R
RDF
Guest
Speaking just for myself, I don't care what the "audience" thinks of my beliefs and ideas. My ideas are for myself, as goals for myself to strive for. If people don't cheer their approval for me, that's fine. If people are turned off to me and don't want to be by buddy, that's fine too.
I really don't care if I am "pleasing" others with my viewpoints. That's not my goal in life. Flattery in fact is something that can knock a person off their balance in trying to find the only thing that really matters, their own voice of conscience.
I don't consider the way the topic slid as an example so much of ideals, but instead an example of the ways that a person may chose to protect themselves against others whose actions may not always be trustworthy. The OP mentioned people who had hurt her in her life. I assume that this was signifigant and long lasting patterns in people because she doesn't strike me as the sort who just flakes on people, from the things she says.
I don't think we're required to solve the problems of those who hurt us by allowing ourselves to be their whipping child over and over. I think a person can be free to say enough is enough and move on at some point without having it shoved back at them as some "proof" that they aren't allowed their own ideals about life or that they are hypocrties.
A healthy self interst is vital to living a truth in life. We're brainwashed in this society that we cannot be self protective or selfish in healthy ways. It is all hogwash.
I'm fine with everything you're saying here, Heart.
In essence, the OP asked if INFPs regularly end up as "lovers of humanity" who are alone and don't seem to get along well with humans.
I responded in the affirmative. Then I provided a window on the "objective" psychological process leading to this state of affairs (as I conceptualize it). You are now providing a window on the interior or "subjective" rationalizations used to arrive at the same end.
I don't see a conflict here. The "objective" and the "subjective" are two sides to the same coin. Your input is quite useful in that it fills out the picture by providing the interior monologue which accompanies the psychological process.
I think a person can be free to say enough is enough and move on at some point without having it shoved back at them as some "proof" that they aren't allowed their own ideals about life or that they are hypocrties.
BTW, I just want to clarify that I'm not allowing or disallowing anything. People can do what they want and end up wherever they want. I was just explaining the process as I see it.
Nor am I calling anyone a hypocrite (other than noting the obvious paradox of "lovers of humanity" ending up without any humans in their life). I take it for granted that INFPs who follow this process and end up alone are sincere in their motivations. If they end up in a paradoxical situation, it's because of the paradoxical nature of ideals and the solipsist tendencies of idealists, not because of any hypocrisy on the individual's part.
By the way, FWIW, I've chucked lots of people out of my own life. I tend to think of acquaintances and friends as fairly disposable. But these days I tend to do it more for reasons of moving on to a new stage in life and achieving new personal goals--for example, withdrawing from old sedentary social circles in order to get more exercise and spend more time dancing with my wife. I don't tend to feel that the old friends were abusing me in some fashion, and I don't feel (like the OP explains) that I need to keep humans at bay in order to love humanity. In fact, I usually build new relationships to replace the old discarded ones once I've achieved my goals.
There was a time when I thought more like the OP. But nowadays I think there's benefit in socializing for its own sake, and contrary to the philosophy of the OP I make a deliberate effort to keep other humans directly and immediately in my life at all times.
Oh well, thanks for your good input as always, Heart. I think I'll probably drop the subject here. The deeper one digs, the more speculative things get (especially for an amateur like me).