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Moving on…
By Michelle | August 6, 2008
(You won’t get the title unless you read the blog post referenced) There was a time about six years back when I was completely obsessed with personality types — I tend to delve into these sorts of obsessions for a day, a week, a month then set them aside for years and revisit them every now and then when the mood strikes. I’ve received mixed reactions when bringing up the topic among acquaintances… mostly I do it because I’ve formulated my own theory about their type, and I want to see if I can goad them into telling me what type they think they are.
When I really think about it, I think I like personality types because it helps my brain group the people I know (loosely) into a matrix of pre-defined categories, and it helps me predict what they’re thinking and how they’re going to react to any given situation. There are other things I’d rather expend brain cells on, so simplifying the world of human reaction is definitely a plus. Plus, I like the guessing game — I’ve a pretty good track record (or something like that).
Anyhow, in my re-discovery of this idle pastime I came across this blog entry that is, perhaps, the best description I’ve seen ever of some of my more random traits. Although you can find countless articles online and in books detailing the traits of different personality types in horribly dry detail, this author uses personal anecdotes to bring the words to life. For example (uh, this is hard, since I’d like to just quote the entire piece):
Disappearing is, perhaps, one of the most annoying things some INTJs do that people dislike. I promise you we are not trying to insult you or to hurt your feelings by leaving. We leave, usually without comment, from groups or meetings or parties or get-togethers because we become interested in something else. It’s that simple. We decide to investigate elsewhere. No malice is intended in disappearing. We don’t see it as disappearing. We see it more like, “moving on…” When I get asked later, You said good-bye before you left, right? and I stammer out an Uhh as an answer, I realize my host probably wondered what happened to me.
I remember being at a social function not too long ago and thinking about an hour and a half in that it was time to move on. It wasn’t that I “wasn’t having fun” but rather that I couldn’t shake the thought from my head that there were other ways that I’d rather be spending my time — and I just sort up picked up and left. Yes, I said goodbye to one or two folks but other than that it was just, woosh.
We generally have strongly-held values about right and wrong and “right and wrong” for many of us are defined in a social sense and not necessarily a religious one. We know the world is grey but doing the right thing — the promises we make to each other kind of morality — is important to us because it helps shape the world into the worthy and the unworthy of our involvement. Seeing Justice done is a vital element for us because it carves the right stake in society.
I have a hard time explaining this to other people, especially those who are strongly religious (personally, I find organized religion rather too confining–most religions claim to have all the answers and if you do x, y, and z then everything will be good. Where’s the mystery, the challenge?). It’s entirely possible to have a strong sense of morality without a strong sense of religiosity. I wonder sometimes, why do you need a book to tell you what’s right and wrong? Shouldn’t it just be intuitive?
We are sometimes accused of being disconnected from the rest of society. We aren’t disconnected to the present. Funerals, for me anyway, are a waste of time because we are not our bodies. That thinking, I have learned, is offensive to many people on a plethora of levels.
The gist of the rest of this excerpted paragraph is that INTJ’s tend to be forward-looking, not backward-looking. This combined with a “different” sense of religiosity and a general disdain for energy-wasting social convention means that they’re not huge fans of funerals. I especially don’t get the appeal of open-casket events. Blech.
Topics: Randomness |