- This topic has 101 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
@karthmin Eh, well see – I have light eyes, she has dark eyes. So she calls me a Lighteyes or brightness so I return the favor with Darkeyes or darkness. And yes. I’ve few enough weapons against here. I use what I must. Besides, they’re already dead. It’s just a matter of making it worse… I’ll stop now. (not to mention, emotions are over half of what makes up pain in any sort of death or torture scene, so come on now. I do take them into account. And I swear I only use pain when I need to for a reason. The characters are happy too. Sometimes.)
That is a fascinating view of thinking/emotions. Almost *coughs*@kate*coughs* a logical viewpoint. Though in my case I have to learn to use emotions to shore up the failings of a purely logical viewpoint instead of the other way around.
But I do agree wholeheartedly. While I love the INTJ stereotypes and use them as part of my persona, it’s not my end goal to be like that and I’ve developed quite a bit from where I used to be in relation to them. Types are a basis for how one views the world and a good starting place for various strengths and weaknesses. To some extent, a person is going to have particular strengths based off their types no matter how they develop the rest, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t develop all sides. It’s… basically maturity and growing up. XD Something a sad amount of people fail to do.
The only thing I’d not quite agree with is that the goal is perfect balance.
One does want balance, yes. But people are given strengths and they should be developing those alongside the rest. So a growing, maturing person is going to be developing their strengths alongside their weaknesses and so the weaknesses will probably not catch up with the strengths.
To paraphrase one speaker at Realm Makers, ‘admire the superpowers of others, but don’t envy them. And don’t neglect your own superpowers to try to become something you are not.’ Kate will always be better at sensing when something is wrong and being able to help people that way. I’ll always be better at coming up with plans and practical solutions without even trying. And while she helps me grow when it comes to people and emotions, and I help her when it comes to the practical side of business, we aren’t going to ever become the other person in those senses simply because of how our brains work and how we view the world. And that’s fine. Because, as you said, the world needs diversity. And I think a person can be well rounded and balanced without being a perfect balance between types.
*looks at pink salt* Pretty… does it come in black?
@Karthmin I’ll take the pink salt if she doesn’t want it. My pygmy dragon will eat it.
And may I just say, I totally agree with both of you. Good stuff. Personality is more than personality type, and we should strive always to be the best we can despite our different weaknesses. At the same time, God created sixteen types because it probably takes at least sixteen different combinations of intelligences to help the world go round. Diversity is something to rejoice over.
Diversity, that is, when it’s recognized as a strength and embraced by all members of the ‘body’. Because humans are wretched little creatures, this almost never happens. All personality types tend to look down on all others in some way, shape, or form, simply because they were created with a different type of brain to fulfill a different role, and our human pettiness can’t see the big picture.
This is something I’ve made it a conscious goal to work on. Instead of flaring up when confronted by a smirking ESTJ who wants to tell me that my life choices and priorities are wasted time ( @hope-ann you know who I’m talking about :P), I try and take a moment to see past the blaring red sign that screams ARROGANT and realize that he’s judging me because in his eyes, the highest priority in life is material success. Not necessarily because he’s shallow, but so he can provide for himself (eventually his family) and find stability and organization. I value those things. But not anywhere near as highly as he does. 😛
I think that part of being different members of one body means we should be able to understand each other’s weaknesses and depend on each other’s strengths, instead of feeling pressured to be all perfect and individual and strong by ourselves. This is rare. Even in Christian circles, which is extremely sad. But I think it’s a worthy goal to work towards.
@Daeus-lamb where’d you go? WE’RE HAVING LIFE DISCUSSIONS HERE.Okay…. so this is kinda weird. I’ve got a reply written up that just will not show up when I put it in the text box…
@daeus-lamb Help! I think I saw somewhere that you know how to fix this stuff?It seems you have been influenced just a little by Brandon Sanderson in your choice of nicknames??? That makes much more sense now.
Oh, I’m sure you take emotions into account when you’re killing your characters. That’s the problem with all you cold-hearted logicians. You know exactly which emotions to pull in order to completely destroy people.
And then you smile and threaten to do worse. Really is quite horrible.
Ah, but enough of exaggeration. Let’s get down to the meat of this conversation.
If I may, I’m going to start of by inserting part of my one of my own poems here:
lose the shackles
of this lifefind the whole
among the many
broken partsno thread completes
the pictureall
by itselflines brokenly straight, if all alone –
there is purpose
beauty
promise
in the broken and the
shattered dreameach fragment fused
defines the fullness
of the frameand beauty from the watered ash
will risefor together broken is together whole
It seemed appropriate, especially in light of what @kate mentioned about the different members of the body serving different functions based on their different, complementary strengths (and, conversely, weaknesses).
With respect to what you said, @hope-ann, about the point you disagreed with, I do understand what you’re saying, and I think I agree almost completely. So yes, I don’t think we should seek perfect balance, but simply balance. And the way that you and Kate balance each other out is a perfect example – like you said. That’s part of what diversity in the church is all about! Yes, we all have different spiritual gifts which all work together. But we also have different personalities, which (are supposed to) work together in a very similar, growth-producing way.
I could redefine what I meant by ‘perfect balance’ in order to save face and argue around to the same position you presented, like a sneaky little sophist, but I won’t. (I kinda tried at first, actually; wasn’t working :P)
What I will say, instead, is that I do think it is possible for each of the sixteen personality types to achieve their own healthy balance – and that should be their goal. It will look slightly different for each type. However, each type does have a balance, and we should seek to achieve that balance for our type.
+++
P.S. At this point, the pink salt is yours to fight over, girls. I wash my hands of the
sodium chloridematter. And by the way, I didn’t give it to you cuz it’s pink, haha! It just popped into my head because it’s a literal ‘exotic’ kind of salt that I like to use… XD By the way, grinding your own salt is the best. Like, when the salt comes in chunks and you have to grind it in those shakers that have a grinder in them (there has to be a better way to word that sentence, I’m just too tired to care at the moment…).It changes the texture, I’m telling you. So much better. Pepper is that way, too. Though I don’t mind pre-ground pepper at all…
P. P. S. I don’t think salt comes in black. @hope-ann
@karthmin I love that poem.
What I will say, instead, is that I do think it is possible for each of the sixteen personality types to achieve their own healthy balance – and that should be their goal. It will look slightly different for each type. However, each type does have a balance, and we should seek to achieve that balance for our type.
Yep. *thumbs up*
Guilty as charged and not even sorry. Sanderson is great. You might say he’s influenced our language just slightly. And whenever I see wisps of snow twist across the road in winter I think of spren. XD
Nasty, tricksy Katesessss. Keep your filthy hands off my salts, preciousssss
*coughs*
Pink will do. Black was a Batman reference. Though… if there were black salt…
@karthmin the salt we use is actually pinkish. I think. Darker, at least. It’s… natural or some such. Not sure. We don’t actually grind it fresh, but tasting a pinch of it next to the pure white store salt–it’s much saltier.Also yes, I can use emotions. But quite frankly, feelers do it even better/worse because they understand how emotions work better. Or they go to their INTJ best friends and say ‘hey, so this is good and sad, but it would be even worse if…’ So yeah. You guys are just as bad. You just pretend to be all sad about it is all.
I love that poem, btw. So true. And yeah. What you said about balance, but it looking different for each type is spot on. *tries to find something to argue about to keep the conversation from dissolving into banter* *fails*
Eh well. I’m sure I can find something if I need to. *goes to search notebook of random topics*
Or they go to their INTJ best friends and say ‘hey, so this is good and sad, but it would be even worse if…’
@Hope-ann that was not at all pointed, was it…*blinks innocently* of course not, @kate. Unless you know someone who might stoop to such levels.
This whole thread is deeply interesting, even the digressions on “who’d want to marry a writer?” (that perennial question) and group hugs. (I for one like my personal space and rarely give it up when I can help it to an ordinary one-to-one hug. Group hugs are just weird.) And I know exactly what @Hope-ann means when she says if you’re surrounded by Feelers you have to be logical just for the sake of providing a rounded perspective. It really is that way.
The main discussion of how writing feeds our lives and our lives feed our writing is well worth having. I don’t have anything new to contribute, except that it does actually work that way and you feel silly when you realize how long it took to get that. And by the same token books are far more than just an escape; as I think Daeus said, you can learn a lot from reading about other people’s experiences (in fiction) when you’d never be able to have those experiences and so couldn’t learn from experiences yourself. Learning from other people’s mistakes so you don’t have to make so many of your own is always good.
I have strong opinions on the books-as-merely-escape thing, owing to a creative writing teacher who repeatedly attacked the idea that fiction is good for anything more than that. You can avoid the “everything must be allegory” trap without falling into the “everything is ultimately without applicability” hole on the other side. (C. f. Tolkien, Monsters and Critics, etc. Tolkien is so good.)
@kate, by the way, where’d your blog go?@northerner whoops; I changed the address. 😛 Here you go. Kate Flournoy, Author
@hope-ann Actually… there is such a thing as black salt. O.o I looked it up and yeah. It exists. The more you know…
Also, I think the pink salt is usually Himalayan. And yes! It tastes saltier because it is ground from larger rock-like crystals, rather than crystalized via evaporation like sea salt is. The individual salt crystals are larger for sea salt, I think, so there’s less surface area being tasted, whereas the crystal faces are all jagged and broken up when you crush the salt instead. (Be careful. I am good at providing plausible explanations for things which I have not researched. This could be completely false. But I’m usually right. Like, 80% of the time… lol JK)
Btw, you and @kate are definitely a pair of troublemakers. It’s a good thing you live in two different states, and not right next door to one another. XD Although to be quite honest I can’t wish that upon best friends. 🙁
@northerner So glad you jumped in!I am especially interested to ask further about fantasy-as-escape vs. fantasy-as-art/enchantment/life experience/learning(???), particularly as it relates to Tolkien. You see, I just finished reading his essay “On Fairy-stories” and found it a beautiful and exhilarating confirmation of the approach to writing that I have slowly been coming to over the past couple years (in no small part due to his influence in other avenues). However, I have not had the opportunity to read Monsters and Critics yet. Based on your comment, I’m assuming that you have read that work (and enjoyed it). Would you care to expand what Tolkien argued for (and against) in Monsters and Critics?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
