I have always believed that all people start out with good intension’s, but at some point in their life the world shape them or side track them and they might end up on the wrong course. As humans we all want the same thing, we crave happiness and want to end our suffering which tend to be a major part of living. The Buddhists see life as mostly suffering and to be truly happy you have to come to terms with this. However, people get caught up in their lives and forget about what truly matters. We built up these frameworks in or societies how people should be and live their lives in order to be happy. You get an education, get a job, get a partner, get a house, get kids etc. When we have all that we are supposed to continue in the endless cycle of consumers consuming our mere existence. No wonder some people take the turn for the worst with all the pressure of what to make of your life. The question is why some people understand the underlying systems we have in our societies and why some don’t. Some form their world view from what they know around them, other questions it’s existence.

As an INFJ I always felt cursed both for better and worse when it comes to understanding the world and the people within it. In school as a kid I was very stubborn, I rejected all of the systems in place because I could see that many of them was useless and built on principles that would not help me learn anything. Of course I got into trouble because of this on many occasions, but as you know INFJs can be very persistent with what we think about things and you can’t influence us easily. We are not prone to conforming to others liking so to speak, if we don’t feel it also meets our own values.

In the social realm this became more painful the older I became since I started to realize that most people are selfish and shallow when it really counts. Many cannot see past themselves. It’s all a competition and value is not placed on the things that matters, like compassion for others. Among most life is an endless race where nobody realize that there is no finishing line. Winning won’t bring  you any closer to happiness. Of course seeing that much of how the world works early on made me unhappy as well. You see people following the same patterns knowing what their outcome will be even though you can’t help them.

What I’m trying to get at is since INFJs has such depth of empathy and understanding, we often see everything clearly when others do not. This might bring us great pain since people will hurt us without understanding it themselves. The way we see friendships and relationships other do not, people might not care about us the way we care about them. I guess when you realize this it is hard to find an angle on life that gives you a good outlook. Maybe this is simply why we are so prone to depression and sadness, we understand how life really is which is also why we understand the perfect ideal for things. We are good at connecting opposites and seeing everything that life is not might bring us much unhappiness.

On the other hand, this also gives us the talent to do many great things and to make the world a better place for  ourselves and others. We need to remember that we understand people for what they truly are. They might hurt us and others, but people are only a creation of what they know from their own lives. A tiger can’t hide it’s stripes so we can’t expect people to be what we are. What we all want in life is to feel happy, and when you approach people with the compassion knowing that all they want is basically the same as you, it is easier to remember that we all wish for the same world in the end. We just see it from different angles.

The post INFJ Traits: The Curse of Understanding appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.

MBTI says that INFJ’s are some of the most spiritual and religious personality types. I would say that in my case that has not turned out to be true until I became older. I never saw the point in going to church even though my family and relatives are very Christian. Christianity was never something for me. I can believe in all the good things that the bible tells us on how we should be, and all the goodness it represents. But the way Christianity affects our world, and especially by the Catholic church, I could never believe or be ok with. Preventing people from taking precautions to not transmit AIDS and HIV when millions of people are dying from it is not something you can consider a healthy and functional belief system. Religion should help people and help us stay connected to each other, not take lives.

As I got older I started questioning more in life. At some point I realized that there is a lot more going on in the world we live in then what meets the eye. There is so much that can’t be explained by either religion or science and there is definitely something more to life then what we simple humans are aware of. The picture of the universe that science and many religions draws for us is incomplete, anybody who would say there is not much more to it then that would be wrong indeed. I think everybody should be free to believe in what they want, but what I hope is that people choose to believe in something and not someone. You are the center of your own universe.

One of my favorite people who also happened to be a INFJ, is Terence McKenna (R.I.P). I think his views, knowledge and beliefs about life is simple amazing and I wish there was more people like him in the world. If there was, the world would be a better place. I feel like he always got to the core of things in his questions and views on life and knows where the true value lies. I share a lot of his believes and I think that the world we live in should be treated with respect. We should be genuine to ourselves and others and never stop exploring because there is much more to it then what we already know.

To wrap this all up I want to leave you with an excerpt from one of his speeches which I hope you will enjoy as much as I do:

“We have to stop consuming our culture. We have to create culture. Don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time, where you are now, is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered. You are giving it all away to icons. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media, so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is sh*t-brained this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. And what is real is you and your friends, and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told no. We’re unimportant, we’re peripheral, get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that, and then you’re a player. You don’t even want to play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world. Where is that at?” 

Terence McKenna – Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution 

The post INFJ People: Terence McKenna on Beliefs, Religion and Spirituality appeared first on INFJ Ramblings.