“Resigned acceptance of the unacceptable is an anathema for INTPs. His typical response to helplessness is to hate the world which has produced it.”—An INTP Profile
I found this. It reminded me a bit of what I've been meaning to post about, though it doesn't fit exactly. I found the source paragraph and will now break it down a bit. First, the paragraph:
The feeling shadow is the fear centre of the INTP. He rarely fears any factual thing in the outside world, at least not things that will be encountered in normal day-to-day living. Logic stipulates that external objects or people which threaten can always potentially be dealt with by instigating an active defence strategy. Of course, the possibility of being left truly helpless leaves the INTP cold, for once the Ti core is defeated, the inferior Fe can offer little comfort. Resigned acceptance of the unacceptable is an anathema for INTPs. His typical response to helplessness is to hate the world which has produced it. However, the greatest fears of an INTP are usually ideas generated within his own mind. The problem is that the Ti-Ne axis is capable of conceiving very unpleasant ideas, which may be far from reality and even irrational. Ideas and possibilities assume so much importance in the mind of an INTP that they can override a common sense factual grasp on reality. Since the emotional response to an unpleasant idea is based on an underdeveloped function, it may also fail to bring a return to common sense. The net result is the fear that ideas alone may lead to self-destruction. This fear is irrational and is a cry of help from the feeling shadow when being overdominated by the Ti-Ne axis. This problem can be overcome when more balanced type dynamics result from increasing maturity.
The feeling shadow is the fear centre of the INTP. He rarely fears any factual thing in the outside world, at least not things that will be encountered in normal day-to-day living. Logic stipulates that external objects or people which threaten can always potentially be dealt with by instigating an active defence strategy.Â
I have strategies for a lot of things. If, for example, my INFJ tells me about an emotional problem, about 99% of the time, quite literally, I will have a strategy for dealing with it that avoids all the complications she'll be much less likely to purposefully avoid. These emotion-based strategies come in simple steps and can usually be summarised in around three short sentences. Then there are ones for behaviours I tend to exhibit, like the long-term strategy of focusing my academic life, and reputation in my new school, on working almost constantly and alone. I know that I will reluctantly go along with social obligations if they are there, so I have devised to avoid making lengthy social engagements part of my daily schedule. I see people, but rarely for more than, usually, the time it takes to eat my meal (these meetings are usually in the canteen; I'm working or seeking alone time otherwise). The new people I know understand this. As a result, I'm getting much better marks. Predicted A*AAB which feels much better than the BBC(E) I got last year, the E being for an AS, not a full A-level.
Of course, the possibility of being left truly helpless leaves the INTP cold, for once the Ti core is defeated, the inferior Fe can offer little comfort.Â
I think that the people I hate most are probably those with whom I cannot reason, and that this is why I often categorise people as not really worth deliberately seeking out if they show a particular inattention to logic. If I cannot talk to someone logically, I am not just a little at odds with their personality, I am powerless. My Fe isn't developed enough to provide secondary reasoning capability (i.e. I am usually straightforward and genuine rather than tactful because tact is very difficult for me), so if words don't get my point across there's very little point in my even being there. I am terrible at social tactics like persuasion and guile, or even just figuring out what would work best for a person. I can't remember names well, let alone anything else. I think most people don't want to be utterly powerless, and that this explains why we INTPs so dearly value logic and specific word use. It is very important to us that meaning is clear and cannot be misinterpreted, so of course we pick up on words that are slightly ambiguous in tone and don't register someone's emotions or tone very well. I think that, in this light, it is hard to blame INTPs for these skills we learn. It's all very well to say 'well, yeah, but why don't you just get on their good side?', but you're assuming we'll actually be able to figure out how to do that. You have your skill set; we have ours.
Resigned acceptance of the unacceptable is an anathema for INTPs. His typical response to helplessness is to hate the world which has produced it.Â
This is one of the most important factors in my bad grades at my last school. I started doing badly (getting Es and Us in Biology, for example, and rarely As) and the first time I get each worse grade makes me want to cry. Always has, since I got my first C in year 4. So, to avoid the emotional pit I would dig myself into if I proceeded down that road, I stopped caring. This led me to act a bit cavalier with my work in order to maintain that illusion to myself and others. I'm getting close to it right now. Ti-Ne leads me to expect so much of myself; I break the one task others would do into many smaller ones that make it take four times as long. When I fail at what I set myself, I want to stop caring and resign myself to bad grades. My self-respect, motivation and general happiness go down with them. I begin to think about what the point of life will be if I never manage to achieve what seems to be my sole purpose - that of omniscience. The whole possibility of that feels taken away and substituted with a sort of nothing-life. This leads to:
However, the greatest fears of an INTP are usually ideas generated within his own mind. The problem is that the Ti-Ne axis is capable of conceiving very unpleasant ideas, which may be far from reality and even irrational. Ideas and possibilities assume so much importance in the mind of an INTP that they can override a common sense factual grasp on reality. Since the emotional response to an unpleasant idea is based on an underdeveloped function, it may also fail to bring a return to common sense. The net result is the fear that ideas alone may lead to self-destruction. This fear is irrational and is a cry of help from the feeling shadow when being overdominated by the Ti-Ne axis.Â
INTPs are the sort of people who are fine mostly leading up to, during and after an event (particularly an important one) but, increasingly as it gets closer in the short-term, because Ne is a short-term function, their minds start to become overwhelmed with possibilities for what could happen. These often reflect their general feelings about the event and are usually very negative because the INTP is increasing their fear the more they think. One tends to find all sorts of experiential 'evidence' to support these seemingly-inevitable outcomes. The only thing to do with this fear is to predict even more perfectly so that things won't turn out too badly, only now the fear results from the knowledge that one can never predict perfectly; there are always unknown factors. This is a Ti-Si loop; Ne running out of control and becoming disconnected from the usual function hierarchy. At the mercy of Ne, Ti reaches to Si to find information to try to form a judgement about the likelihood of all these possibilities. This is all driven by the increasing, unspecific, distant, but all-encompassing fear coming from Fe. You do not want to be in the mind of an INTP experiencing an intense Ti-Si loop. Any situation with uncontrolled Ne - whether it's based around a positive or negative emotional trigger - is literally like being sandblasted by a hurricane of possibilities.
Usually, though, it's not as bad as that. When you connect it back to the strategies concept, it results as resigned acceptance of 'fates' that the INTP knows in the background of their mind aren't true, but which they don't want to go through the Ne-Fe turmoil of battling. Take me, right now. I have a sociology mock tomorrow and another on Wednesday. I have also, since last week when the staff advised me to not worry and over-learn for what was 'just a mock', been quietly resigned to the 'fact' that, according to my schedule for the days leading up to them, I will not do well on them. I have also figured out the simplified learning structure that would do me just fine if I rely on my Ne essay skills, but the general avoidance of that self-beration, predicted disappointment and fear makes me want to stay away from the whole subject, including that simplified plan. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I know it, but it's ultimately the strategies saved from experience of dealing with that weak Fe that do me in. I end up doing this - feeling sorry for myself in an extremely pessimistically fatalistic way while doing nothing and treating myself worse because of it. Another example of this resigned acceptance is that I have just spent an hour writing this out because I have given up on the amount of sleep I have before tomorrow morning making any difference. Whatever advice I get won't help; I've thought of it already and this background acceptance overrode it. Maybe I'll do something tomorrow morning.Â
This avoidance is also connected to the many times I've tried to do something and ended up being sucked into Ne possibilities triggered by whatever I do related to that task. I can sit for ages, staring into space without realising, doing nothing. In some ways, this avoidance is justified to myself by saying that at least I'm doing something with that otherwise wasted time.
This problem can be overcome when more balanced type dynamics result from increasing maturity.
That being when the strategies finally acknowledge that one has to deal with those messy emotions sometimes.
This is all to demonstrate that resigned acceptance really is anathema for INTPs. It also shows that listening to experience isn't always a good thing, as Ti-Si would argue, but rather you have to accept the new sometimes - the Ne - and not be afraid of it, because there are good possibilities as well as bad ones. We INTPs just get so used to looking for tiny errors that we miss that. I myself have noticed that I imply negativity in most of the self-criticising comments I make to others, even if I just do it as a helpful evaluation when handing in work. It's hard to spend time on recognising the good points because that thought train leads nowhere.
