30 Days of writing something other than poetry, day 13. In this essay, I consider my own faults with as close as I can come to brutal honesty. You have been warned. – Owen

According to Isabel (Briggs Myers) and Katherine (Cook Briggs, her mother), I am personality type INFJ. People characterized as such are relatively rare.

I thought I’d take the main dimensions these initials represent and talk about what they’ve meant for me in real life.

“Introverted.” (as opposed to Extroverted)

The better people know me, the less they like me. As such, I avoid people to the degree possible.

More than that, the more I am around people, the less I like me. I’m flighty, impatient, and frequently too preoccupied with my own concerns. My own perception of myself is that I am repetitious, pretentious, and annoying.

While I am alone, I become less aware of my own faults and can exist with something like emotional equanimity. For that reason, I spend as much time alone as I can arrange.

For many introverts, introversion is a strength: time alone allows them to be a more fully-realized them. For me, being a fully-realized me is bad, and introversion is my way of trying to avoid that.

“Intuition”. (as opposed to Sensing. And yes, “Intuition” uses an “N” in this system, because “I” was already used.)

The dichotomy the Myers-Briggs test sets up here is an interesting one, between “Sensing” and “Intuiting” as ways of taking in knowledge. One might think the opposite of a “sensing” person would be one who is “oblivious”, which describes me pretty well, at least as regards how things look; I am almost entirely non-visual. I routinely fail to notice things that almost everyone else does.

And, in case there is anyone wondering about the significance I attach to being oblivious, THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING.

To be fair, I do notice sounds. When I have told people that the first thing I notice or find attractive in a woman is her voice, people think I’m crazy. Or at least I assume so, since they tend to start backing away slowly.

I also tend to remember what I hear far better than what I read, which is really weird for a writer.

The one visual thing I do notice is color. I love bright colors, and use them on this blog whenever possible, as I have in the picture affixed to this post. I also like to wear bright colors, when I can.

Now, I defined myself in this personality dimension primarily negatively, by my lack of the practical skills involved with sensing things directly. I do have the prototype Intuitive preference for metaphor, analogy, and logic rather than facts, per se.

Preferring analogies to facts is like enjoying cooking shows more than eating. It kind of places life at one remove.

“Feeling” (as opposed to Thinking)

I can think, I just don’t, not when feelings are blaring away their top forty hits at me twenty-four hours a day. Unlike the characteristics above, I recognize this as good thing (for me) even if it is as aggravating as a rock in their shoe for people who have to deal with me daily.

Thinking and feeling act as necessary correctives to each other; in my case, when everything is working right, I’m slightly less aggravating. But only slightly.

I can typically empathize with people fairly well, which is a trait people like, in small doses, but which can make it hard for me to function when I am around a lot of people. As I mentioned above, when I am feeling too much, I cannot think.

Online friendships have worked out relatively well for me, since the lack of actual contact allows me to operate in this empathetic capacity. I have been reluctant to meet any of my online friends in real life, though, for fear of what their disappointment would feel like.

“Judging” (as opposed to Perceiving)

Judging people, as defined here, are ones who make decisions and stick to them; perceiving people keep their possibilities more open. I am not sure why I ended up being a “Judging” person, but I certainly am one.

In this regard, I think I realized very young that we have to make decisions and that perfect information is impossible, so I got comfortable with reality as I perceived it. I can make decisions, no problem. But I am not a confident person about those decisions.

This blog is named for the idea of my never being certain about anything. I just accept the consequences of my bad decisions, when they turn out to be so.

Below is a cribbed summary of INFJ’s: I’ve underlined things that sound like me.

INFJ (“The Protector” or “The Advocate”, also called “Introverted Intuition with Extroverted Feeling”)

As an INFJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in primarily via intuition. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit with your personal value system.

INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.

INFJs place great importance on having things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives. On the other hand, INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous. They know things intuitively, without being able to pinpoint why, and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. They are usually right, and they usually know it. Consequently, INFJs put a tremendous amount of faith into their instincts and intuitions. This is something of a conflict between the inner and outer worlds, and may result in the INFJ not being as organized as other Judging types tend to be. Or we may see some signs of disarray in an otherwise orderly tendency, such as a consistently messy desk.

INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations. They get “feelings” about things and intuitively understand them. As an extreme example, some INFJs report experiences of a psychic nature, such as getting strong feelings about there being a problem with a loved one, and discovering later that they were in a car accident. This is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at, and the INFJ themself does not really understand their intuition at a level which can be verbalized. Consequently, most INFJs are protective of their inner selves, sharing only what they choose to share when they choose to share it. They are deep, complex individuals, who are quite private and typically difficult to understand. INFJs hold back part of themselves, and can be secretive.

But the INFJ is as genuinely warm as they are complex. INFJs hold a special place in the heart of people who they are close to, who are able to see their special gifts and depth of caring. INFJs are concerned for people’s feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict may drive the normally peaceful INFJ into a state of agitation or charged anger. They may tend to internalize conflict into their bodies, and experience health problems when under a lot of stress.

Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubborness and tendency to ignore other people’s opinions. They believe that they’re right. On the other hand, INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves – there’s always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don’t often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don’t believe in compromising their ideals.

INFJ is a natural nurturer; patient, devoted and protective. They make loving parents and usually have strong bonds with their offspring. They have high expectations of their children, and push them to be the best that they can be. This can sometimes manifest itself in the INFJ being hard-nosed and stubborn. But generally, children of an INFJ get devoted and sincere parental guidance, combined with deep caring.

In the workplace, the INFJ usually shows up in areas where they can be creative and somewhat independent. They have a natural affinity for art, and many excel in the sciences, where they make use of their intuition. INFJs can also be found in service-oriented professions. They are not good at dealing with minutia or very detailed tasks. The INFJ will either avoid such things, or else go to the other extreme and become enveloped in the details to the extent that they can no longer see the big picture. An INFJ who has gone the route of becoming meticulous about details may be highly critical of other individuals who are not.

The INFJ individual is gifted in ways that other types are not. Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ, but they are capable of great depth of feeling and personal achievement.

I feel like I ought to offer a prize to anyone who makes it this far in this turgid and self-serving piece. If I did, what prize would you want?

[Day 12]

The day before yesterday, some of us got into a discussion at a party after work about trinomial lattices, which are a type of financial derivative (option) pricing model.

Don’t tell ME actuaries don’t know how to party.

I mean, we don’t, but don’t tell me.

As the office’s resident wordsmith, I got asked at some point exactly what a “lattice” is. I said it’s an interweave or other regular geometric arrangement of some kind, depending on context.

PERSON, LOOKING AT PHONE: “He’s right.”

OTHER PERSON, LOOKING AT ME: “Why would anyone know that?”

ME: “There are twenty of us at a bar in Columbus, Georgia discussing derivative pricing theory, and my knowing the meaning of a common architectural term is what needs explaining?”

ALL: “YES.”

To be a mathematician in America means ignoring every signal our society can send about the social undesirability of being a nerd. Many fall off along the way; where I work, we end up recruiting roughly 1/3rd of our employees from other countries.

How much people hate math or think that learning it is useless is a frequent humor trope in this country:

Even I have to admit that’s pretty damn funny.

Still, it can be hard sticking your head up in class at age 10 and say, “this long division stuff is awesome!” when everyone else in the class hates it. There are related areas, such as computer programming, that bear much less stigma, so children gravitate there, instead.

The economic result of this, of course, is that we don’t have enough mathematicians, and the few of us there are get paid pretty well. Which we then spend at bars after work in order to carry on somewhat surreal and obscure discussions.

As a writer, I identify myself as a poet, because being a mathematician didn’t make me enough of an outcast.

As a poet, I spend an inordinate amount of time on word shading. I like to know as many synonyms for any word as possible.

When I was driving my middle daughter to high school every day some years back, we’d play a game where we’d see who could think of the most synonyms for whatever random word came up in the conversation. She still remembers with relish the first time she beat me at it.

It was a proud moment for me, too, but showing it would have spoiled her fun, so I didn’t.

This same daughter, now grown and working at the same company I do, asked me the other day for a synonym for “psychedelic”.

ME: “I’m surprised you don’t just use thesaurus.com.”

HER: “You are thesaurus.com.”

Aww.

I threw out the words “multicolored”, “trippy”, and “psychoactive” as suggestions. She decided to use the one she’d never heard of before, as it turns out she was writing something satirical about people who inappropriately use obscure words no one has ever heard of.

I wonder where she learned about people like that.

Sigh.

I’ve never really sailed, but, I miss it.

In the same vein, I often miss people who I’ve never actually met.

I look over to my left, and there are, on shelves, hundreds of books I read as a child. My eyes light on one in particular, and I can remember the world of it, the one created on its pages.

Forty-five years after I last read it, I still remember Barracuda Island and the Order of the Twisted Claw, because imagination made it real.

But I couldn’t describe what our family dining room looked like at that same age.

After “I love you”, “Hi, sweetheart”, and “Goodbye, love”, quite possibly the sentence I have heard my wife utter to me most frequently in almost eighteen years of marriage is

“Everything is not about you.”

Straight up, there are (many) days where I make things about me that aren’t. So I need to hear this, repeatedly.

Over time, though, an entirely opposite set of thoughts has showed up, thoughts that have never been said except inside my own mind.

Whether people are mad at you or happy with you, it’s not about you. Whether people want to talk to you or don’t want to talk to you, it’s not about you. Nothing is about you. Therefore, there is no you, really, as people’s actions would all be the same regardless.

I’m trying to report the logic of my own heart as true-to-what-it-is as possible; realizing, of course, that it is insane.

Still, the disconnectedness of non-biologically based relationships seems to have something to it, something we frequently ignore, with sayings like

You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.

Which is not exactly true, as we can choose people all day to be friends who may not choose us back.

You know, those people you miss even though you may not have actually met them.

When I would watch the sailboats, I would feel hopeful. Sailing has the kind of non-violent wandering purposefulness that my heart craves.

“Hope is the dream of the waking,” Aristotle was reported to have said. What drives us, moves us, transports us is not reason, it is the irrational part of us underneath, no matter how many rational explanations we attempt to backfit to our actions.

It is only at the limits of our reason that we glimpse who we really are: we are creatures of imagination, who plant hope and harvest dreams, all the while gazing at clouds we secretly think of as the sailboats of the angels.

[Day 11 of a 30-day prose essay undertaking.]

[Day 6 of a 30-day non-poetry experiment. – Owen]

When the room is darkest, and only the smallest amount of light can get in, we sometimes see things most clearly, albeit upside down.

This is the principle of the camera obscura, the ancient “dark room” (which is what “camera obscura” means, literally) where a lens and pinpoint hole for light would project an entire panorama of the outside world onto the wall, only upside down. The original photographic cameras used the same principle to project light onto a light sensitive plate (later film).

People still view eclipses using a form of this method. There are also artists who work with camera obscura as a medium.

Our own eyes are a form of this, as well, which is why physiologists say the images our eyes see are actually upside down in the eyes, and our brains turn them rightside up.

The principle has applicability in many situations, and it’s worth noting it’s features.

The room is dark. In order to see something clearly, we have to turn the brightness on everything else down.

Only a pinpoint of light gets in. The truth must come in small, pure, and concentrated doses.

The light must go through a lens. It is only through focus that we truly see.

The entire panorama can then be seen. All that is truly out there – the good, the scary, all of it – can be visible this way.

It will, however, be upside down. Even the purest focus brings in some form of distortion we have to think through and correct for. What we seek is not in people or things or events, it is in how we interact with those people and things and events through our minds and hearts, in bringing a well-focused view of everything we can see into right balance.

It probably wouldn’t hurt a lot of us to clear away distractions, and to refocus our attention and minds periodically on what matters in our worlds. To look into the eyes of the people we love, free of electronic and other diversions, and provide our hearts with more images of the moments that we truly love the best.

And so theirs will be the faces we see when our rooms are at their darkest.

“The brevity of life, which is so constantly lamented, may in fact be the best quality it possesses.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Idea

I observe children, and I realize that the difficulties of life are there from the beginning, and that every age is hard. There is almost no problem we might have that we haven’t had some form of from day one.

As adults, our tendency is to dismiss the problems of the young. Memory often fools us, usually in the same way a misleading news story might: that is, by what it leaves out. We no longer remember what teething felt like, or what it feels like to have no say in where you go or what you do, or what it felt like not to be able to reach what we want or adequately express our desires, so we fail to empathize. Instead, we pine for the fictitious “easy days of childhood”, and talk about how much easier still kids have it these days.

They don’t have it easy, and neither did you. Nor do you now, no doubt.

Life starts over with every new birth, and every experience must be gone through anew: the good, the bad, and the indifferent, as they say. And bad is still bad, even if we have forgotten how it felt. In fact, bad is sometimes made worse by experiencing it around people with little-to-no empathy.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: life is difficult for everybody, and if it doesn’t seem that way for somebody, you just don’t know that person well enough. In certain moods (like the one Schopenhauer, quoted at the top this essay, was always in) life can seem pretty depressing in its difficulty. There are frustrations and limitations, heartaches and losses, duplicities and disappointments in everyone’s life. But, like a child trying to learn a skill for the first time, we have to keep trying; there is no other way to get where we’re going.

And hopefully, we will have picked up a little empathy for others along the way.

[It’s day 3 of my 30 days of writing prose essays. – Owen]

We Americans seem to love “how-to” manuals. I suspect that this same tendency is true many places.

Give us a diet, an exercise plan, a routine for childcare, a recipe, or even instructions on how to run a blog, and we’re happy. We have directions. We are ready to do whatever it is exactly the same way many others are doing it.

We view these things, therefore, much like high school chemistry lab: we have ingredients, we have instructions, and (presumably) if we follow the ingredients exactly according to the instructions, everything will be perfect.

Except — it often isn’t.

The best of depiction of the frustrations of a high school chemistry laboratory that I know of is found in the Potions class descriptions of the Harry Potter series. There, various students attempt to follow the same set of instructions, with incredibly varied results. In addition, as the series advances, you find that the truly gifted students seem to vary from the recipes in seemingly random ways that somehow yield better results. Which is much like life is.

Technique, following instructions, doing things according to recipe — these only get you so far. However, we still look for guides to follow to make everything come out right: fool-proofs, panaceas, and utopias. Even pick-up lines fall in this category.

Interestingly, when transferred into the business world, this concept goes by the name “best practices”, which is a cleverly misleading term for “what other people do, whether it makes sense or not”. This attribution often contains a type of survivorship bias: the other company has survived, so, it must be doing something right. Often, however, companies that have not survived were following these same “best practices”, but we ignore those.

We want the so-called “magic bullet”. Just do x, y, and z, and you will win. Even the smallest amount of reflection tells us that all the others who we compete with can also do x, y, and z. So it’s what is different about us that will ultimately determine the winners, not what’s the same.

That and luck, which we never want to admit.

Having said all of that, there is nothing wrong, and in fact much right, with solving particular difficulties we face using solutions worked out by others as our starting point. Diet and exercise regimes, to go back to my original set of examples, are often perfect for this. What people usually find, however, is that, in the long run, each of these must in some way be adapted to their particular circumstances in order to be either optimal, sustainable, or both.

When you learn an art form, you spend the early years just learning the technique. At some point, however, if you are going to advance, you have to break away from what you’ve learned by following instructions or imitating others and discover what “your” art is.

Which is why identity itself is more an art than a science. We all, regardless of location or age or gender or any other arbitrary determinant, must choose who we will be. We cannot be the best us by copying others or following some recipe, no matter how well it seems to have worked out for someone else.

So, to all of you liberal arts majors out there: next time someone asks you what value the arts have, tell them “exactly as much as humanity has.”