Tag: #INFJ

Martin Luther King Quotes

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

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“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

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“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

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“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

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“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

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“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

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“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

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“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

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“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

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“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”

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The Introvert Switch Off

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It is not uncommon for an introvert to remain silent when someone is talking AT them. They can wait until the other person stops talking eyeing the door just to get out of there. They have long since stopped listening to and processing whatever the other person is saying. All they hear is “blah, blah, blah” all they think is “how can I get out of here.” Very often the person with verbal diarrhoea may be completely unaware of the introvert switch off. They may even interpret the lack of argument as agreement and support. The person they are talking at has completely disengaged. The person talking may even imagine that they have had a good chat and an exchange of ideas. The introvert is looking to get the hell out of there and will probably avoid any future contact unless they absolutely have to. There has been a huge miscommunication.

On “First Dates” last night there was a classic example of introvert switch off and complete disengagement in a 1:1 dating scenario. People have got to seriously lack self-awareness and any hint of empathy to/for others if they fail to see an obvious switch off. They may continue to rabbit. They may be lost in their own little world, oblivious.

There may be social elements too. It seems to me that people like to discuss things in France. Some kind of discussion is anticipated and expected. I do not often need any form of discussion to come to my own conclusions or ideas. I tend to research. People used to discussion may anticipate someone talking over them in disagreement, which in my book is rude. They may expect an ebb and flow of conversation. When there is none, it can confuse.  In my case if I want to understand spoken French I have to concentrate. If for example the wife and I are talking with someone and they start to speak to the wife. I switch off because it is not for me, I do not have to engage with whatever it is that is being said. People may be unaware assuming that I am still participating in conversation when I have already opted out. They may assume they are talking with both of us, I have switched off.

I have recall of a large number of conversations mostly in English when someone has said something which is wrong and which I disagree with. I have not felt the urge to verbalise. There has been no “push back “ from me. I have no idea what the other person has made of it. It is not my problem. I have a few anecdotes when some have reported me saying something when I have said nothing. The mind can do weird things. The lack of negation may have been seen as affirmation. It wasn’t. I was bored and disengaged. I was hoping for the “conversation” to finish quickly.

I suspect that there are a quite a few introverts out there who recognise some of the above. There may be quite a few extroverts who are completely unaware of the introvert switch off. After all the sound of their voice is magnificent and the world benefits enormously from their erudite opining.

When You Just Know

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I have started the process of looking around for an alternate orthopaedic surgeon. I have secured a provisional appointment. I just know that should I follow through, this it is going to open a can of worms. In principle a second opinion is “allowed”. In practice it can put noses out of joint, cause gossip and stoke rivalries. I can stop it. I am going to sleep on it. But the moment I tip up for an appointment I will have to explain myself. There will be uncomfortable feelings on both sides. It will not be smooth and I will be the problem, not anyone else. I am also a foreigner now, too. I do not have citizenship and my right to stay expires in a few months’ time, March.

Way back when I lived near Farnham, I had a GP doctor who was athletic-skinny. He had a pro-forma crib sheet for calculating BMI. It was issued by the Ministry of Truth. He calculated mine and proceeded to lecture me from his soap box about the need to lose weight. Even though I was not officially obese back then. I asked him to show me my extra body fat. He could not. He said that people can be fat on the inside. Whatever that means, those were his literal words, fat on the inside. I showed him my large biceps and claimed muscle mass but he persisted. I then said that I had recently read an article in the BMJ about how raw BMI data was often over interpreted in general practice medicine. His back was up and he was affronted.

I just knew that we would never get on and for our mutual benefit it would be better for me to have another GP. I saw him a few times before I changed practice and each meeting was fractious. He is a human being, so was I. I have rarely had a reaction like this from a woman. I concluded that possession of a penis played a role in interpersonal dynamics. I am not insecure about the average size of mine, physically and metaphorically. I don’t have a whole bag of chips on my shoulder.

The caveat here is that my perception could be skewed. I perceive that I have an uncanny knack of putting people’s back up especially when they deem themselves superior, more expert, to me. I can be more frank than some like or can handle. I am just being me. I am not trying to wind them up or belittle them. I get what I perceive of as bad reactions.

In general I know when I have the early stages of a bronchial infection. I report to a GP doctor and quite rightly because there is not enough cack in the lungs, they do not initially prescribe an antibiotic. I just know in many cases I will be back soon when the cack gets cacky enough for antibiotics. They have a process to go through to limit over prescription. I just know that I have to wait until a certain severity of illness presents. They are doing their job, that is all. It is possible that I might wait too long one day.

I had a bad clash of personalities with my cancer “care” nurse a decade ago. She had severe mother superior tendencies and I met her dogmatism head on. This made collecting my results from her an unpleasant thing which I came to dread. Rather than looking forward to her support, I would dread the meetings. I asked them to send my carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) results by email. They refused. If anything went wrong it would have to be very wrong indeed before I would reach out to my allocated cancer care nurse. I never did. I just knew that the best thing was to switch hospital care teams. It sounded simple and I could offer the reason of enhanced proximity.

However I opened a can of worms. Every time I went for a colonoscopy or to follow up blood in the faeces, they wanted to know why I had changed teams. They kept pressing me. They seemed obsessed with gaining this information. I gave the same answer that they were closer, which was true but incomplete. On a number of occasions the chimney sweep insisted that the blood was from piles. I just knew that was not the case. So we had to have an examination for piles before he agreed to a sigmoidoscopy. I don’t particularly like having endoscopes shoved up my arse but there was no way of avoiding his adamant insistence that it was piles. I just had to let him go through his process. He had all the power and I wanted to find out if I had a new cancer or a recurrence of the old one. I was not anxious I wanted data. People can see anxious when need for data manifests.

Sometimes I just know when the best thing is to drop something and walk away. It is for everyone’s benefit. Even If I am inconvenienced it can be better just to let things lie, leave them well alone.

A while back someone trying to be clever said that I was a part of the equation as to why things were not working out. I simplified his equation by removing a variable, me. I don’t know how well the equation worked out after that…If I was a/the problem at least they had the possibility of moving forward unencumbered by me.

This feeling that I am a/the problem according to others has presented multiple times in this life and it has resulted in a walk away or a door slam on more than a few of these.

If I am the problem I want to simplify things…

I just know when people are seeing or are starting to see me as a/the problem.

Maybe they are right and it is always me…

It is just one of those things…

Social Discomfort – Social Anxiety Disorder

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I think it fair to suggest that social discomfort is a pillar of comedy. We all find it funny if sometimes uncomfortable.

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The more uptight, pompous and status oriented one is the more likely one is to experience social discomfort. Heaven forbid that someone do something inconsistent with their social position, something gauche, something off trend. A pleb should kneel and kotow. They must know and accept their place.

At the Babraham Institute once, one Ph.D. student wrote in the feedback for a course that I gave, that it was unprofessional for me to say that my former employers, Imperial College, were a cold efficiency employer. They were not a hugs kisses and birthday cake bunch. He felt perhaps that I was slagging them off. Though many would have been happy to be called cool {cold} and efficient, competitive and perhaps ruthless. As a young man he had a lot to learn about reality and maybe his idealism would soon be tarnished.

Psychologists have a fundamental assumption, that people like to socialise and that they SHOULD do so. It underpins much psychological diagnoses according to my non-erudite and hence inexpert eye. It is clear to me that my unwillingness to play the social game has impacted on my career advancement. One could say that socialisation is a societal pre-requisite for promotion, a needed social skill.

On the DSM-5 social anxiety scale one is asked if one avoids social contacts, extensively prepares for them and self-medicates in order to face them, the so-called Dutch courage. It suggests that one is fearful of social situations. Maybe one simply does not like them and therefore avoids them {like the plague}. It is not uncommon for people to get pissed, smoke weed and snort Charlie in social situations.

Does that make them psychologically ill and diagnosable?

I’ll postulate.

Modern psychological wisdom is prejudiced against introverts and introversion. Such behaviours are seen as faulty and in need of fixing.

As usual it is the extroverts who dominate the “air time” or soap box.

In terms of the anxiety disorder, I meet the avoidance criteria but not the fear.

Is it bad not to want to surround yourself with gobshites arseholes and knobheads? To not share a finger buffet and talk endless shit with them?

Why not avoid something that you do not enjoy?

This kind of avoiding seem pretty darned sane to me.


In general I dial back on the boffinaciousness because it causes social discomfort and nobody likes a know-it-all. Which means that you often have to wait for people to catch up. I used to self-handicap with a lot of weed, which also enhances patience in all areas apart from munchies.

In France some are seemingly embarrassed to speak poor English, where no English are embarrassed with their appalling French. It is weird. Is it about control? There is social discomfort. They do not slow down {in French} and talk to you like a moron as is common {in English} in the UK. I sense a discomfort.

I went to see the zebra at the zoo.

I’ll postulate further.

Social discomfort and the fear thereof is very limiting and causes many problems. Things that need to be broached and discussed are avoided in case of social awkwardness occurring.

Fear of loss of face {FOLOF} is almost as big as fear of missing out {FOMO}.

Even though I am very introverted I have good interpersonal skills as a part of my chameleon toolkit. Strangely the most important social skill of all is being able to listen. It puts people at ease.

Is being uncomfortable with BS a clinically diagnostic malady? This is a social discomfort but not one of awkwardness of embarrassment, simply preference

Is there a DSM-5 criteria list for the Avoidance of Bull Shit Personality Disorder?

Do we need to train people to better accept tolerate and otherwise believe bull shit?

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The Problem with Introverts…

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I’ll kick this off with a joke I used to use on my MBTI courses which I gave.

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An Introvert Joke

It’s a rainy day. The reception teacher is getting the kids ready to go home. She struggles for 5 minutes with one child’s boots, tugging them on and getting them laced up.

Just as she’s finished, the I child says, “those aren’t my boots”. The teacher sighs and spends another few minutes undoing them and taking them off.

Just as she’s finished, the child adds, “They’re my brother’s. My mum said I had to wear them today.”

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In the MBTI context I have an INFJ preference. I score very high for introversion and judging but my intuition {N} score is close to the maximum available. That intuition is introverted so largely unseen. That means I have a highly organised orientation which is strictly timed with big picture thinking. If people are late and chaotic I can get unsettled / peeved. People see my warm caring feeling F side but I can easily flip to the more logical T side.

For years I acted out ENTJ because I thought that was what blokes were meant to be.

Over the years many people have expressed an opinion about what I am like, who I am, what I am capable off, what my predilections are. They may have expected some kind of response. Rarely did they get one. I am not keen on arguing the toss. It is a stupid waste of time. Some people learn by testing their ideas out in conversation and may expect a push back. Why should I do their work for them? As an introvert I very rarely offer up information or opinion. If I do it will be in a tiny stepwise manner. If things are joined up in my inner world, I have no need to express it. Viewed from one angle few if any get to see what might be called “me”. One could be mysterious and say that I am like an iceberg with hidden depths and not a lettuce like Liz.

I have noted that if you don’t agree or disagree with what someone says they imagine it to be correct, perhaps more correct than it actually is. I could be wrong in this but my intuition can be very reliable. It is not my problem if they have the wrong end of the stick.

People who are fond of bullshitting whether mutual or otherwise, can feel uncomfortable because I don’t play the BS / hype / exaggerate / big up game. Women are less prone to this discomfort than men. Who seem to need ritual sniffing and metaphorical at urinal wall pissing contests. In any case I now have an enlarged prostate. I can be very deadpan and uninterested. There is no uncomfortable silence for me.

It is funny in doctor’s waiting rooms. I do not arse about on my ‘phone, I do not read the magazines and never break the silence in an attempt to have a chat. Someone often breaks. They try to engage. Here I can apologize and explain that I do not speak French well. This nearly always restores the silence. Many are uncomfortable without noise.

In one particular framework my predilection is for dreaming and not (s)talking and I am “in” the place of power and dreaming, the South. I have met a number of people who give courses on dreaming and lucid dreaming in particular. Each of these has been by predilection a (s)talker. Which roughly maps with extroversion. They like techniques like waking in the middle of the night, working with apps and finding their hands to prove that they are in a lucid dream. They interrupt the dream to direct it. In one sense they have talked at an experienced dreamer. They were used to being seen as the expert.

It is possible that they could have learned vast amounts about dreaming from me. But the biggest hindrance to dreaming is talking. They will never know what might have been because I felt no need to big myself up or compare dreaming cock size. I did not need to name drop and show how “in” I was with the dreaming community.

The problem with introverts is that if you talk at them. They will stay schtum and say little or nothing. If you ask, they might just respond, depending on wind direction and the phase of the moon.

It is even worse in my case because I have no need to play the itchy back game because I am no longer in that world. There is currently no need for me to join in…

Life Divergences and the Wrong End of the Stick

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I have recently had a several months stint on LinkedIn. Because I am an “old fart” I went to university way back when it was much less common in the UK. My class size was of the order of 30. It was hard to get in. There was an in-department tea / snack room which served buttered toast. After a 9 AM chemistry lecture you could get coffee and toast and marmalade. We knew each other quite well and there was a lot of fraternisation between staff and students. Back then there was a lot of booze. It would be frowned upon today, Jurassic behaviours.

It is safe to conclude that when taking the integral of life time earnings of most of my university peer group, based on their LinkedIn profiles, I am at the bottom of the earnings table and I am not going to earn any more. I was the baby of the class being born end of August, but somehow also a social lynch pin. 4 out of 30 came from my school. Most of my peers have been successful whereas my “career” ended in 2007. I did some small “A” level science tutoring for a number of years. I retired around five years ago. Often it is the years 40-65 when people earn the most. I did not.

It could be said that I am a failure and that I failed.

I worked for over a decade as an academic at a top London university. Many of that peer group and people whom I once taught have had and are having way more success than me. There are big cheeses.

There are a number of possible explanations for why I quit at the age of 42. They include burn out, the so-called INFJ door slam, some mental health problems, or the renunciation of a way of life. I was very unhappy that my colleagues were talking about getting rid of people to improve the REF rating. Nice! I figured I could handle going better than others. The decision was quick and nobody anticipated it. I don’t recall having any discussions. I did not have a leaving party because I hate that kind of thing. I handed over my responsibilities and just left. Not many, very few, said goodbye. I thought at the time that it was handled poorly. British people can be awkward and scientists are not renowned for their interpersonal skills. I don’t believe anyone from there addressed the subject with me, certainly not meaningfully.

I was not anticipating what was to unfold in terms of meditations and chanting. My life certainly diverged from where it had been heading. There were consequences which I had not anticipated in terms of my employability.

If you meditate at least once daily for two decades you are likely to differ markedly in terms of psyche and mind from those who do not. If you don’t see someone for over a decade they may try to shoehorn their perception of you into their old version. They may be unable to conceive of what you are like now. They will not know “the point before mind”.

I have no ambition, no drive, no goals, no targets. I am not overly fussed about what happens to me. I am not interested in kudos. There is no driver for me to invent. I doubt that anything I might write is sellable, certainly not profitable. So, there is no point in me trying to publish for money. In one sense I am waiting until my time is up. The likelihood is that my time will be used gardening, doing DIY, strolling and a bit of blogging here and there. I will be a carer from time to time.

I am out of touch with the modern way of life. I have not made a social ‘phone call in near a decade. I have near zero social email use. Just as I am out of touch with modern life, the outer world is out of touch with me.  Only a few people know any of my email addresses and only one person has my ‘phone number. The hospital has it too.

Life is uncomplicated by connectivity.

When you watch the news, it is often a loner who is not popular who turns out to be the perpetrator of some killing or other. People are prejudiced about people like me. They may even pity me and feel sad. That is getting the wrong end of the stick by a country mile. People transfer their obsession with social contact onto me. I am quite happy not to have any. I can go days without speaking to anyone.

I certainly did not add a great deal to UK plc. I once co-founded a company which put dinner on the table for about fifty households. In principle I could have done more. But I did not.

It could be said that I was perhaps fated to do a “Reggie Perrin” only I never came back to work.

I do not know what fate has in store for me, if anything. It is very unlikely to have a wider impact or significance. This could be argued to be a waste. Or simply it is what it is.

Being a four cancer couple already sets us apart statistically. Colon cancer and basal cell carcinomas for me, myeloma and breast for her. She start posts operative radiotherapy next week. I get a “chimney sweep” colonoscopy next year. I am on prostate cancer watch because of slightly elevated PSA. No signs of any lesions in the MRI.

It is pretty clear what the next month is about. The important bit, that is.

I speculate that were I to meet any of the people from my peer groupings it would take quite a while for the penny to drop concerning just how far my life and beingness has diverged from theirs. And they would almost certainly get entirely the wrong end of the stick in any attempt at communication beyond the basic CV style “life fact” exchange. I’ll wager I could understand their lives better than they could understand mine. I came from “there”. I do not think that they could get it nor do I believe that I could convey. They would have to experience over a fair time interval to even begin.

I could be wrong…

I am divergent…

Grizzly Adams – Twitter and LinkedIn

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I have lived to a large extent in a vacuum of social interaction for a number of years. It was perhaps foretold by my like of “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams”. As a teenager I really enjoyed the programme and the lifestyle idea, living in an isolated cabin in nature.  My extroverted parents kept bloody talking whilst I was watching the programmes and often commented about isolation leading inevitably to cabin fever. Although adjunct to society we do not really participate and cannot be said to be socially integrated. We are immersed in nature at the very edge of a village.

Because I have arthritis sooner or later, I will be unable to manage our 2 acres. So, I joined LinkedIn with a view to seeing if I could get some science editing work to help pay for assistance in the garden. That has not proved possible / easy. As a result of this LinkedIn exposure, I delved into the venture capital start-up world to which I once pertained a quarter century ago. It was interesting for me to track down people I did my first degree with and to see what they are / have been up to. When taking the integral over my life I have perhaps been among the least financially successful of all my peers. We live below minimum wage. This is not a usual outcome for a high technology start-up co-founder and an ex-academic from a world top ten university.

What I see is that the tendency to hype and spin has not gone. It has gotten worse. Many of my invitations to join my network have been ignored. People whose lives I helped change can’t be arsed with me anymore, my leper’s bell can be heard across continents, it seems. Some of these people are very “successful” now. I know that I have helped many people over the years. It seems they have forgotten or are embarrassed by me now. I am not resentful I have perhaps always given more that I have taken. It was never done transactionally.

By following the likes of people I knew, I have had exposure to a Jewish / Israeli perspective on some things. I found this interesting and had been unaware of some of the depth of feeling.

Obviously, LinkedIn has a sales / public relations purpose. It is not for deep spiritual insight. It could be said to be for people “on the make”.

Has anyone every studied if LinkedIn is worth the money time and effort? Or is LinkedIn yet another part of our modern FOMO addiction?

Twitter has some gems but it also has a lot of shite. There is darkness, hate and some light. I am amazed at how very polarised the world is now. I was trying to sum it up.

People it seems can be gullible, adamant and evangelical.

They may actually believe some of the stuff they soap box about. Conspiracy theories can be way out there. Deep thought and balance seems missing. OK not everyone likes Twitter/X or whatever. Not every “omniscient” being needs to spout off about their agenda. But it is a sample of our world today. I sense that the younger people are underrepresented. It does not fill me with optimism about where humanity is heading.

In a strange way I find both of these medias “intrusive” the world “out there” is somehow leaking in to they world here. The more I see they less I sense a belonging to that world. I don’t fit in, perhaps I never have.

My working hypothesis is that there is not really much more for me to do “out there”.  I am done, used up. I have had a dream recently suggesting that this self-image may be wrong and that my opinion of self needs a polish, a glow up. But true paths can and may be filled with emptiness as opposed to societal detritus.

It seems likely that in the upcoming weeks I will pull the plug on LinkedIn and now that my research on Twitter is nearly over, I will stop using that too.

I have one observation Twitter live feed is way better before the USA gets out of bed. Reiteration differs from fact. Boring.

Dreaming and Intuition are they linked?

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In terms of MBTI, I have a clear INFJ preference. I have very high scores for N intuition and J judging. This means that I am a bit of time freak, I like to be early and get things done well before any deadline. It has come as a shock to some that I am very introverted.

My dominant function is introverted intuition, which means that few get to see what goes on internally. Occasionally people are very surprised at what pops out. I have some skill in envisioning, so called big picture thinking, but pictures are generally 2d so that description is limited.

Intuition comes in various degrees from knowing the next number in a number sequence puzzle to having a profound insight into the psyche or soul of others based on little “evidence”. The first case of intuition here is an extension of logic. The second is an unexplainable knowing.

 Intuition can be re-written inner-tuition.

Where a kind of learning happens as if by magic. If I cannot solve a problem, I leave it to my background processors intentionally and then a few days later a solution or a new way of thinking comes into mind, ta-da!

Dreaming, passive dreaming at night, does not come from outside. So, we could call this internal process, intuition, particularly if insights arrive in a dream. Dreaming is a subset of intuition.  

I personally trust my intuition and dreams more than what is said in overt and verbal conversation or even text. If there is divergence, I trust my inner-tuition over what is presented or spun. Being introverted I don’t let on.

In esoteric psychology some dreams can be termed “dramatizations of the soul” in which the soul is trying to assist the mundane being. You can’t get more inner inner-tuition than that.

Statistically INFJ is the least common personality type. If you know one hundred people then only one of them is INFJ. {Of course, INFJs cluster in certain professions}. Many of us report problems fitting in with society and the square peg in a round hole is a depiction of the INFJ. There are lots of different visualisations of INFJ because INFJs often like metaphor and allegory.

Because INFJs are interested in things like psychology, then it follows that many may have an interest in passive nocturnal and active lucid dreaming.

Some dreams are internal dialogue and daily angst carried into sleep. I’ll suggest that at certain depths dreaming is a form of inner-tuition or intuition. There are similarities to heightened meditative states and conscious nocturnal dreaming.

The trick is learning how to remember your dreams and transfer them into the so-called waking “reality” of life quotidian.

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