The Space in Between

Plumbing the Depths: Fruitful Obsessions

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:56:03 -0700

Plumbing the Depths: Fruitful Obsessions:

Every INTP has been accused more than a few times of being obsessed. When an INTP gets interested in something he can sometimes focus on that thing to the exclusion of anything else.

Other types are easily disconcerted by this behavior. They get uncomfortable when social conventions are ignored.

“You haven’t eaten yet today? What’s wrong with you? You are obsessed!!”

Even more so, other types are easily upset when they themselves are ignored.

“You can’t even look up for one second? What is so important that you can’t even say hello to me???”

The INTP might reply: “What is so important that you need to interrupt my focus?” But we all know that won’t help the situation…

The misunderstanding is exacerbated by the fact that the INTP often can’t explain what exactly it is that has captured his interest or why is it that he is so interested. All he knows is that he is on the trail of something.

To other types - particularly SJ types - this failure to articulate oneself comes off as pure obstinance…or worse, psychological instability. What these more literal minded types fail to realize is that if the INTP knew exactly what it was that he was searching for…then there would be no point in the search. Nothing new was ever discovered by taking a straight path to a known destination.

The other point that is easily overlooked is that INTP obsession are always transient. INTPs are generalists not specialists. The INTP gets interested in some new subject area, dives into it deeply for a period of time, then quickly exhausts the available material reemerges from the obsession.

Given this pattern, the choice is not between obsession and non-obsession. The choice is between accomplishing something all at once, while motivation and energy levels remain high; or failing to capitalize on the initial surge of motivation, and instead allowing that same task to become a long-term chore.

From this perspective obsessions don’t sound so weird. On the contrary, fruitful obsession is a way of producing work opportunistically, before it becomes drudgery.

The alternative is to draw a hard line between work and play, insisting that work must look and feel like work…and must be motivated by some pressing obligation.

This is exactly what is implied by the person who disparages INTP obsessions - that work must always feel like work, and play (leisure) must always be unproductive.

Untitled: Why you don't hear from me.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:55:16 -0700

Untitled: Why you don't hear from me.:

cheverett:

I think it’s possible that the reason I stay up so late is that it’s the only time that I can usually be alone. It might come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m not a very social person. I prefer to be alone most of the time to do my own thing. I do like to talk to and be around friends and family, but I’m not the type who needs to talk to or see them every day. I probably won’t call or message you unless I have something important, interesting or relevant to say. I hate small talk. It serves little purpose (except to waste time no one has enough of anyway), but I see it as a necessary (evil) social convention. I don’t really believe in multitasking when I talk to someone. If we’re talking on the phone, texting or messaging, there’s a good chance that’s all I’m doing because I don’t think it’s fair not to give someone your undivided attention when you’re talking to them. I guess what I’m saying that if you don’t see or hear from me it’s not because I don’t care, but rather because I don’t have a whole lot to say or you post enough on Facebook that I don’t need to. If you call or message me, I’ll answer or respond if I can or it’s important, but most of the time I’ll get back to you when I have time for the proper response and or conversation you deserve. I know it seems like I’m being a jerk sometimes, but “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.” If you’re my friend… You get it (and maybe even appreciate it.) /rant

"INTP children are more likely than most to disobey commands they don’t agree with. Like all Rational..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:54:15 -0700

““INTP children are more likely than most to disobey commands they don’t agree with. Like all Rational children, they will listen to logic (Keirsey, 1998a), but the reverse is also true—they will not listen to illogic. This may annoy nonNT parents who justify their commands on the basis of social conformity, unquestioning obedience, and emotional appeals. They are also skeptical. For example, young INTPs will be among the first to figure out that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are actually their parents.””

- The Secret lives of INTP’s (via mutterseelenallein)

"To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home: to see the world, to be at the..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:45:30 -0700

“To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home: to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world-such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.”

- on flaneur, Baudelaire (via intpmuch)

gravalicious: by Lalo Alcaraz - Political Cartoonist

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:21:49 -0700

gravalicious:

by Lalo Alcaraz - Political Cartoonist

"Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to..."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:14:35 -0700

“Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.”

- Hillary Rodham Clinton (from Living History)

I wish more people understood this. (via sunlaze)

As being one’s surest possibility, Heidegger would say that such...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:57:45 -0700

As being one’s surest possibility, Heidegger would say that such thoughts imply a person is living (dying) authentically.

"I am not of the opinion that one can ever lack the power to express perfectly what one wants to..."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:53:25 -0700

“I am not of the opinion that one can ever lack the power to express perfectly what one wants to write or say. Observations on the weakness of language, and comparisons between the limitations of words and the infinity of feelings, are quite fallacious. The infinite feeling continues to be as infinite in words as it was in the heart. What is clear within is bound to become so in words as well. This is why one need never worry about language, but at sight of words may often worry about oneself. After all, who knows within himself how things really are with him? This tempestuous or floundering or morass-like inner self is what we really are, but by the secret process by which words are forced out of us, our self-knowledge is brought to light, and though it may still be veiled, yet it is there before us, wonderful or terrible to behold.”

- Franz Kafka, from Diaries (via violentwavesofemotion)

"Stop being tormented by everyone else’s reaction to you."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:29:09 -0700

“Stop being tormented by everyone else’s reaction to you.”

- Joyce Meyer (via agnostice)

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:27:36 -0700

"When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:12:14 -0700

“When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. “This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar,” she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. “My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.”
It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions? How often had I sped past them as I learned of male achievement and men’s place in the history books? Then I read Rosalind Miles’s book “The Women’s History of the World” (recently republished as “Who Cooked the Last Supper?”) and I knew I needed to look again. History is full of fabulous females who have been systematically ignored, forgotten or simply written out of the records. They’re not all saints, they’re not all geniuses, but they do deserve remembering.”

- Sandi Toksvig, ‘Top 10 unsung heroines’ (via ninestories)

(via melancholia-macabre)

Photo

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:09:30 -0700

"We are the generation of nostalgia. We grew up in the age of transition. From hand-written letters..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:20:44 -0700

“We are the generation of nostalgia. We grew up in the age of transition. From hand-written letters to electronic mails. From film to digital. We were fascinated by new things, neglecting the way we spend our afternoons. Cupcakes and tea. Play-Doh and Polly Pockets. Young and naive. Technology completely changed the way we waited and we grew up too fast. The simple things in life seems more meaningful now. We grew up in the age of transition and have become the generation of nostalgia.”

- This is the best/truest thing I’ve read in so long (via thesleepingfawn)

But this explains the 90s kids

(via thebbcisslowlykillingme)

Photo

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:19:39 -0700

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:13:26 -0700

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked-as I am surprisingly often-why I bother to get up in the mornings.”

- Richard Dawkins (via relinquishfaith)

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:10:21 -0700

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”

- Anais Nin (via wethinkwedream)

"Philosophy, art, and science are not the mental objects of an objectified brain but the three..."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:38:16 -0700

“Philosophy, art, and science are not the mental objects of an objectified brain but the three aspects under which the brain becomes subject.”

- Gilles Deleuze (via existenti-al)

astrogasmic: Brian Cox using a £1,000,000 diamond to...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:22:25 -0700

astrogasmic:

Brian Cox using a £1,000,000 diamond to demonstrate Richard Feynman’s Path Integral Formula. The diamond came with its own security guard, watching it like a hawk. Of course, that didn’t stop Brian joking about stealing it!

The formula shows that the diamond could, given a long enough amount of time, jump out of its box on its own.

How long a time? 3x10²⁹ seconds to be precise. Or put another way, 600 billion times the current age of the universe!

atokniiro: (Wake me up) Wake me up inside Exactly

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:16:52 -0700

atokniiro:

(Wake me up) Wake me up inside

Exactly

knowledgethroughscience: VY Canis Majoris - the biggest star...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 11:12:21 -0700

knowledgethroughscience:

VY Canis Majoris - the biggest star we’ve found in the universe.

This red supergiant is located in the constellation Canis Major 4,900 light years from Earth. It is up to 2,100 times bigger than our Sun.