[INFJ] Do you ever feel that nothing is really meaningful?

kinglear said:
life wasn't always that way

I'm reading a book at the moment about lost crafts and from that you really get a sense of how skilled our ancesters were. We tend to look down on them as primatives now from the perspective of our hitech society but if you think about it they were more empowered than us because they could do more for themselves than we can

i'm not anti-technology by any means but the thing about technology is that it depends on who is wielding it whether it is good or bad for society

For example at one point in history castles were cutting edge technology but they weren't always used for good ie to defend against aggressors. Often castles were built by invaders so that they could use them to control the lands that they were occupying

Its the same with hitech today. Yes it can be used to make your life more convenient but it can also be used by others to control you

So the problem we have is that as we become more dependent on the tech we lose the ability to DO for ourselves and i think that as humans we do enjoy doing things for ourselves on some level

I mean lets take something simple like cooking a meal. In modern life people are often tired because they are made to work long hours and commute through heavier and heavier traffic so they get home and they want convenience so they go for pre-made meals which might not be healthy for them

Lets say the hitech companies release a robot that can do all your cooking for you. Within one generation the majority of people would have no experience cooking at all

This has a 'spiral of consequences' effect because not only do you lose a skill and the enjoyment of an activity that you might do recreationally when you have the time and energy for your own satisfaction but you also lose all connection to the food. If the robot also orders the food for you then you may not ever even get to look at the food in its natural state. So within a generation people wouldn't even know what different fruits and vegetables were

At that point the system could be giving your robot chef anything and you would have no idea what that was because you wouldn't know one thing from the other anyway

But that's only one small area of life. The same thing could happen with everything from gardening to building houses to growing food. Then what do we become? Where do we find satisfaction? Where do we find meaning?
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That! That is it!

It is the premisse of Wall-e.
This is already happening. Most kids cant make any diffrence between some fruits or vegetables.

We focus so much on having that we forget doing or being.
 
John K said:
There's been a lot of advice here about getting out of yourself, going into the world, appreciating it in little ways, some hinting at distracting yourself with external things. I agree with all these but I'd add something else as well. These feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness come from within, and it can be a sign that something buried deep within you, where you can't easily get at it, is wanting you to grow and mature a bit further in the journey of your life. It's as though there is a seed that is sprouting in the darkness of our hidden minds and eventually it wants the light - and it puts us into an inner conflict. There's nothing about this that isn't normal and countless others have experienced it in all sorts of different ways - I remember my brother when he was about 40 asking "is this it then?" about his life. He went on to have three children in the following few years! It doesn't mean that something within you is trying to get you to break up your current life - for most of us it's more about our attitude to ourselves and the world we live in, and like I say it can be a call for us to move on, mature and develop ourselves as we go into the next stage of our lives. This is a fantastically rewarding process if it we allow it to happen. It isn't just something that happens in our teens - I'm in my late 60's and I go through this sort of thing every 10 years or so, though the big ones are at about 2, 15-18, 40-5, 60-65.

You are an INFJ type - I don't know how much you are familiar with mbti typology, but we are a pretty rare breed, and out in the big wide world there are few of us and a lot of others who are our opposite types, as we are theirs. That means that we develop differently over our lifetimes to most other people, though as we get older we do tend to converge. This means that you won't get a lot of empathy from the people in the world around you who will find your problems weird and disquietening - this forum is a great place to find people whose journey through life is more closely like your own and can share your experiences.

But maybe I'm way off the mark here - only you can say from within your own experience of yourself.
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Can you become my internet father? Lol

Jokes aside, what you said touched me. It is indeed an opportunity much more than is a problem.
I will think a lot about this...
 
HFrossard said:
I would never guess.
You seem a very good and wise friend to have around and I thought you would be some kind of successful writer or something.
Good luck on the studies!
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Haha, that is the biggest compliment! Thank you! I appreciate your kind words. :)

I do aspire to be a writer on the sidelines once I finish my studies and progress further down into my career as a clinical neuropsychologist. So who knows! I might actually be a successful writer one day! I greatly hope so.
 
HFrossard said:
Can you become my internet father? Lol
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Any time my friend :grinning:. But be warned ....

giphy.gif
 
John K said:
There's been a lot of advice here about getting out of yourself, going into the world, appreciating it in little ways, some hinting at distracting yourself with external things. I agree with all these but I'd add something else as well. These feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness come from within, and it can be a sign that something buried deep within you, where you can't easily get at it, is wanting you to grow and mature a bit further in the journey of your life. It's as though there is a seed that is sprouting in the darkness of our hidden minds and eventually it wants the light - and it puts us into an inner conflict. There's nothing about this that isn't normal and countless others have experienced it in all sorts of different ways - I remember my brother when he was about 40 asking "is this it then?" about his life. He went on to have three children in the following few years! It doesn't mean that something within you is trying to get you to break up your current life - for most of us it's more about our attitude to ourselves and the world we live in, and like I say it can be a call for us to move on, mature and develop ourselves as we go into the next stage of our lives. This is a fantastically rewarding process if it we allow it to happen. It isn't just something that happens in our teens - I'm in my late 60's and I go through this sort of thing every 10 years or so, though the big ones are at about 2, 15-18, 40-5, 60-65.

You are an INFJ type - I don't know how much you are familiar with mbti typology, but we are a pretty rare breed, and out in the big wide world there are few of us and a lot of others who are our opposite types, as we are theirs. That means that we develop differently over our lifetimes to most other people, though as we get older we do tend to converge. This means that you won't get a lot of empathy from the people in the world around you who will find your problems weird and disquietening - this forum is a great place to find people whose journey through life is more closely like your own and can share your experiences.

But maybe I'm way off the mark here - only you can say from within your own experience of yourself.
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I also agree with this. Very interesting and comforting.

At the same time it also becomes a bit dark. Now I'm thinking like:
"Okay, the brain isn't satisfied with how things are going. The brain then proceeds to poke me (itself) with a stick of discomfort in order to force me to take action and do something about the situation. But, the brain is supposed to be in charge of this whole operation, isn't he? Why must the brain be in conflict with me (itself) all the time? Why can't we all just get along and be friends?"

Then my first reaction is like:
"Alrighty then, you little bastard. If you want war, I'll give you war. How about if I refuse to do what you want out of sheer spite?"

But on the other hand I wouldn't want to make a powerful enemy such as the brain. Better just do what he says and try to look happy while secretly clenching my fists in my pockets.
 
Embers said:
I also agree with this. Very interesting and comforting.

At the same time it also becomes a bit dark. Now I'm thinking like:
"Okay, the brain isn't satisfied with how things are going. The brain then proceeds to poke me (itself) with a stick of discomfort in order to force me to take action and do something about the situation. But, the brain is supposed to be in charge of this whole operation, isn't he? Why must the brain be in conflict with me (itself) all the time? Why can't we all just get along and be friends?"

Then my first reaction is like:
"Alrighty then, you little bastard. If you want war, I'll give you war. How about if I refuse to do what you want out of sheer spite?"

But on the other hand I wouldn't want to make a powerful enemy such as the brain. Better just do what he says and try to look happy while secretly clenching my fists in my pockets.
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I see many
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who try and avoid their destiny to be

images


and risk

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Our ego is only a part of us, and usually doesn't know all by itself what we need most to fulfil ourselves - all too often it ends up down blind alleys. Our unconscious mind is compassionate in its demands that we fulfil ourselves and tries to guide us in compensation. The conflicts only happen when we try and take too much control away from our whole mind and deny our own nature. In the modern world, I see more and more 40 year old teenagers and it's so sad. It's like a sort of global warming in our psyches. We create our egos over and over again throughout our lives and each one has to die in a sense to allow its successor to be born.

This poem is an incredible longing to go back to a special time in the poet's childhood and draws me in to its magic and sadness like I was there with him - but to try and actually live it in our later lives would destroy us ....

Fern Hill - Poem by Dylan Thomas
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and
cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was
air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the
nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking
warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Dylan Thomas
 
JennyDaniella said:
Haha, that is the biggest compliment! Thank you! I appreciate your kind words. :)

I do aspire to be a writer on the sidelines once I finish my studies and progress further down into my career as a clinical neuropsychologist. So who knows! I might actually be a successful writer one day! I greatly hope so.
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Neuropsychologist? That is fancy!
When you get to be a successul writer, invite us to the autograph night!
 
Embers said:
I also agree with this. Very interesting and comforting.

At the same time it also becomes a bit dark. Now I'm thinking like:
"Okay, the brain isn't satisfied with how things are going. The brain then proceeds to poke me (itself) with a stick of discomfort in order to force me to take action and do something about the situation. But, the brain is supposed to be in charge of this whole operation, isn't he? Why must the brain be in conflict with me (itself) all the time? Why can't we all just get along and be friends?"

Then my first reaction is like:
"Alrighty then, you little bastard. If you want war, I'll give you war. How about if I refuse to do what you want out of sheer spite?"

But on the other hand I wouldn't want to make a powerful enemy such as the brain. Better just do what he says and try to look happy while secretly clenching my fists in my pockets.
Click to expand...

Hahahahaha

Can we partner to write funny emotional comics?

A feel weeks ago I got to know Tony Roberts. I now, he is very famous, but I didn`t know.
Nontheless, I am practing a few tips of him and some of them has to do with your little story.

What he calls “power hour” is something I am practicing every morning and it is helping me to hack my brain. I hope that it does not find out.
 
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