The skies are crying in solidarity with my heart.

Again... maybe I can single-handedly end the drought, in the most Omelas of fashions.
(As it turns out, that apparently is not too deviant from my personality anyway.)

Loneliness

A couple days ago, someone posed the question: "Are ENFJs lonely?"

Just the very existence of that question makes me realize that I am lot more lonely than I try to let myself feel.  Of course, you could argue that you aren't lonely if you don't let yourself feel lonely, but I don't think that's how it works.

This response to that question was by far one of the best-articulated self-reflection I've seen from anyone:

At a certain point every ENFJ stops, and wonders, and becomes deeply saddened by the realization that they are trying to be the one selfless person for everyone in their life, and that maybe there never will be somebody to give that genuine selfless impulsive love to them. We dont boast unless people allow us the moment to, but we recognize the love we give, we know how much effort we put into it, our dream is to see somebody have that passion for us. Im kinda sad thinking about it now to be honest. It feels a bit like martyrdom. We will never ask for this, we simply dream of a day where this amazing dreamperson waltzes into our lives like we do other people. 

Yes, we wholeheartedly and to our very core, appreciate people. It is our love, acceptance and appreciation for other HUMAN BEINGS that drives us to be givers. Because... Encompassing ENFJ Quote Incoming: "Everybody deserves it."

There are only a few people who we will truly open up to, and whether we choose you or not is not personal at all. We simply know who have the capacity to understand the complex love-melancholy duality we share with life. We like many NFs, have the desire to be understood. 

Yes, we feel lonely, its a strange detached lonely... let me explain. We will be there for a lonely friend, and at the end of the day we feel less lonely because that person is less lonely. In the big picture the world just became less lonely and thus we feel as such. In reality we did nothing for ourselves to actually deal with our own loneliness, we know this, but somehow we are still content. Understanding this rationale is difficult even for us.

I wholeheartedly agree with just about all of it. I don't think the first paragraph quite does justice to non-ENFJs (I absolutely think other types can be selfless too), but other than that, I am awestruck at how much I relate to this raw piece of writing.

Even though I feel like I have many people to surround myself with, my feelings of loneliness become magnified in social situations because the quality of interpersonal interactions become reduced. I thrive on intimate, one-on-one relationships. My emotional sustenance comes from empathizing with other people, not merely talking to or being in close physical proximity of others. I can feel closer to someone quietly minding my own business in a serene, peaceful room meters apart than grinding up against someone at a dance or party.

I'll have to chew this over in my head more, but I've definitely felt just so distant to so many people recently. Of the maybe 5 or so people I feel closest to right now, only one of them are among the 5 people I felt closest to at the start of the quarter.

5 Love Languages Again

So basically I'm making my dormmates take personality tests yay!

I took the 5 Love Languages test again, and got more or less the same results as before.

2 Words of Affirmation
11 Quality Time
2 Receiving Gifts
6 Acts of Service
9 Physical Touch

As far as the SLOAN test goes, my closest friend here is SCOAN and my favorite RA's type is RCOAN. Yup.

[Re]Open Your Eyes

For the past 5 days, I was in Salt Lake City for the 2012 International Career Development Conference for DECA, competing in Accounting Applications. As far as the competition goes, nothing too exciting happened. I made it to the finals (Top 16) but performed poorly on the final role play. We saw the Jabbawockeez perform live, though I believe it was their B team; still really cool nonetheless, especially the Kiss the Girl and Single Ladies segments.

The more memorable part was definitely the experience shared with the people there. I got to know a few students with whom I've been classmates with for 7 years now way better, and I'm glad I got to see this side of them before graduating with any misconceptions about them as people. Not really misconceptions--they still are who they are when they behave as they do at school--but just another side of them, a sensitive side that they try to hide.

In the meantime, I also bonded a lot more with people I hadn't known until this year. I kind of wish I learned more about them, and I feel like I kind of dominated the conversation perhaps, getting carried away with things and people in my life. Hopefully, I don't come across at self-centered. Even more hopefully, we'll still keep in touch after I graduate, because if in just 8 short months they've become among the close friends who I trust the most, who knows what could happen with years more? There's no doubt in my mind that I'll miss two of these albeit relatively new friends of mine way more than others I have known for about half my conscious life.

I was thinking about what made me click with them. What made me so comfortable sharing some of the thoughts I usually tuck away for personal introspection? I don't really know. For sure, it seems that I can really connect with people like me. Not to let my life be dominated by MBTI or anything, but of the 6 people I trust most, 4 are ENFJs (the other three are ENTP, ISTJ).

Furthermore, it seems that at some point, we always have a conversation about my past. It can be really embarrassing depending on the details we delve into, but it always leaves me rather melancholy. Yet, I enjoy talking about it a lot. Why? I'm not a masochist in any way.

This is where this post was going. The phrase "open your eyes" is used almost to the point of cliched-ness. But talking to new people about my past--people with some level of maturity, open-mindedness, and capacity for empathy anyway--reopens my eyes. There are a lot of little things in my life that I'd hate to forget, and I have a tendency to regurgitate those when I talk about what has made me me (not at the superficial level, but at a deep level that I care to talk about only when my conversational partner exhibits genuine interest or concern). I'd like to emphasize that parenthetical statement, because I have pretty high standards, I feel, about when to trust people and tell people stuff, but it's also always based on a gut feeling; I don't open up to everyone, but when I do I always do it with utmost confidence that what I tell them will not fall upon deaf ears, and will be respected. Anyway, whenever I revisit these memories with new people, I feel like I see things ever so slightly differently, but end up learning more about myself when I reflect on the conversations.

In the meantime, I read an article on a fantastic new product concept: http://www.fashioningtech.com/profiles/blogs/touchy-the-human-camera

It is literally a physical manifestation of someone else "opening your eyes." I absolutely love the whole concept, and I feel like it would really enhance social interaction or relationships (not necessarily just romantic ones). Especially for me, recalling that my dominant love language is physical touch followed closely by quality time, this is an invention I really need to have. The pictures it stores seems a perfect way to capture the little things, not the grand big things. I like that.

Failure of Empathy

Read "Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway and "Tricks" by Thomas Cooper. I enjoyed them both: I liked the hotel keeper in Cat, and I enjoyed [what I believed to be] the happy ending in Tricks.

As far as discussion went, there was a lot of focus on the woman from Cat and the girl in Tricks, both of which I thought was undue. Neither relationship issues nor mental handicaps are the focus of the respective poems. Instead, both are focused on the failure of empathy, and how detrimental it can be to relationships both romantic and familial.

An acquaintance I know asked me a while ago what I thought of people with no empathy: How do you react to them? Can you even begin to comprehend them? What are your thoughts on them?

Usually, I can see where they're coming from, but I don't really accept their mindset. Complete objectivity is almost inhumane. I can't stand it.

Personally, I've struggled communicating the basis of my choices or decisions to others. I place great emphasis on emotion in my decision-making, and often I know a choice I'm going to make far before I can justify it. I trust my gut feelings. Unfortunately, intuition is poor justification for a decision, and I have to scramble to back up my decisions with logic-based reasoning in group environments.

I have yet to decide whether intuition-oriented thinking is a boon or an inhibition.

[Repost from Tumblr]

Psychology, Love Languages

Recently, I've been reading a lot of psychology stuff. Fascinating stuff, really. Here's a list of books I have read/am reading/want to read:
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
What the Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell
Drive - Daniel Pink
Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
Split Second Persuasion - Kevin Dutton
The Optimism Bias - Tali Sharot
The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Don Riso
Play - Stuart Brown


At the same time, I've done a little introspective thinking, using a combination of personality tests and online forums to guide my thinking. Here are some interesting tests (for anyone who cares, which I suspect is not many):

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Myers-Briggs / Kiersey Temperament / Jung

My type: ENFJ

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Enneagram
My tritype is 2w3, 6w7, 1w9 - the "Helper Advocate."

Some stuff from a my test results.

In enneagram theory, you have one type for how you relate to the world (either 8, 9, or 1), one type for how you think (5, 6, 7) and one type for how you see yourself (2, 3, 4.) Your tri-type contains one number from each of these triads. They are listed in the order of how strongly they present in your personality.

Your core type (your strongest type) is Type 2 with a 3 wing: Type Two individuals are generous and kind. Twos love others and want to be loved, and becoming close to others is a theme in the life of the Two. This is why Two is often referred to as the Helper type – because they keep coming, time and time again, to the aid of others. Out of all the types in the Enneagram, Twos are the most likely to help someone when they’re feeling down or when they’re being attacked. When a Type Two is stressed, they can become aggressive like an unhealthy Type Eight. When they’re healthy, a Type Two becomes emotionally aware like a healthy Type Four. You are a Type Two with a Three wing, which means that the helpful nature of the Two combines with the ambitious nature of the Three, making you a very driven individual.

....

Some words that describe you: principled, moralistic, perfectionist, self-critical, generous, helpful, selfless, loving, loyal, reliable, anxious, skeptical.

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Global5 or SLOAN test

My type: SCOAI (SCo|A|I)

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Love Languages

1 Words of Affirmation

9 Quality Time

4 Receiving Gifts

6 Acts of Service

10 Physical Touch

On a scale of 1-12, with 12 being the highest, this measures how much you value each type of expression of emotion.