Back in the box

I took a personality test online a couple years ago, and the result was INTJ-A (INTJ Assertive), I was young and probably my INTJ character hasn’t fully developed, so even though I felt like the result looks like me, but I didn’t really understand especially in the carreer path, work habits, etc. I didn’t get it, I thought it wasn’t me because they said “INTJs are creative”, I thought only artists are creative, but now I understand it also mean being creative in problem solving, they also said “INTJs are arrogant, dismissive of emotions and socially clueless”, I didn’t agree with that because I wasn’t arrogant, I recognized my emotion and feeling very deeply, and I was very aware of my social circle, but I also had certain expectation, I didn’t accept fake and insincere connection, I had strong connection with my family and close friends (the people who will get angry with me, the people who will be there for me, the people who can be very positive but also can be very negative when I need them to be ✌🏼), and that was more than enough for me, because I valued this relationship, I never wanted to be in a big unreal friendship bubble. And since I didn’t like to be put in a box, I didn’t really pay attention to that result and then forgot about it, I was very aware of my Introverted personality, and that was ok to be in that box, but I thought INTJ box was too small and it couldn’t represent the complexities of human consciousness.

Last month, I attended a Leadership Training — in that training we learned about Learning Style, Personality Type, Emotional Intelligence, etc etc. I wasn’t surprised I was the bluest blue (Introverted Thinking) in the room, I was thinking “is this INTJ or something else?”, So after the training, I took another test online, I thought as I’m getting older (and hopefully wiser) my personality would change, probably I’ve become an INFJ or INFP now, but NO. Still an INTJ. And then I took the test again and again by changing the intensity of the answer, I’m not sure if “intensity” is the right word, but I mean I changed the answer from 5 to 4 or 3 in the Thinking direction (but I didn’t change the direction). All the results are still INTJ. 

It was such a long long time ago I talked about my personality type. It’s like a dusty topic for me, but it’s nice to be in this bubble again, I think as an adult, I put too much attention to the outside world and less attention to my inner/ core self — I still reflect and write, but less and less. And I feel like I’m not being 100% me, I’m like 80% me  — I try to understand that maybe some people need some kind of fakeness to survive in this crazy world, but deep down I hate all these superficial things I see on the internet — I skip all these stupid trends so it doesn’t affect my thinking, I’m trying to be more positive about people and the world. Kinda feel like losing myself a bit. 😂

My natural default mode is “I don’t like people”, BUT… I DO like people when they’re kind (not necessarily nice), consistent, respect boundaries, not too loud, not feeding me culture with a spoon, and authentic/ real, I think nowadays a lot of people craft their personality for the world to see or for social media consumption, isn’t it scary when everybody is all the same? I’d love to retreat to this natural mode again, because certain people are too much. If you ever watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, I would be in the Halloween town. To me, Christmas town is scary. 

I think that’s the best thing about this Leadership Training — to remind me who I am (even though it’s not the real purpose of this training). I miss thinking, my brain usually can’t stop thinking and analysing (I don’t judge and analyse people in personal level, I analyse social issues and interaction). I miss having opinion about popular culture, groupthink, fakeness, social media trends, modern capitalism and colonialism. Most of all, I miss my thoughts. Well, It’s not that I don’t think anymore or I don’t get angry or have opinion, but now I only think and have opinion about something (mostly) related to work.

Anyway, since I’m back in this INTJ-A box, I re-read the result, and try to find other articles about this. And the explanation is more and more related to me now, even though there are several things that are not “ME”, but I understand that this is actually also a big box trying to analyse a group of similar people for learning purposes and people can use this as self improvement tool. So even though some people are in the same box, but everybody is different, they have different exposure to things, they have different family and background, different social surrounding, different experience, and all of those different aspects in life  make each individual unique and has their own character.

I’m a very straight forward person, I cannot make my words fluffy and sweet, and I don’t talk in circle, it’s always straight to the point. So when someone use fluffy and sweet words and talk in circle to manipulate me, try to make me see things from their “soft” prespective, but what they actually do is being too controlling or bossy (people can use the sweetest words ever existed, but I can see the intention behind it), I cannot accept that. I don’t spread myself too thin, when people spread me too thin by force, I will react and that’s not a nice reaction, there’s no good outcome from giving me unnecessary pressure. I’m not the type of person who will avoid difficult conversation (on important matter to me) in order to maintain peace, because it doesn’t look like peace to me, it’s a false sense of peace. 

In a world full of people faking to be nice, kind, care, soft spoken, blah blah blah.. we need to know how people manipulate other people to get what they want because manipulation can take so many forms including by acting nice and kind, and we also need to know our true self, our own value, our worth, where we stand, our roots and everything that makes us us. Don’t avoid argument or difficult conversation to maintain peace, that’s the beginning of modern colonialism, some people would push us down down down (but unfortunately not down the rabbit hole) just to have a sense of superiority or get us to do something (they don’t like to do) for them. Being aware of that is one thing, react to that is another — if we don’t react to that, we won’t change anything and we end up spreading ourselves too thin. So, we need to be strong because it is uncomfortable, we need to articulate our words clearly, we need to be firm.

If you don’t know me personally.. maybe when you read my blog, you will think I’m a gloomy sad depressed person with no friends, but actually I am not, I’m very happy and confident in my own skin, with my state of mind, with my family and close friends — the people I can count on, I’m happy because I’m not afraid to speak my mind, and I can say NO to people (I’m not a YES person), and I do not seek validation from other people. That gloomy part of me is like the darkness that I embrace, all these what people consider as dark art (Lewis Caroll’s stories, Tim Burton’s and Hayao Miyazaki’s movie, Radiohead and Björk music, etc) I love them, because they’re authentic/real and meaningful. The thing is when you’re being your authentic self, when you have different way of thinking, when you speak your mind, when you articulate your deep thoughts, people are not used to that kind of thinking, so they assume it’s some kind of depression. To me, it’s very healthy, because the world is not all sunshine and rainbows, to see it that way is unhealthy, but again… people are not used to be exposed to it, so they make false assumption about something strange to them. That’s why I never like to be put in a box. That’s why most of the time I detach myself from people, most of them live in groupthink/ zombie apocalypse, that world is not for me.