Thursday, July 16, 2009

INTJ: Or why I'm weird.

So you may have heard about this personality test...
It's been around since 1962, was originally created to help women who were entering the industrial workforce, and is basically creepy accurate with its results.
Yes, ma'am.
It's the good 'ol Myers-Briggs

Well recently, I came across a book, "Please Understand Me II" that included the Myers-Briggs test and being an avid random quiz taker, I filled it out.

The Results: INTJ
(This is the part where the creepy music plays and you cover your toes in fear)

Yes. Horror of horrors; I am a (gasp) Mastermind!

I'm just paraphrasing now, but basically this means that I'm a judgment loving, technology hugging, authority dismissing, social avoider, but very effective, occasionally genius, cold-hearted romantically closeted witch; who may eventually take over, or otherwise enslave, the world for her unwholesome purposes which may or may not include free museum days, etc, etc, etc.

Ok, so a tad exaggerated, but that's part of the package.

We're mysterious creatures, us INTJ's, and rare to boot. No more than 1% of the population in the world have earned the right to bare those initials, and my gosh aren't we thankful.
First of all, it wouldn't be any fun if there were a lot of other people like me and secondly, it'd be fatal to the planet if there were. Let's just say it was a very good thing God did when He decided only to let a few of us slip through at a time. Take a gander at the facts below and you'll catch on as to why.

A Few Things to Know About the INTJ's in Your Life.*
*Some points can also be attributed to other Rationals.




> If it seems like we don't do much besides bring up annoying things like "facts" and "reason", the truth is this:
We do do a lot. Most of the time just not things you can see or measure.
Our impact is a subtle one. It's true that in a social setting we're just good for a laugh, and not really what you'd call "vital to humanity"; there are a lot of really helpful personality types out there and INTJ's just don't rank high when it comes to humanity stuff. But we do our part by doing our thing, helping you with your thing, taking over your thing when you screw it up, and then going back to our thing. We're like The Reserves of Life. We only step up when we feel we have to, and most of the time only when we're sure we can actually help. Our part is important; it's just not always obvious. And for the most part we're ok with that. A "thank you" would be nice every once in a while though...





>When the world is going to pot and everyone is running around screaming bloody murder and you look over and see us just sitting there, the truth is this:
We are not just enjoying the show because we have no human feelings and enjoy watching the rest of you freak out. As fun as that is, we are actually calmly and quietly taking it all in and deciding what is the best mode of action to make everything right. We care. We just can't let that cause us to do something that will make everything worse. It's called strategy people. It takes planning. Besides...screaming never solves any problems. So we'll stick with our method even if it makes us seem like insensitive jerks, k?




>When we say we want this-and-this done by this time next Monday and put here, the truth is this:
We want this-and-this done by this time next Monday and put here. Period.




> If it seems like we're always bucking you and doing things our own way, the truth is this:
You're wrong.Whatever it is your telling us to do, it must be wrong. And we know how to do it better. It's a hard thing to accept, but if something doesn't make sense to us, we tend not to do it. Crazy I know. It's not anything personal. We're usually unbiased when it comes to ideas; whatever works the best is what we're going to go with. Even if that idea doesn't come from us. We just like doing stuff right. And we will. Ever single time.
Your idea, or ours; it has to be right.





>When you disagree with us and we don't seem to care, the truth is this:
We don't.We know we're right, and frankly, we don't give a hoot that so-and-so says otherwise.We come to conclusions in our life after careful and meticulous research.So we don't give a flippin' fadoodle if Oprah says you can make blue from orange and mauve; our research and reason says otherwise. And if Johnny Bobo doesn't get why we don't like ketchup on our hot-dog, he'll just have to get over it. We're not changing our mind.




>If we seem to do better in school than you, the truth is:
We do.
But we don't have to go into that because we don't like to brag. True story.




>If we seem to have unrealistically high standards for ourselves and beat ourselves up over little things, the truth is this:
Failure is our worst nightmare. We hate it.
We shiver at past instances of it in our lives. The possibility of it eats us alive.
We do everything we can to avoid it (explaining why we are so driven).But unless you're Jesus (and we're pretty sure he was the ultimate INTJ but have yet to prove it), failure will find you.
And rip your heart out. And moonwalk all up and over the dang thing.
So that's why we're so hard on ourselves; our efforts to avoid failure aren't good enough.
We weren't good enough. We're not good at anything. We're nothing, nothing, nothing!See my point? It just sort of snowballs.But take note: Just because we can point out and condemn our failings ruthlessly, that does not mean we appreciate it when others feel so inclined.Tread lightly friends; you walk among mines when you critique an INTJ or any Rational for that matter. You have a complaint? Fine. But you'd better be crystal clear about what it is we're not doing satisfactorily, because you do not want an bitter INTJ on you hands if your criticism was unjust or unwarranted. You know the whole "Mastermind" thing? Yeah. It comes in handy when planning revenge...




>When we rarely seem to have fun for fun's sake, the truth is this:
Work is work and play is work.For us, it's all about earning and polishing the skills and then saving them for a rainy day. Or when stuck at K-mart.
We don't "just do" stuff. We do things with purpose. Yes friends, even fun must have a purpose.
We never ask you to understand these things. We just ask that you accept them.

>When we never seem to date, and insist on being "the perpetual single" in the group, the truth is this:Love blows our mind. It's strange, unpredictable and completely insane.
And its really hard for us to "get". We want to treat everything like it has a rational process and, as we've come to find out, Love just doesn't roll that way. It's world shattering."A difficult and threatening problem" is how the books describes how we view our mate selection. Yeah. And you forgot awkward, uncomfortable and unnecessarily complex. --_--Most of the stronger of our type can avoid this tempting, but complicated thing called Love. But a few have been known to surrender.Don't get us wrong. We love Love.We just can't put it under the microscope and figure it out, so it scares us. Which is fine because it's not like there are a bazillion people out there just dying to fall in love with someone who's hard to read emotionally, not even remotely out-going, needs lots of privacy and isn't too cheeky about being touched. But look, if you can get past all that and our bent towards world domination, we're pretty amazing lovers, parents and friends (so they say).




Bottom line: We like/tolerate people. We love truth. We hate failure and we do have feelings (safely locked away and gagged, but feelings none the less).




Without us the world would be a little less organized, a little less efficient, a little less accurate and a lot less evil. And we know it.


Boy, do we know it...*smile*


Come check out these
Famous INTJ's and a couple of other people who somehow did something worth mentioning even though they weren't an INTJ. We're saying it's a fluke but you can check it out for yourself.

3 comments:

MeaRenee said...

OOOOhhhh i took it and got ISTJ which was soo like me.. weird.

Unknown said...

I am also an INTJ and I wasthuroughly entertained by your paste, errr post hehe, but seriously I am convinced that the world would exist without us, but c'mon would a world of homo-sapians living in caves really be fun? Sorry people, but guess who is in charge of designing and implementing technology could it be INTJ? I love absolutely LOVE how communication is one of the areas that are superficially unimportant to INTJ's however upon closer inspection it can be seen that the i's were not dotted and the t's not crossed because we wanted the other 15 types to even take notice so that they would teach themselves how to do it, devious as we are.
Ultimately if you upset us at a social level don't be surprised when your society becomes, conflicted, confused and lacking.
Want us to continue?

Tommy said...

Quite entertaining; INTJ's take the "takes one to know one" pun to a new level.

Jesus, the ultimate INTJ - well, if your talking about our acute ability to manipulate the "others", well - yeah I guess he was the ultimate INTJ. God himself (as a spiritual entity) is indeed an INTJ; regardless of speculation or evidence. If your an INTJ and you know it; you know this as truth. I don't care to explain, this message was intended for other INTJ's.

People don't understand me. For a long time I pretended to be normal just to fit in, was even convinced I was a sociopath for a while, due to some abuse and such..

I hope someone out there can appreciate.. how defeating it feels to sit in a crowd of people embarking in some pathetic conversation: where someone will clearly state something ignorant, contradictory, or just completely untrue - and then, realizing that correcting said person would provoke the group, or make you look like a know-it-all hater, you agree with them. Even feed the fire they so aptly refer to as truth.

Agreeing with the morons; acting unintelligent to fit in. Now that, is painful. Unless your a cop - which I am not.

Being born in the mid west I was quite convinced I was either insane or a prodigy by a young age - everyone around me was really that limiting. So I started wearing masks.

Makes me wonder, if I passed another like myself, how would I have known.. without some subtle clue given by body chemistry, thought patterns or method of logical problem solving.

I wouldn't, in most cases.

And how many of us are eager to use the internet to find others like ourselves.. I found it to be a little degrading, like all I was going to find was a bunch of posers or people half as smart as me.

My psychologist tells me to join Mensa. Too bad it's too far away.

I've heard all kinds of theories about why and how we exist.

I know first hand; that this world is very very corrupt. Anyone with a vivid imagination and a decent understanding of human beings, psychology and social systems, as well as ecology.. or maybe even less then that..

Can tell you that is not how the world is supposed to work, that people are all being controlled and manipulated in both grotesque and subtle manners.. and that we are the only chance for a decent future.

The ultimate god complex.

I do because I can and because I care: The ones making everyone else sheep; the ones that ostracize me.. do because they can like me; only they only care for themselves.

I know, I know.. I developed my feeling side.

I learned early on this is both a gift and a curse. Manipulation is an art form.

Life is an intelligence test; and the biggest lesson is learning to grade yourself.

I will manipulate, control, and toy with those who manipulate, control, and toy with the sheep.

And in the end, as I am sure this will put me in positions of both danger and power, I will lay it all down and tell the sheep my story.

There is a war going on.

And I fear that the rest of the people like me, however few.. won't stand up when my plan needs them to.

I know you want things for yourself.. and I know this society has made it nearly impossible for you to achieve happiness without using your wicked side.

All I'm saying is; we are the only ones that can fix this. People are too stupid to just let us exist happily in the background (wouldn't that be nice), they need us, even if they hate us, and we are their only hope - so long as we remember the importance of emotion, friends, and family.

The day will come soon enough that we will finally be recognized for what we really are, but only if we use our curse as a gift to all people. If we use it as a gift to ourselves, everyone is doomed, in my opinion.

So, be what you are; get even better at it. Just remember to lay down your guns when everyone else uses up all their ammunition.

Maybe I'm the only one with a plan.

But, on this subject. I doubt it.

Good luck