A little laugh

Here is a little laugh inbetween studying for everyone


And then Some parts of my childhood, will probably not make sense to anyone:

Ronja is a book by Astrid Lindgren that was made into a movie. I am grown up on this story. It was a major part of what shaped me as a child.
The story: Ronja is the daughter of Mattis, the local robber leader. They live in an old castle that cracked the night Ronja was born. One day when she is around 12 she meets Birk,the son of the rival robber leader,Borka. Borka and his gang have moved into the part of the castle that the Mattis group is not using. The two children becomes friends, but their father's try to split them up. It ends with the children running away to the forest and refusing to come back unless their fathers make friends. At the same time Futen (old word for police/taxperson) is cracking down on the robbers. Mattis and Borka decide that if they join forces they will have so many followers that Futen would not dare to do anything against them.

The Party after Mattis is crowned king of the joined robber gang

The lullaby that Ronja's mother sings.

Yes, my horses are named after the two kids, Ronja and Birk.


Brother's Lionheart also by Lindgren
Two Brother's from our world die and become freedom heroes in the next world.


Mio min Mio, really sad story by Lindgren.
I swear I only remember bits of this story, but I used to love it.


Pippi Langstrump by A. Lindgren.

Another song, another weekend, another piece of homework.

So, another song I like and feel that I connect with. Temptation by Emigrate.



Emigrate has really grown on me. I guess you can call me a fan, and not only because Richard is damned hot, but because I like the music. Also the song Emigrate. The song is about leaving your country for something better, Richard himself first left East Germany for the west before the wall fell and then came back afterwards but is currently living in NYC. Actually check out this. I am not leaving Norway for good, I am Norwegian and will be until the day I die, I am very proud of being Norwegian, but it will be a long time until I go back. And I have begun to call this, Smith college, NoHo, New England, home. I have friends and loved ones here and unlike Norway I can picture myself living in the US. I don't know what that makes me. I never thought I would ever call myself American unless I was joking, but the other day when I was walking around campus and I realized this is home, the same way Flekke was, I wasn't so sure anymore. I just don't know anymore. I don't know what I am supposed to be, what I want to be or what I really am.

I just dumped into a Norwegian family visiting Smith. I heard someone speaking Norwegian and walked over and asked 'Snakker dere norsk?'(Do you speak Norwegian?) We talked for maybe 15 minutes and then I gave them my email. Sometimes I wish the admissions office would give us internationals a notice when someone from our country is visiting, it is nice to speak to someone who is from your country when you are considering a school. This group definatly seemed to like it. They had some interesting questions, especially about money and stuffs. I like being helpful.

So this weekend is filled with homework. No gaming though. I am either doing art or hanging around the UWC crowd tonight. I have stuff I want to do with art... But some of it requires Claire to get the first page of the comic done. Ah well, I guess I can do the character studies. Homework wise ; 3 problemsets due friday, two midterms due wednesday, one lab report due wednesday and a program due monday. And the server for the programming is down. And I forgot to transfer the files to my computer. Audery is going to kill me.

Soooo yeah....

So today I got some work done on the EF costume. I made the vest in wool, the wool now needs coloring and then I can finish of the details on it. But yeah, I hand sewed the damned thing, because the look I wanted on it required it. I had a nice long talk with Ning and Lin, got to know quite a lot about them. Then I played around with my music and after four-five days of almost only Red Hot Chili Peppers I am now done with them for a while. Back to Rammstein. *Drool*

In a week I am going to Amsterdam. I am kind of exited, it is acctually happening. When Cheryl and I started talking about it I thought it was just another of Cheryl's crazy ideas. I didn't get around to being exited about it until I acctually bought the ticket. And Anton is getting time of work to be with me(Cheryl got a job so she couldn't come after all, I'll rant about that later), which is nice. I was prepared to see Amsterdam by myself, but a guide wouldn't be bad. If nothing else I'll have some one to carry me home.

Have you ever felt that you love someone so much that you there is no way you can tell them? I had that experience today. I was going out to play with my poi and then I saw my dad standing there in the last rays of sunset watching the horses, and I realised that I love him a lot. More than I can ever tell him I think. I know I often complain about how often my dad and I fight and how much he can hurt me. I have realised why, it is because I love him so much I can't stand to see the disapointment in his eyes. That is why I haven't told him about my grades, and why it took me 8 years to get around to telling him I am bi (yeah, I have known for that long), what he thinks of me really matters. Most people I can manage not to care about what they think, but a few, my dad, Thomas, Bunny, yeah you know who you are, if I ever feel that I let them down, that I am not what they deserve as a daughter or friend, that's when I shatter, and that rope starts to look real friendly. Normally when I break, all it takes is some ice cream, chocolate or a hug to glue me back together. A shattered me however takes more. It takes a long time to heal from those, and it is something I have to do on my own, very often spending large amounts of time alone. I have had to do it often enough to know.

And then lastly, before I completely go on a Red Hot break. For my friends, you know who you are, this is how I feel about you:

Didn't expect that one.

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I think some people will find this interesting.

Your Personality Is Like Acid

A bit wacky, you're very difficult to predict. One moment you're in your own little happy universe... And the next, you're on a bad trip to your own personal hell!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

So yeah. I am LSD. Interesting.
Effects of Acid (Don't ask why I know this, some of you know and you understand(and just to clear that one up, No I am not on this shit. I am not on heavy drugs, or well... LSD is not a heavy drug and caffine and nicotine is. But anyway, I would not ever take this shit.)):
LSD(Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) - Uterine contractions, hypothermia, fever, elevated levels of blood sugar, goose bumps, increase heart rate, jaw clenching, perspiration, pupil-dilation, salvia production, mucus production, sleeplessness, paresthesia,euphoria, hyperreflexia, tremors, synesthesia, numbness, weaknessm trembling, nausea.
So that is what I do to you people? You poor things....

Janteloven

1. Don't think that you are special.
2. Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don't think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don't think that you know more than us.
6. Don't think that you are more important than us.
7. Don't think that you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think that anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think that you can teach us anything.

These ten 'laws' are what is know as Janteloven. It is very strong where I live, and growing up I got it virtually burned into me. I am an outsider where I live. I am born and raised there, but since my parents are not from the region I am not considered a local. As a child I used to read a lot, pay attention to the news and generally just know a lot. In class I would answer when the teacher asked something, I used to get very good grades and generally be the teacher's favorite. I was generally ignored by everyone else. Then as I grew up and learned about Janteloven (it is supposed to be dead by the way.. Yeah, right) I realised that if I stayed in that place for the rest of my life I would go crazy, and I figured that being good at school would be my way out. So I did not give up getting good grades, and the others kept ignoring me. I finally got away and got to Flekke. Where it was not only ok to be good, but expected.
The reason I am writing this weird post is because Ulrika and I talked about how weird it is being the one who weren't among the 'cool' kids growing up and now when we go back people admire us. I think it is because we said 'Fuck Janteloven' and got away and that the others wish they had done so too.

Goals in life updated

I have been meaning to update this every once in a while and I figured now was a good time.
New ones are in bold, no longer valid ones are in italics and the ones I have done have a star.

# Have a cup of coffee while sitting on the Spanish Stairs (Rome)
#Read all the books on my to read list
#Be rich enough to live on the Peak in HK
#Cave dive
#Write a book and get it published
#Own a proper studio with proper lighting
#Trace my steps in St.Petersburg again, and see all the art in the Herimitage (horribly misspelled I think)
#Create A.I.
# Make a full Elizebetian or Victorian nobles costume
#Own a boat/ship
#Celebrate Madi Gras in New Orleans (No longer possible as far as I know)
#Run a LARP
#Climb and photograph the giant caves in West Australia
#Own a mango tree
#Eat waffels in Brussels in Febuary
#Walk Sveindal-Åseral
#Drink Mango Lassi in India
#Visit New Castle
#Find a place to call home
#Photograph Lightning
#Touch a tiger
#Work for NASA
#Sleep under the stars at some remote mountain top
#See the art in Le Louvre (again misspelled I think, my french sucks)
#See my sister smile in the midnight sun again.
#Breathe fire
#Deserve all the love I recive
#Learn swordfighting
#Dive
#Own a motorcycle and ride it
#Drink wine on the balcony of a French chateau
#See Nightwish live again (I plan on getting this one done this fall)
#Read a book underneath an old oak tree lit by candles
#Get a tattoo * Done, I now have a dragon
#Compete in an archery competation
#See another galaxy *Done thanks to AST 113
#Enjoy anothoer of those amazing beautiful full moon nights
#Celebrate Pass Over in Israel
#Own an Island
# Learn Shibari/Kinbaku (Beautiful knotwork, who can resist)
# Do NaNoWriMo
# Make Chainmaille
# Speak at least 7 languages
# Meet Lise Myhre (the woman who draws Nemi)
# Read Snorre Sturlason's Heimskringla and Prose Edda
#Be able to look back on this list and say 'I had so much fun trying to achive those.'

Slaying the dreamer

"Blame me, it's me
Coward, a good-for-nothing scapegoat
Dumb kid, living a dream
Romantic only on paper
Tell me why you took all that was mine!
Stay as you lay - don't lead me astray!

You bastards tainted my tool
Raped my words,
played me a fool
Gather your precious glitter and leave me be
The Great Ones are all dead
And I'm tired, too
I truly hate you all!"
- Slaying the Dreamer by Nightwish

This rant was something I started thinking about while chating to Emmi earlier today, we have quite a lot of similar expiriences. When I need someone to talk to about stuff like this rant, I generally turn to Emmi, because I know she will understand the way only people with similar expiriences can. Thank you, Emmi.

Ever since since I started interacting with people who were not family (kindergarten), I have been told I wasn't good enough in some way or another. It started with not being as good in sports and games, the curse of being a fat kid, and then it was that I did not live where all the other kids did so I only saw them at school. Lastly, I have always been diffrent, my parents are not from the area so by definition I am not eighter, I was the only non christan kid (was acctually in a diffrent religion class for the first 4 years of my schooling because of this). Later it was that I was not atraktive enough, again the curse of being fat, then a few years after that, I simply had accepted that I was diffrent, I wasn't like them, I wasn't good enough for them, unless they needed someone who was good at school, but I never won any kind poplarity contest. Now I did have some good freinds, they were like me in some aspects, they wanted a good grade at school (yeah, where I live we live by janteloven "Don't think you are better than us, you're not"). I started playing the part of the freak, I played well. And then after four years of this, I went to Flekke, you know the story from there (While I found people like me, freinds for life, I still wasn't good enough).
Now we are talking some 12 years of being told I wasn't good enough, I wasn't someone they would play with. I acctually had the person I thought was my bestfreind say she did not want to be seen with me when we switched school, I was 13. After that many years you start to believe them, how can they really be wrong. And after all the rest of the world is not proving them wrong, look at any girl/womans magazine or tv soap, only the thin and pretty ones are wanted, and if you are not thin nobody wants you. And then when there is someone who tells you you are beautiful and they want you, you have problems believing them. Because the only way to survive was to accept that you are unatraktive. "It really sucks because sometimes people get tired of the insecurity it brings and then it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy..Because it's not that we're not good enough, it's just that when we argue against the way they feel about us, they get tired since it seems like we don't want their love or that we don't believe them." -Emmi (I think this was the perfect wording for what I wanted to say).
I wish I could go back in time and smack my self and say don't believe them, things will get better. But then again, people have said that to me, Thomas and Danna to name some, and I found it hard to believe them, I would probably find it equally hard to believe myself.
And to people who have to live with people who have the same issues as I do: "I am sorry, I truly am. The last thing I want is to be a difficult person to live with, but I can't help it, after this many years I acctually do believe what they said. I truly am ashamed of the way I look and I do think I am unattraktive... I am sorry for being stiff and weird, I am just afraid of doing something wrong and not being good enough for you."


And for people who read this and think, who the hell is this and think this is not the Tonje I know, ever heard about stage persona? The first thing I do every morning is putting on my mask.

And a small note on the song, aside from being an awesome Nightwish song. It is how I feel about them, they did kill a part of me, the part of me that loves me, and I hate them for that.

Saint and Sinner

The Seven Deadly Sins:

Pride

I take great pride in what I do. I pride meself on being among the best. I am proud of what I have acomplised so far in my life. I am also proud of myself, too proud many would say (and have). I don't take shit from people. I'll walk right up to them and tell them to go to hell. Only once in my life have I not done this and that was an expirience that still marks me and the wound that left me with will take a long time to heal. I often think the best of myself, maybe too often. That has landed me in trouble several times, yet I always seems to be able to get out of it with my pride intact.

Envy

I envy people who do better than me in the various disipines of life. I envy people who get better grades tham me, people who seem to manage their life better etc. I also envy people who do the thing I want to in the future, people working with what I want to work with.

Wrath

Wrath or anger or hate. I get angry at people. But that is not the part of this sin I want to discuss now. I hate people. Not everyone, there is not even a huge number of people I hate. Let me explain, I define people into catagories, people I like (you know if you are in this one), most people, and people I don't like. Now we look at the breakdown of the last one. It goes like this;
Indifrent - People I couldn't care less if anything happened to them or the people they love, Dislike - People I for some reason don't like, but not dislike enough to put them into another catagory. Detest (cool french word) - People who make me feel disgusted somehow, most likely because of how they acted or something they said. Most of the people I had problems with growing up are in this catagory. The people wh made me question the meaning of every look, every smile, every hug or touch. The people who crushed my dreams. Hate - People who have made someone I love feel bad. Like the woman who drove my sister crazy. Like the man that made my mother come home crying everyday for over a year. I hate them with every fiber of my being, I wish they burn in.. No, I don't, I wish that they will go through exactly the same as my mother and sister had to go through.

Sloth

I am lazy, let's just face that fact. Just the fact that I am writing this in stead of doing research for a paper, or doing math or chinese, both of which need work.

Greed

I want a good job so that I can make a lot of money to do the stuff I want. I think that greed is a very basic emotion. Just look at sqirrels, the biggest hoarder have enough for the winter time.

Gluttony

Take a look at me. Do you really think I woud look this way if I did not indulge in this sin?

Lust

Hehe. If you don't recognize this side of me, either praise yourself lucky that you haven't seen it yet or you don't know me well enough.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues:

Chasity

Lust and Chasity might seem like complete oposites, but they are not. At least in my head. Being chaste might also mean that you a sexual relationship with one person at a time. Or that you stay cheat on the person you are together with.

Moderation

I do moderate my using to a large degree. I try not to buy too many needless things or use exessive amounts of natural resourses. I can't say I am too good at it, but I try.

Generosity

I like spending money on the people I love. I don't mind doing favours. I like giving, it makes me feel better about myself. I hope all my freinds know that if they need someone to talk to, or a soulder to cry on I am here.

Labor

I don't mind working hard to get the stuff I want. There is stuff I want to do that require large amounts of work, like studying engineering or running a larp. I also try to maintain a high level of intergrity in my work. This is not only because of the Smith honor code, but also my personal honor code. I feel verybad about myself if people think I have cheated. I feel even worse if I actually have. I also try to present the best piece of work I can.

Patience

I'll wait to get what I want. I am not afraid of doing a bit of waiting, anyone who knows me know that I hate the idea of being late for something. I rather be way early than late, and way early normally means some time spendt waiting.

Charity

This one is closely related to generosity. I try to give to foundations such as Red Cross, and relief organisations. I know I have been very lucky in life, being born and rasied as a middleclass Norwegian citizen. I am among the luckiest people in this world. I try to do my little bit to help those that are not as lucky as me. Even if all I can to is donate money to various organisations that help, or write letters for Amnesty.

Modesty

I would consider myself humble, I respect those that I mean deserve respect. While I might seem to have no shame when it comes to my body, most of you know the truth behind that lie.

In short, I am not fully a saint or a sinner, I am only a human.

Seelye at Night, dreams and work.

Thanks to everyone to droped me a line about the last post. And Vera, thanks to what you said yesterday the Meyer Brigg results (see below) made a lot of sense, I really am an introverted person.

Last Saturday I started in the Vampire larp we have here, it is called Arkham by Night (and we play in the Seelye building), after Lovecrafts work, yet it is pure vampire as far as I know. I play Sarah Lerke, a newly turned Mekhet. I am spending the downtime untill the 30th, really diggng into her brain and figuring out who she really is and how to play her. So far all I can share with the world is that she is a French born American, moved to Boston, where she was shired by a vampire called Markus, sometime in August '07. Since there are some trouble in Boston, her Shire told her to get out of town, she had no idea why untill she heard talk about it in Arkham. After some wandering around she ended up in Arkham city, where she was allowed to stay by the Prince. Personally I have some more ideas about her, that for obvious reasons can not be posted here, that would spoil the fun if any of my fellow players read it.

Last night I dreamt I meet the guys in Nightwish, now wouldn't that be fun if it were true.

Some of my freinds here complain that I am disapearing, well, the work load is a lot. Fair enough that I did the IB, but still, I am taking classes that are nothing like what I did before. There are two or more essays due every week. In chinese class we have tests every day. In reenacting I have to set my self into the mind of Lafayette. Really the only chill class is Advanced Calculus.

My Meyer Brigg Type Indicator test answers..

Your Type is
INFJ
Introverted (89%) Intuitive (50%) Feeling (6%) Judging (33%)

Qualitative analysis of your type formula

You are:

* very expressed introvert
* moderately expressed intuitive personality
* slightly expressed feeling personality
* moderately expressed judging personality

The Portrait of the Counselor Idealist (iNFj)
The Counselor Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in reaching their goals, and directive and introverted in their interpersonal roles. Counselors focus on human potentials, think in terms of ethical values, and come easily to decisions. The small number of this type (little more than 2 percent) is regrettable, since Counselors have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions. Although Counsleors tend to be private, sensitive people, and are not generally visible leaders, they nevertheless work quite intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues. This type has great depth of personality; they are themselves complicated, and can understand and deal with complex issues and people.

Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, Counselors are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Indeed, because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, mutely withdrawing from human contact. At the same time, friends who have known a Counselor for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that they are inconsistent; Counselors value their integrity a great deal, but they have intricately woven, mysterious personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

Counselors have strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another's emotions or intentions -- good or evil -- even before that person is conscious of them. This "mind-reading" can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even Counselors can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others' feelings so keenly. Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena and to have visions of human events, past, present, or future. What is known as ESP may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in the Counselor, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.

Mohandas Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt are examples of the Counselor Idealist (INFJ).
-D. Keirsey

Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
by Joe Butt

Beneath the quiet exterior, INFJs hold deep convictions about the weightier matters of life. Those who are activists -- INFJs gravitate toward such a role -- are there for the cause, not for personal glory or political power.

INFJs are champions of the oppressed and downtrodden. They often are found in the wake of an emergency, rescuing those who are in acute distress. INFJs may fantasize about getting revenge on those who victimize the defenseless. The concept of 'poetic justice' is appealing to the INFJ.

"There's something rotten in Denmark." Accurately suspicious about others' motives, INFJs are not easily led. These are the people that you can rarely fool any of the time. Though affable and sympathetic to most, INFJs are selective about their friends. Such a friendship is a symbiotic bond that transcends mere words.

INFJs have a knack for fluency in language and facility in communication. In addition, nonverbal sensitivity enables the INFJ to know and be known by others intimately.

Writing, counseling, public service and even politics are areas where INFJs frequently find their niche.

Functional Analysis:
Introverted iNtuition

Introverted intuitives, INFJs enjoy a greater clarity of perception of inner, unconscious processes than all but their INTJ cousins. Just as SP types commune with the object and "live in the here and now" of the physical world, INFJs readily grasp the hidden psychological stimuli behind the more observable dynamics of behavior and affect. Their amazing ability to deduce the inner workings of the mind, will and emotions of others gives INFJs their reputation as prophets and seers. Unlike the confining, routinizing nature of introverted sensing, introverted intuition frees this type to act insightfully and spontaneously as unique solutions arise on an event by event basis.
Extraverted Feeling

Extraverted feeling, the auxiliary deciding function, expresses a range of emotion and opinions of, for and about people. INFJs, like many other FJ types, find themselves caught between the desire to express their wealth of feelings and moral conclusions about the actions and attitudes of others, and the awareness of the consequences of unbridled candor. Some vent the attending emotions in private, to trusted allies. Such confidants are chosen with care, for INFJs are well aware of the treachery that can reside in the hearts of mortals. This particular combination of introverted intuition and extraverted feeling provides INFJs with the raw material from which perceptive counselors are shaped.
Introverted Thinking

The INFJ's thinking is introverted, turned toward the subject. Perhaps it is when the INFJ's thinking function is operative that he is most aloof. A comrade might surmise that such detachment signals a disillusionment, that she has also been found lacking by the sardonic eye of this one who plumbs the depths of the human spirit. Experience suggests that such distancing is merely an indication that the seer is hard at work and focusing energy into this less efficient tertiary function.
Extraverted Sensing

INFJs are twice blessed with clarity of vision, both internal and external. Just as they possess inner vision which is drawn to the forms of the unconscious, they also have external sensing perception which readily takes hold of worldly objects. Sensing, however, is the weakest of the INFJ's arsenal and the most vulnerable. INFJs, like their fellow intuitives, may be so absorbed in intuitive perceiving that they become oblivious to physical reality. The INFJ under stress may fall prey to various forms of immediate gratification. Awareness of extraverted sensing is probably the source of the "SP wannabe" side of INFJs. Many yearn to live spontaneously; it's not uncommon for INFJ actors to take on an SP (often ESTP) role.
Famous INFJs:

Nathan, prophet of Israel
Aristophanes
Chaucer
Goethe
Robert Burns, Scottish poet

U.S. Presidents:
Martin Van Buren
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Fanny Crosby, (blind) hymnist
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Fred McMurray (My Three Sons)
Shirley Temple Black, child actor, ambassador
Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader, martyr
James Reston, newspaper reporter
Shirley McClain (Sweet Charity, ...)
Piers Anthony, author ("Xanth" series)
Michael Landon (Little House on the Prairie)
Tom Selleck
John Katz, critic, author
Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul and Mary)
U. S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL)
Billy Crystal
Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury)
Nelson Mandela
Mel Gibson
Carrie Fisher
Nicole Kidman
Jamie Foxx
Sela Ward
Mark Harmon
Gary Dourdan
Marg Helgaberger
Evangeline Lilly
Tori May

Introverted iNtuiting Feeling Judging
by Marina Margaret Heiss

INFJs are distinguished by both their complexity of character and the unusual range and depth of their talents. Strongly humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because of their J preference for closure and completion, they are generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes to which so many of them seem to be drawn.

INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates." While instinctively courting the personal and organizational demands continually made upon them by others, at intervals INFJs will suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even their intimates. This apparent paradox is a necessary escape valve for them, providing both time to rebuild their depleted resources and a filter to prevent the emotional overload to which they are so susceptible as inherent "givers." As a pattern of behavior, it is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the enigmatic INFJ character to outsiders, and hence the most often misunderstood -- particularly by those who have little experience with this rare type.

Due in part to the unique perspective produced by this alternation between detachment and involvement in the lives of the people around them, INFJs may well have the clearest insights of all the types into the motivations of others, for good and for evil. The most important contributing factor to this uncanny gift, however, are the empathic abilities often found in Fs, which seem to be especially heightened in the INFJ type (possibly by the dominance of the introverted N function).

This empathy can serve as a classic example of the two-edged nature of certain INFJ talents, as it can be strong enough to cause discomfort or pain in negative or stressful situations. More explicit inner conflicts are also not uncommon in INFJs; it is possible to speculate that the causes for some of these may lie in the specific combinations of preferences which define this complex type. For instance, there can sometimes be a "tug-of-war" between NF vision and idealism and the J practicality that urges compromise for the sake of achieving the highest priority goals. And the I and J combination, while perhaps enhancing self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate their deepest and most convoluted feelings.

Usually self-expression comes more easily to INFJs on paper, as they tend to have strong writing skills. Since in addition they often possess a strong personal charisma, INFJs are generally well-suited to the "inspirational" professions such as teaching (especially in higher education) and religious leadership. Psychology and counseling are other obvious choices, but overall, INFJs can be exceptionally difficult to pigeonhole by their career paths. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in the technical fields. Many INFJs perceive themselves at a disadvantage when dealing with the mystique and formality of "hard logic", and in academic terms this may cause a tendency to gravitate towards the liberal arts rather than the sciences. However, the significant minority of INFJs who do pursue studies and careers in the latter areas tend to be as successful as their T counterparts, as it is *iNtuition* -- the dominant function for the INFJ type -- which governs the ability to understand abstract theory and implement it creatively.

In their own way, INFJs are just as much "systems builders" as are INTJs; the difference lies in that most INFJ "systems" are founded on human beings and human values, rather than information and technology. Their systems may for these reasons be conceptually "blurrier" than analogous NT ones, harder to measure in strict numerical terms, and easier to take for granted -- yet it is these same underlying reasons which make the resulting contributions to society so vital and profound.