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The way I deal with people is this: if they're a casual acquaintance, I wont tell them anything particularly negative.

I just say "all right" or "ok" most of the tyme.

The advantage the white lie has is that if nothing else, it cheers the other person up, which in turn can cheer you up. And eventually if you tell the lie enough, you begin to believe it.

For a while after my accident when I saw friends and others I knew I'd say just how I felt which was usually rotten. But after a while of having friends say I needed to be positive I started saying "good" or "great". And while it improved my mood some I could never get over it that I was just fooling them and myself. So I eventually went to saying "ok".

Of course, if you have a chronically low mood, along with losing interest in activities you previously had interest in; loss of your sense of humour; increasing social isolation; change in eating or sleeping patterns; or fatigue or other malaise, you should see a doctor to see how they can help.

As part of the therapy I was in I saw a psychiatrist who gave me a prescription of an antidepressant. Around the same tyme I spent a weekend doing some volunteer work. I met some people through it and was feeling real good for a while but I lost contact with them and went downhill again afterwards. While I'm an INTP and Introverted I still need physical contact, people I hang out with however after having moved to get the therapy I needed I haven't been able to make and keep new friends. Whereas before moving I was a member of different clubs or groups and hung out with a number of the same people over the years I haven't even spent tyme with anyone in years. I hardly even see my sister now, she's too busy. If things keep going like they are I fear I will become some sort of mean old grouch.

Of course, that is if you haven't done so already. If you have and what they did isn't working - tell them!

I had to stop therapy because I couldn't afford it. When I was last in therapy I went there 3 days a week for 5 hours a day. Eventually I was told I had to pay for it myself, insurance was paying but they stopped, however if I had to pay it would have cost $100 an hour or $1500 a week and there's no way I could afford it. A year later I started taking classes in college, one or two classes a semester, which helped but again because of financial difficulties I had to drop out. Heck because of my disability I need to see a doctor but I haven't seen a doc in more than 6 years. I haven't even seen a dentist in more than 9 years yet my teeth are cracking and falling apart, the gum is growing over the roots left from some teeth.

In the meantime, a no-holds barred, frank conversation with a close friend can go a surprisingly long way;

That I know of my closest friend, er someone I used to call a friend at least, is more than 1500 miles away. The last I saw one was more than 6 years ago, just days after the last tyme I saw a doc.

Simple solution. Contracting. Since I changed, I never looked back. I will NEVER work for free. I will work as long as the job requires, I will bust my ass to get things working, but, I will not do it for free.

As someone who's not particularly energized by my current job[1], I've been giving some thought to going the contracting route. The problem is, I can't seem to determine if it's right for me or not. It seems to be almost polarizing, as I've seen opinions vary from making it sound anywhere from a euphoric, semi-retired state, to a hellish flip-ya-over-and-do-ya-dry brothel.

How does one get started in the contracting world? How do you make sure you're getting a good contract? Do you get vacation days, sick days, personal time off? Basically, how would I know if contracting is right for me? It seems like an awful big risk to take if I don't have some confidence that it will work out for me. I'm an INTP that likes to experiment and do proof-of-concept work; be the first to get a general understanding of something new, and then move on. I don't like wrote work or filling in function bodies in an architecture that someone else wrote.

[1] I'm now working for a startup trading company. The company is doing very well. With my bonus, I'll probably make 2x what I made at my previous job. But I'm here 10 hours/day, every day (all my colleagues work 12 hour days), plus I have an hour commute on either side. For some reason, the work doesn't interest me too much. I spend entirely too much time slacking (like right now).

IMO people that can do ANYTHING are likely
an INTP http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html personality type. This would explain why they don't always produce much. Merely proving to themselves that they CAN do it is quite enough.

Perhaps this is why I have a lot of unfinished projects. Once it's obvious what needs to be done, and the real mysteries are cracked, you leave the rest as an exercise for the student.

Sounds like an INTP, aye. If you can read this and start adding your own name to the various descriptions, that's a good sign.

If this is the case, remember that we're 1 percent of the general population, and the the world is more or less specifically designed to piss us off.

Learn to recognize the fact that you'll feel that way, learn to recognize that in many cases, what somebody's doing that makes you really really mad is making you mad because of your brain wiring, not because they're trying to piss you off, and you'll get along fine.

You will, however, find it annoying in a vague and distant way that you'll find a new hobby, throw yourself into it body and soul for a few weeks to a few months, become proficient, and drop it for a few years. On the other hand, I find that this isn't so bad, as I often collect so much stuff during the acquisition/learning phase that I don't get to it all during the use phase, so I have something waiting for me when I get back to it later.

Also, bear in mind that these are continuums, not classifications. You'll be *somewhere between* Introversion and Extroversion, *somewhere between* sensing and intuitive, and so on.

Me, I'm an INTP; introvert intuitive thinking perceiver. http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html

If they're programming, but they hate it, and want to be an artist, should I really hire them to be a programmer?

'The merits' can and should include things like 'will they get along with the rest of the team' and 'are they psycologically capable of performing their tasks?'

Somebody like me, for example, an INTP probably shouldn't be hired for a marketing job. That's not discriminating against me, that's understanding that I don't have the temperment to do marketing.

The second link under the 'What is an INTP' for intp.org, by the way, is an excellent essay on us INTP types.

Doesn't reading and responding to threads that have nothing to do with the disaster also show the lack of humanity you claim to abhor? So stop with your flamebaiting posting and go back to under your desk and resume chewing your fingernails. Interrupting normal life as we live it is the whole goal of the terrorism. Congrats on perpetuating their objectives with your brilliant post!

I am an INTP. I have no tolerance for pompous asses!

Curious George

Hey, happy birthday! :) I didn't mean to criticize you about a typo. Just wanted to set the record straight about the number's value, that's all. Ah, I'm such an INTP. :)

This is a repost to see if I can get the correct HTML in. Note that I picked the stuff below up by using the browser back button...

Or does it seem to others like Alan G. Carter is wandering through some new-age philosophical wasteland? For example 'M0' as a "...previously unsuspected public health problem." Huh? People addicted to boredom? Ritual junkies picking on the 'immune'?

I would think an easier explanation (and better if you apply Occam's Razor) is that most people are either intellectually incapable or intellectually lazy. In other words, some people can learn to actually use their brains and enjoy novelty, but it requires work. Others are born with it and yet others are missing a crucial component. But the author is so in love with this concept of Ritual Junkies that he nearly bursts into song. For example the following passage makes more sense as free verse than it does in context:

"There is an Inner Not at the base of all thinking that ends up as an invisible and unremovable Ghost Not that makes the conclusions invalid. It is because of this generality that the effect is so mathematically elegant."

Then add in some of the other stuff the web site meanders through, like 'Hypertime' and 'Reciprocal Cosmology', and you realize this stuff is straight out of a ketamine dream. I prefer my physics straight, thank you...

I didn't really buy into Carter's 'Programmer's Stone' thing all that much anyway. After all it seemed kinda self-evident. No need to use funny phrases like 'Mappers' and 'Packers' when we already know that some people are capable of seeing the big picture and others cannot (unless they get some major training). Personally I think the Myers Briggs Type Indicator personality test is a better predictor of someones ability than anything else. Basically, the people that Carter describes as 'Mappers' are 'NT' types (iNtuitive Thinking).

Jack (who is an INTP)