

This weekend I was watching a home video from a family gathering when I was 4 years old. It was at my grandparents house that they haven't lived in for 15 years, but I spent a lot of time there as a child. While I could only draw parts of their house from memory, watching that video was like reliving it all over again, and I suddenly remembered everything about that place.

As multimedia objects. Words, sounds, smells, images, sensations. In their own little cross-referenced folders. My mind works as a trap for information. It's almost greedy in its collection so that nothing slips away from me willingly. I guess it's something like a black hole that draws information down and won't release it. People and things can feel frozen in time. That messes with my ability to move forward a lot, because these frozen people and things will feel just as alive and fresh as they did the day they entered the cryogenic deep freeze of my memory.

I can remember things as far back as 3 or 4 years old, crawling on the floor of my family's trailer and staring at the linoleum of the kitchen. I remember levels of detail about that trailer to the point where I could reconstruct it inside and out on paper and I was no older than 4 when we left it. It gives my father the creeps.

Having said that, I don't know why something sticks or what will stick. I can forget all manner of recent things, like what I ate, or who I just spoke to, just like anyone else. I can be kinda scatterbrained sometimes, actually. But as to the abyss where all the freezing happens, it's as if none of it can leave me. I want to snatch every last acorn of meaning and context and store it like a greedy squirrel. I've also kept over 15 years' worth of diaries, so that nothing can escape me. I guess I view experiences as "mine" and I get angry when I forget or am made to forget. On the other hand, there are things still jammed into the back of my brain like a cramped closet too full of clothes that I wish had never been there and would gladly get rid of.

Very interesting description

What do you do with all that stored information?

When I try to go back in my memory archives to when I was that young, I only have visual flashes of the place, and I have no idea why those memories were stored.

I access memories best when I'm shown a picture, or some sort of sensual reference.

Even eating must be this amazing thing for SPs. How you can enjoy it so much in the moment as it's happening is just crazy. I wish that was me!

My natural instinct is to enjoy it right now, because the next moment or next time it happens probably won't be the same experience.

Here's where I may get a little existential on you, but I'll do my best.

When I meet someone, I can tell where they've been (meaning I know if they're a product of abuse, a good home, a moneyed background, etc) and what they may have in mind. I met a man once through a friend. They were roommates. This man was a very nice, polite, genteel sort of man, but I knew immediately that there was something "wrong", that he was withholding information from me. My sister had picked up on the same vibe and was becoming skittish. This air of violence that I couldn't place, because I had this feeling that it wasn't his fault. Not really. Something hanging on him. I asked him about it finally, and he was very startled, then sad because he'd had no intention of telling me about being raised by a violent drug-dealing brother who truly was a beast. It had left it's mark on him, and I could "feel" it in his body and "see" it in his eyes though nothing had given him away as such.

It's almost as if people are walking around with tags on them that I can read. Sometimes it's not the whole picture, just a sensation, like with the man in the above paragraph. But usually it's enough to show me who/what they are before I get to know them in depth and the mysteries are revealed.

Not to say I haven't sized someone up wrongly, because I have.

Very cool, and I can actually understand what you mean. I can do the same, to a lesser extent, and it seems to work in the reverse direction.

When I meet someone my first concern is who they are and their intentions right at this moment. The longer I know them, the more I pick up on what they may have been or done in the past, sometimes by asking direct questions, but for the most part observing what they say and do.

When it is someone I feel might be hiding something, or have a reason to hide something, especially if I have interests to protect in the situation, I will observe more intensely.

But for the most part, my primary concern about people is in the here-and-now, who they are right now and how it affects our interaction. Facts about their past and future are little side notes, they give me an idea of maybe how they became this way, but the most important thing is who they are now.

What advantage do you think you have by being able to see into people, beyond what is obvious at the moment?

Would you consider remembering intangible things about people like their laugh or color of their lipstick "practical"?

I would likely notice these things in the moment during my interaction with them, but they are not things I would store long term.

I notice objective facts about people, what they wear, what they sound like, etc, but I don't see those facts as who they are, so I don't make subjective judgments based on those facts.

I let them be as they are, individually, doing what they want, saying what they want, wearing what they want, and judge them only as either good or bad based on my personal or observed interactions of how they treat myself and others.

I'm kind of like a dog.

 

[Poki]

honestly i heard that too, but i am for sure ISTP MBTI fucked it up.

I honestly think that both MBTI and socionics have ISTP kinda screwed up. ISTP types are experiencers, but not for the sense of doing, we love to learn things, this is Ti in action. When I dont understand something or need help I dont want to see how someone else did it, I dont want to be told how to do it, I want to understand what happened, how it works. I take things way to deep for casual conversation. This is why I would rather do than talk. I am into fast cars but I dont take it somewhere, I rewire the engine and install a standalone ECU and program it myself and I am not a mechanic. I drive my wife nuts because I have a hard time with a normal conversation because I take things way to deep and learn to much and then get confused trying to explain it in a logical order.

 

[Domino]

I wish I had a beast like that to defend me from dogs.

Yeah, good ol' crabby Lady. lol

a large black lab, ...He didn't mean any harm - he just wanted to see how fast I could run

hahaha! You mean there's a black lab that *isn't* completely lazy?? All the ones I've met are so sedate they're practically dead. My sister dated a guy with one and she was a kooky animal. She'd get so excited when Sis came over that she'd fall down in the grass and slowly drag herself on her belly around and around the yard in circles. Comical and strange.

There's a scene in "Funny Farm" where Chevy Chase's notoriously shiftless dog (a golden lab, I believe) is lying at his feet before a roaring fire and Dog's tail is on fire and he's so lazy he doesn't notice or even care, so Chevy Chase has to stamp the end of his tail out with his shoe. lol

Nothing's the matter with you. Do you know why you freaked out?

Have you ever had a problematic shower head that was all clogged up with minerals and goo, but it still sorta works, and then you finally clean it out and it's like showering in Niagara Falls? lol That's why I freaked out. The "norm" for me is to experience pain or tension *somewhere* in my body, and when it all went away for that small space of time and my circulation came back up, the sensation was so alien to me that I flipped out. I felt warm all over for once. This probably how everyone else feels most of the time.

wacky NT friends

When I listen to my INTJ best friend talk to our mutual INTP friend, it can get existential REALLY fast. It's almost as if they have bodies by default or something. This HAS to explain their years' worth of ill-fated camping trips every summer that always involved someone cooking chicken on a rock, not bathing for a week, being chased by animals, getting lost, or rolling down a hill in the dark *inside* their tents.

Then again, our mutual ESFJ friend who's now an officer and fighter pilot in the Air Force almost knocked out Alan Shepard with the bathroom door at the planetarium, so maybe it was just collective retardation. lol

Allowing N (generally Ni does this) to run rampant will drag you further and further down the rabbit hole.

I do get this chilling feeling that runs deep through my bones. It's not a comfortable place to be for long.

See! Humans are animals too.

This weekend I was watching a home video from a family gathering when I was 4 years old. It was at my grandparents house that they haven't lived in for 15 years, but I spent a lot of time there as a child. While I could only draw parts of their house from memory, watching that video was like reliving it all over again, and I suddenly remembered everything about that place.

Sounds like you had a great time! And you didn't actually die bicycling like a crazy person just to get there.

What do you do with all that stored information?

YAR! I keeps it in me wooden leg!

ahahaha, good question. It seems to go into storage (with it's little labels and such) and gets preyed upon or trotted out for some project dictated by Ni. My Ni makes a network of connections and forms an image of it. I saw this scientist in Scotland who'd managed to create a software program that maps deep space pockets of dark matter and creates a 3D model of them. That's pretty much the way my Ni works - it's the blind points of data, millions and millions of them, interconnecting, waiting to be mapped and shown to itself in 3D.

But for the most part, my primary concern about people is in the here-and-now, who they are right now and how it affects our interaction.

So you take people - even the same familiar people - moment by moment?

What advantage do you think you have by being able to see into people, beyond what is obvious at the moment?

Beats the heck outta me.

 

[Poki]

So you take people - even the same familiar people - moment by moment?

I am gonna interject here. You kinda have to. We are always learning new things, we are always changing and adapting. But the tricky part is in all the chaos of it you cant forget who you are. Sometimes stress can overwhelm us for so long we start to believe we are who we are when we are stressed and in the process forget who we really are.

 

[jixmixfix]

I honestly think that both MBTI and socionics have ISTP kinda screwed up. ISTP types are experiencers, but not for the sense of doing, we love to learn things, this is Ti in action. When I dont understand something or need help I dont want to see how someone else did it, I dont want to be told how to do it, I want to understand what happened, how it works. I take things way to deep for casual conversation. This is why I would rather do than talk. I am into fast cars but I dont take it somewhere, I rewire the engine and install a standalone ECU and program it myself and I am not a mechanic. I drive my wife nuts because I have a hard time with a normal conversation because I take things way to deep and learn to much and then get confused trying to explain it in a logical order.

I've found out that the problem MBTI and socionics are that the actual concepts of the functions are different from each other. For example Si, in MBTI is about past experiences This is a very "SJ" quality that is why ISTPS in myers brigg are primary in Se than Si.
Relating concepts of past experiences to the present. The concept of Si in socionics is also about comparing the past to the present but it includes other traits such as "harmony aesthetics environment, awarness and mechanics. Se is different as well, in socionics Se has to do with observing your environment being aware seeing the details but being forceful and more controlling. This actually makes more sense to me since ETPS tend to be more controlling and forceful then ISTPS. MBTIs version of Se has to do with being aware of little details but nothing to do with being forceful or controlling. According to MBTI SJs only live in the past, to relate experiances in the present. and SPs are fun easy going, friendly and observant.

MBTI seems more inaccurate to me.

 

[jixmixfix]

I've found out that the problem MBTI and socionics are that the actual concepts of the functions are different from each other. For example Si, in MBTI is about past experiences This is a very "SJ" quality that is why ISTPS in myers brigg are primary in Se than Si.
Relating concepts of past experiences to the present. The concept of Si in socionics is also about comparing the past to the present but it includes other traits such as "harmony aesthetics environment, awarness and mechanics. Se is different as well, in socionics Se has to do with observing your environment being aware seeing the details but being forceful and more controlling. This actually makes more sense to me since ETPS tend to be more controlling and forceful then ISTPS. MBTIs version of Se has to do with being aware of little details but nothing to do with being forceful or controlling. According to MBTI SJs only live in the past, to relate experiances in the present. and SPs are fun easy going, friendly and observant.

MBTI seems more inaccurate to me.

In reference to my previous post so that you can understand it better is that ISTPS in MBTI are primarily Se, and Ti. ISTPS in socionics are Primary Si, and Te. But again don't get too shocked because the ideas of the concepts are different between the two.

 

[NewEra]

Si in MBTI seems to be more about all the detail. I can spot an ISTJ man a mile off. They like to talk about a trip, an event and give detailed experience of what was going on. They will try to almost draw a picture of the event. I was eaves dropping(I like to listen to people just to listen) of 2 men talking and the guy was explaining his boating trip. He talked about the weather, the waves, the size of the boat, the movements, how it made him feel, its like he was trying to relive the event as he explained it.

I dont have a desire to relive an event in my head, I want to physically live the event. This is what it means to be in the moment for me. I dont want to talk about the past and I dont get excited about the future of what could be, I get excited about what we are doing right now, how people feel right now.

Yeah, I've found I'm great at this, along with remembering minute details which no one else even thinks to recall. My Si is probably insanely high.

I honestly think that both MBTI and socionics have ISTP kinda screwed up. ISTP types are experiencers, but not for the sense of doing, we love to learn things, this is Ti in action. When I dont understand something or need help I dont want to see how someone else did it, I dont want to be told how to do it, I want to understand what happened, how it works. I take things way to deep for casual conversation.

This is interesting, sort of shows a difference between ISTP and ISTJ. I don't know about all ISTJs, but I learn better when I watch someone else do something. I am great at imitation, although I too hate to be told how to do something. I'd rather watch someone do something, then try to imitate them so I can learn. Get into the intricacies of how things work, and I start to get just a little impatient. I'm not that curious.

 

[Poki]

This is interesting, sort of shows a difference between ISTP and ISTJ. I don't know about all ISTJs, but I learn better when I watch someone else do something. I am great at imitation, although I too hate to be told how to do something. I'd rather watch someone do something, then try to imitate them so I can learn. Get into the intricacies of how things work, and I start to get just a little impatient. I'm not that curious.

I will watch but I dont really try to imitate. I try to understand what is going on and end up going about it my own way. I can sit for hours trying to figure things out without losing my patience at all. Eventually I give up and come back to it later. To me the harder something is to figure out the more challenging it is. Im stuck on people right now and MBTI and it is pretty challenging.

 

[phoenity]

Yeah, good ol' crabby Lady. lol

hahaha! You mean there's a black lab that *isn't* completely lazy?? All the ones I've met are so sedate they're practically dead. My sister dated a guy with one and she was a kooky animal. She'd get so excited when Sis came over that she'd fall down in the grass and slowly drag herself on her belly around and around the yard in circles. Comical and strange.

There's a scene in "Funny Farm" where Chevy Chase's notoriously shiftless dog (a golden lab, I believe) is lying at his feet before a roaring fire and Dog's tail is on fire and he's so lazy he doesn't notice or even care, so Chevy Chase has to stamp the end of his tail out with his shoe. lol

Most retrievers I've met have been pretty low energy dogs as well, when nothing interesting is going on that is.

Prior to my arrival, he was just being lazy on his front porch. I guess I looked like just enough of a challenge, but not too much, for him to have some good fun. And he was right, we were pretty evenly matched. Until I stood up and sprinted away that is.

I bet I left him thinking he needed to get him some wheels of his own.

Have you ever had a problematic shower head that was all clogged up with minerals and goo, but it still sorta works, and then you finally clean it out and it's like showering in Niagara Falls? lol That's why I freaked out. The "norm" for me is to experience pain or tension *somewhere* in my body, and when it all went away for that small space of time and my circulation came back up, the sensation was so alien to me that I flipped out. I felt warm all over for once. This probably how everyone else feels most of the time.

So do you put the minerals and goo back in your shower head?

See! Humans are animals too.

Most of the time I feel more animal than I do human.

I wish I could be like Mowgli with a bear and a panther as friends.

Sounds like you had a great time! And you didn't actually die bicycling like a crazy person just to get there.

That's the thing about doing things like a crazy person - no matter how hard I go, I'll never be able to actually kill myself, only get to the level just below that where I feel like I might at any second. Eventually there comes a point when conscious willpower can no longer manually override the machine, and automatic shutdown occurs to prevent damage to the machine.

Impact with hard objects could certainly kill me though, so I just have to watch out for that tree!

YAR! I keeps it in me wooden leg!

ahahaha, good question. It seems to go into storage (with it's little labels and such) and gets preyed upon or trotted out for some project dictated by Ni. My Ni makes a network of connections and forms an image of it. I saw this scientist in Scotland who'd managed to create a software program that maps deep space pockets of dark matter and creates a 3D model of them. That's pretty much the way my Ni works - it's the blind points of data, millions and millions of them, interconnecting, waiting to be mapped and shown to itself in 3D.

Into storage for future use entertaining people with stories no doubt! Would you describe your capacity for storing all this random information as infinite? The collective knowledge in your mind just keeps growing, never disposing of anything?

So that's how you can draw pictures with words, because you actually see them in your head. My Ni connects 3d points and draws pictures as well, but I can't articulate those images like you can. I've always wished there was some sort of machine I could hook up to my brain that would output the images I see in my head, since I have such difficulty communicating those ideas, that understanding, to other people.

And it's actually kind of coincidental you describe your Ni like that. Just recently I was hanging out with my ENTP and INTP friends. I like listening to their conversation because I try to visualize how their mind is operating because I can compare it to mine in real time. I ask them how they can jump from this idea, to something way over there, skipping all these details in between. They described their thinking as big picture ideas operating like a flow chart, so the following big picture only has to be in some way related to the previous big picture in order for there to be a logical connection.

I was like, but you miss so many interesting, useful details in between, and they were like, well we can skip details because we're smart like that.

Then I started thinking about my own intuition, and how it makes connections. It appeared to me in my mind just like you described, a mapping of related data points, each data point being only a single detail of a larger collective of data points. It appears to me in very detailed 3d images, not a 2d flow chart of general ideas, and I navigate through these 3d images, in 3-dimensional movement, to the individual data points.

I think my disadvantage of intuiting to such fine points, is that I have more points to move through and it takes me longer to get somewhere else, as opposed to intuiting primarily in bigger overall pictures and being able to navigate quicker.

But the advantage being that there are so many more interesting data points to check out!

So you take people - even the same familiar people - moment by moment?

I have to as people are constantly changing. My friend might not be in the same mood as he was yesterday, or even an hour or moment before this one. If I am to interpret how they are right now, there's only so much use I can get from considering how they were last week or a year ago. I am concerned about their needs and thoughts right at this moment, because that has the biggest affect on our interaction right at this moment.

The essense of who someone is to me doesn't change much, only when they evolve and mature, making major changes in their thinking or emotions. And even then, they aren't a different person to me, I just have a new, deeper understanding of who they were all along. Just like how they appear to themselves - at the very core, they did not change, only their understanding of themselves and life changed and they are now thinking/feeling from a different perspective.

It's important for me to see people as ever-changing, because that's how I am myself. If I want them to accept me as I am in this moment, and judge based on who I was a year ago, I must do the same for them.

Perhaps for you it is the opposite way? Do you remember so many details about people, you are more able to address their needs via Fe because you have a more long-term memory of what they like and what they need.

I can sort of see this in real time with my seemingly Fe-dom friend, although I can't type him all the way (come to think of it, I think he might actually be ESFJ). He knows what people are like, especially his close friends and family. He collects information about everyone, and has a collection of information that goes back as far as he's known that person, and does everything he can to cater to their needs. I often wonder if he ever has needs or feelings of his own, as I never see them because he extraverts so much of his energy taking care of others.

Beats the heck outta me.

*Tries to beat the heck outta you*

Come on, you can bite harder than that! You didn't even leave teeth marks!

 

[Domino]

Most retrievers I've met have been pretty low energy dogs as well, when nothing interesting is going on that is.

Prior to my arrival, he was just being lazy on his front porch. I guess I looked like just enough of a challenge, but not too much, for him to have some good fun. And he was right, we were pretty evenly matched. Until I stood up and sprinted away that is.

I bet I left him thinking he needed to get him some wheels of his own.

Labradors are frustrated techies. As soon as someone develops a paw-held device, I believe that they may never shut up.

So do you put the minerals and goo back in your shower head?

Those are mighty fine grade-A mineralgoos! Of course I kept them! You rotten kids know nothing about conservation! Now get off my lawn!

Most of the time I feel more animal than I do human.

I wish I could be like Mowgli with a bear and a panther as friends.

hahaha! Would you wear the little loincloth thingie as well?

Side note of no real importance: Here in NC, we have all manner of strange animals, and apparently we have a black panther roaming around the woods of a small town just over the county line from us for about 10 years. He's not a native type panther but he seems to be eating and living rather well. Maybe eating deer or something. We have plenty of deer - back on my father's property, we used to go riding down to the muddy fast Haw River and we'd scare up deer all the time. At one point, a small group of them sprang out of the corn and dashed for the woods across the access road, and one of them was black. We call them swamp deer for some reason.

That's the thing about doing things like a crazy person - no matter how hard I go, I'll never be able to actually kill myself, only get to the level just below that where I feel like I might at any second. Eventually there comes a point when conscious willpower can no longer manually override the machine, and automatic shutdown occurs to prevent damage to the machine.

We're you like this as a child?

Into storage for future use entertaining people with stories no doubt! Would you describe your capacity for storing all this random information as infinite? The collective knowledge in your mind just keeps growing, never disposing of anything?

It sometimes feels like a barrel with no bottom - I just keep tossing in thoughts and ideas and it never quite fills up. Granted, I make stacks of journals as well so nothing gets by me. My twin isn't so keen on journaling, but she has some great stories about her and her feral hillbilly welding foreman that just about kills everyone laughing every time they're told. He's so funny and apparently has 9 lives. I keep encouraging her to write it all down.

So that's how you can draw pictures with words, because you actually see them in your head. My Ni connects 3d points and draws pictures as well, but I can't articulate those images like you can. I've always wished there was some sort of machine I could hook up to my brain that would output the images I see in my head, since I have such difficulty communicating those ideas, that understanding, to other people.

What do you attribute this difficulty to? I've heard other ISTPs say that very same thing which puzzles me. I know an ISTP who in the linguistics dept. of a college up north. He's really terse (read: brief) when he makes comments (brevity is the essence of wit?) but you can occasionally get him going if you hit the right buttons. He's the king of the one-liner, and I suppose he developed that over time - a way of condensing all his thoughts into succinct statements. I didn't know there was a generalized fear/apprehension/reluctance to speak one's mind, or should I say, verbalize internal dialogs.

And it's actually kind of coincidental you describe your Ni like that. Just recently I was hanging out with my ENTP and INTP friends. I like listening to their conversation because I try to visualize how their mind is operating because I can compare it to mine in real time. I ask them how they can jump from this idea, to something way over there, skipping all these details in between. They described their thinking as big picture ideas operating like a flow chart, so the following big picture only has to be in some way related to the previous big picture in order for there to be a logical connection.

I was like, but you miss so many interesting, useful details in between, and they were like, well we can skip details because we're smart like that.

MY NTP friends say that too. I suspect a conspiracy.

Then I started thinking about my own intuition, and how it makes connections. It appeared to me in my mind just like you described, a mapping of related data points, each data point being only a single detail of a larger collective of data points. It appears to me in very detailed 3d images, not a 2d flow chart of general ideas, and I navigate through these 3d images, in 3-dimensional movement, to the individual data points.

Ta da!! A picture of Ni (or dark matter). Observe!

Looks kinda like a brain, doesn't it!

I think my disadvantage of intuiting to such fine points, is that I have more points to move through and it takes me longer to get somewhere else, as opposed to intuiting primarily in bigger overall pictures and being able to navigate quicker.

But the advantage being that there are so many more interesting data points to check out!

I envy the ability of Ne to "move along" in a linear fashion. It very much is like a flow chart, whereas Ni is spiderwebbing everything. My INFJ father and I will get on some very strange tears.

I have to as people are constantly changing. My friend might not be in the same mood as he was yesterday, or even an hour or moment before this one. If I am to interpret how they are right now, there's only so much use I can get from considering how they were last week or a year ago. I am concerned about their needs and thoughts right at this moment, because that has the biggest affect on our interaction right at this moment.

The essense of who someone is to me doesn't change much, only when they evolve and mature, making major changes in their thinking or emotions. And even then, they aren't a different person to me, I just have a new, deeper understanding of who they were all along. Just like how they appear to themselves - at the very core, they did not change, only their understanding of themselves and life changed and they are now thinking/feeling from a different perspective.

It's important for me to see people as ever-changing, because that's how I am myself. If I want them to accept me as I am in this moment, and judge based on who I was a year ago, I must do the same for them.

Perhaps for you it is the opposite way? Do you remember so many details about people, you are more able to address their needs via Fe because you have a more long-term memory of what they like and what they need.

You know, that's a very funny question. I *never* saw that conflict in me, but now that you mention it, it's been right in front of my face the whole time. I depend on and NEED change, some forward motion and evolution. The people I'm closest to are evolutionary types, and I myself am constantly adding things or removing them, like a hermit crab, over time, gluing sparkly rocks and bits of coral to its fabulous shell. People who don't want to evolve make me feel like I'm choking.

On the other hand, my conservational nature is perpetually trying to freeze and maintain things.

It's a miracle I'm still sane.

I can sort of see this in real time with my seemingly Fe-dom friend, although I can't type him all the way (come to think of it, I think he might actually be ESFJ). He knows what people are like, especially his close friends and family. He collects information about everyone, and has a collection of information that goes back as far as he's known that person, and does everything he can to cater to their needs. I often wonder if he ever has needs or feelings of his own, as I never see them because he extraverts so much of his energy taking care of others.

Interesting!

*Tries to beat the heck outta you*

Come on, you can bite harder than that! You didn't even leave teeth marks!

I'm a piranha. I might just eat off one of your feet, only I'm a vegan! So there! You won't feel my mighty pink wrath, foolish mortal!

 

[phoenity]

Labradors are frustrated techies. As soon as someone develops a paw-held device, I believe that they may never shut up.

There would undoubtedly be an optional Bluetooth earpiece so they could talk paws-free.

You rotten kids know nothing about conservation! Now get off my lawn!

Ain't that the truth! Sorry for stepping on your lawn.

And my what a mouthful of big, sharp teeth you have!

Sorry, but you still look like a teddy bear to me.

hahaha! Would you wear the little loincloth thingie as well?

What would be the point?

Side note of no real importance: Here in NC, we have all manner of strange animals, and apparently we have a black panther roaming around the woods of a small town just over the county line from us for about 10 years. He's not a native type panther but he seems to be eating and living rather well. Maybe eating deer or something. We have plenty of deer - back on my father's property, we used to go riding down to the muddy fast Haw River and we'd scare up deer all the time. At one point, a small group of them sprang out of the corn and dashed for the woods across the access road, and one of them was black. We call them swamp deer for some reason.

The Appalachians of southwestern VA, where I was born and will always consider home, is where most of my extended family still resides. I like when relatives tell me stories of their hunting trips, something they've been doing all their lives, and I've heard many different people tell me a story about seeing, hearing, or spotting tracks of a mountain lion. With such a huge deer population, if they truly are out there, I'm sure they are very well fed and quite large. It sure would be scary running into a cat that large, but I think chances of being mauled by a black bear in those mountains are much higher.

There are lots of deer that live in the woods in the back of my suburban neighborhood. In the evenings I like to take a walk out there to watch them when they come out of the woods and into the open fields to graze. I can usually get pretty close to them, but it never fails that eventually one of them gets spooked, snorts at me, and they all run into the woods to snort at me from the tree line. I've even tried giving them apples and they still run.

We're you like this as a child?

I wish I was. I had a major aversion to any sort of discomfort.

It sometimes feels like a barrel with no bottom - I just keep tossing in thoughts and ideas and it never quite fills up. Granted, I make stacks of journals as well so nothing gets by me. My twin isn't so keen on journaling, but she has some great stories about her and her feral hillbilly welding foreman that just about kills everyone laughing every time they're told. He's so funny and apparently has 9 lives. I keep encouraging her to write it all down.

Now there's a great idea. I've never been very organized or good at remembering things, and a part of me has always known that making lists or writing things down would solve that problem. I've tried starting logs for various things, but I always fall out of it. I guess it's the routine I dislike, and I can't see or value the long-term benefits, until later down the road when I'm cursing myself wishing I had recorded that information because I need it now. Damn my lack of discipline!

What do you attribute this difficulty to? I've heard other ISTPs say that very same thing which puzzles me. I know an ISTP who in the linguistics dept. of a college up north. He's really terse (read: brief) when he makes comments (brevity is the essence of wit?) but you can occasionally get him going if you hit the right buttons. He's the king of the one-liner, and I suppose he developed that over time - a way of condensing all his thoughts into succinct statements. I didn't know there was a generalized fear/apprehension/reluctance to speak one's mind, or should I say, verbalize internal dialogs.

Linguistics department - well that explains that!

I think I've written about this somewhere else here, but it's not really a fear of speaking my mind. I see in pictures just like you, but I'm severely lacking in the ability to articulate those pictures as well as you do. When I'm writing here, I have plenty of time to think of what I'm trying to say, and I often reread my posts and edit them for clarity. But it's especially bad when I'm speaking to someone in person and trying to think on my feet, or trying to explain a Ni understanding deep in my mind that isn't associated with many words, but I have to translate it into words in order to communicate it. There are a lot of extended thinking pauses, and perhaps that's why I lose people.

That's why it's always been easier for me to explain my Ni visually. I could spend ten minutes explaining a process to you, but you still probably wouldn't follow me all the way, so I'll show you instead.

MY NTP friends say that too. I suspect a conspiracy.

They have fragile egos.

Ta da!! A picture of Ni (or dark matter). Observe!

Looks kinda like a brain, doesn't it!

Oooh pretty!

I envy the ability of Ne to "move along" in a linear fashion. It very much is like a flow chart, whereas Ni is spiderwebbing everything. My INFJ father and I will get on some very strange tears.

No kidding. When my Ne friends have already moved onto something completely different, in my mind I'm still pondering something we talked about awhile ago.

I don't necessarily envy that type of thinking, but I value it in them. For me, it's like what's the point of dipping your toes in the water but not going for a swim? Sure you sorta get a feel with your toes, but I'd rather strip down, dive in, and swim around to experience it fully.

You know, that's a very funny question. I *never* saw that conflict in me, but now that you mention it, it's been right in front of my face the whole time. I depend on and NEED change, some forward motion and evolution. The people I'm closest to are evolutionary types, and I myself am constantly adding things or removing them, like a hermit crab, over time, gluing sparkly rocks and bits of coral to its fabulous shell. People who don't want to evolve make me feel like I'm choking.

On the other hand, my conservational nature is perpetually trying to freeze and maintain things.

It's a miracle I'm still sane.

My NT friends told me that they thought I was insane. I told them sanity was boring.

Interesting!

Now that I think about it, I can also see this same thing in my ENFJ grandmother. She spent most of her life taking care of others, had a lifetime career as a social worker, and still did all she could to take care of others after she retired.

I have no idea how she could give away so much energy, but I deeply admire her, and people like her, for all the selfless things they do. But sometimes I think they get caught up in all the giving, and ignore or fail to see their own needs, so they could use someone to take care of them sometimes.

 

[Domino]

There would undoubtedly be an optional Bluetooth earpiece so they could talk paws-free.

it'll happen and then we'll all be sorry...

Ain't that the truth! Sorry for stepping on your lawn.

And my what a mouthful of big, sharp teeth you have!

Sorry, but you still look like a teddy bear to me.

a deadly ferocious teddy bear made of radioactive particles of love! or something...

What would be the point?

how about the safety of your nards?

The Appalachians of southwestern VA, where I was born and will always consider home, is where most of my extended family still resides. I like when relatives tell me stories of their hunting trips, something they've been doing all their lives, and I've heard many different people tell me a story about seeing, hearing, or spotting tracks of a mountain lion. With such a huge deer population, if they truly are out there, I'm sure they are very well fed and quite large. It sure would be scary running into a cat that large, but I think chances of being mauled by a black bear in those mountains are much higher.

There are lots of deer that live in the woods in the back of my suburban neighborhood. In the evenings I like to take a walk out there to watch them when they come out of the woods and into the open fields to graze. I can usually get pretty close to them, but it never fails that eventually one of them gets spooked, snorts at me, and they all run into the woods to snort at me from the tree line. I've even tried giving them apples and they still run.

salt blocks will bring them around...

we have only bobcats where i'm at, and those are roughly the size of a very large house cat...

you're a mountain boy?

Now there's a great idea. I've never been very organized or good at remembering things, and a part of me has always known that making lists or writing things down would solve that problem. I've tried starting logs for various things, but I always fall out of it. I guess it's the routine I dislike, and I can't see or value the long-term benefits, until later down the road when I'm cursing myself wishing I had recorded that information because I need it now. Damn my lack of discipline!

my istp bff had to come to me for pictures of his hot rod b/c he realized after her untimely demise (destroying herself gloriously in a street race against a mustang...) that he had taken no pictures of her himself.

They have fragile egos.

they smell bad too...

No kidding. When my Ne friends have already moved onto something completely different, in my mind I'm still pondering something we talked about awhile ago.

ni likes to work over things, like a person who chews their food 20 times... ne likes to wolf it down...

Now that I think about it, I can also see this same thing in my ENFJ grandmother. She spent most of her life taking care of others, had a lifetime career as a social worker, and still did all she could to take care of others after she retired.

I have no idea how she could give away so much energy, but I deeply admire her, and people like her, for all the selfless things they do. But sometimes I think they get caught up in all the giving, and ignore or fail to see their own needs, so they could use someone to take care of them sometimes.

letting someone else take care of you is profoundly scary, at least for me, and i still don't know why... lead to some interesting conversations in the enfj threads... apparently we all do this...

 

[phoenity]

a deadly ferocious teddy bear made of radioactive particles of love! or something...

So that's why you glow...

how about the safety of your nards?

True. But how is a simple cloth going to protect anything? Wouldn't it make more sense to wear a coconut?

salt blocks will bring them around...

we have only bobcats where i'm at, and those are roughly the size of a very large house cat...

you're a mountain boy?

A mountain boy at heart. Short weekend vacations in the woods only temporarily satiate that internal longing for home. I need to start working on getting back there.

my istp bff had to come to me for pictures of his hot rod b/c he realized after her untimely demise (destroying herself gloriously in a street race against a mustang...) that he had taken no pictures of her himself.

Someone has got to watch our hinds...

letting someone else take care of you is profoundly scary, at least for me, and i still don't know why... lead to some interesting conversations in the enfj threads... apparently we all do this...

We've all got to realize we have our strengths and weaknesses. Watching out for others weaknesses, and letting others take care of our own, is what love is all about.

 

[Domino]

I thought love was about shouting and hand-slap fights.

 

[luminous beam]

wow, this thread totally drifted from the OP lol thanks piranha, i blame it all on you.

 

[Domino]

wow, this thread totally drifted from the OP lol thanks piranha, i blame it all on you.

Blame me, baby! Blame me! Hurts so good! lol WOOOOO!!!








(sorry) *slinks away*