#intj notes

Entp: Are you okay?

Intj (me): Did you bring something... like tokens... or food... to accommodate me to "FEEL" better?

Entp: ....

Entp: .... are you sick?

Oh this is a fun one! I was so disconnected when I was young, and spend so much time trying to figure out what was wrong with me. In my late twenties I started to find out that it might be nothing wrong. I'll do an un-typcial thing here and personalize this answer:

I moved to a big city, you know the place where people are lonely and unseen and disconnected? I found so much happiness there, wandering different streets whenever I want, having small friendly encounters with people I'll never see again, seing people laugh and sing and play with their children, dressing as flamboyant or boring as they want, just existing in public spaces undisturbed.

I found love for the arts and humanities, which are the other, needed half for sciences and technology (really, trust me on this). I saw people in pictures from hundreds of years ago standing outside looking into society, just as I am now. I hear it in the music, I read it in the books. There have been so many others like me, there are so many others like me.

Science explains how. Arts explain why. Both need the creator to step back from the way things are and look at them from a different angle. We sent people to the moon. We sent people to explore the deepest longing of our hearts. It's the same lonelyness on the way to the anwers and the same thrill to see how much we yet have to learn.

I have come to love humanity, while still struggling with people themselves. It works, though. I'm not good at reading to children, but I am organizing the schedule for those who are. I am not the life of the party or the heart of the office, but I am the one to solve the problems, the one people come to when they need things to be done quickly and correctly, and I am respected for that.

I believe the trick is to find your niche, where you can put your talents to use. The rest will come. It is not as easy for us to connect emotionally, but what opens the door for us is respect. People grow to respect us for our work, and in our work lays our respect for them. We do well what we do because we value the recipient.

Also I found out that the weird random connections my brain gives out all the time make for amazing jokes. Once I started directing them at things and situations (instead of other's personalities) people stared to find me really funny.

Just as everyone else, we are here because we deserve to be here. Our skill sets are needed somewhere, and we can learn so much. The disconnection you feel, see it as fearlessness. We can leave that small town we grew up in without it breaking our hearts. We can follow our own interests, even if they are not adored by the crowds, without sinking into self pity. We can thrive in solitude, which is, as the last months have shown, also useful. We can build honest connections based on respect.

Remember, INTJs tend to live in our heads, so make this home of yours a pleasent one. Design it as you would a living place. Keep what is is useful or beautiful. As in, self criticism is useful to grow, self depreciating is really not...