INFJ Causes

[Lerxst]

I'm trying to get a trap-neuter-return program started for the feral cats in my area. Unfortunately I live in a semi-rural community and people don't understand the concept. They're fine with ferals but the population is exploding. And, three of these cats in my neighborhood could actually be adopted if they had someone willing to work with them on the finer points of being a cat. (ie don't scratch the hand that feeds you. It's in play but it still hurts.) So I'm trying to find homes for these three. They're all attention hogs that try to trip me up on the way inside the house. And yes, they were true ferals. They appeared on my doorstep three months ago, when they were five months old, though I'd seen them before and watched them from some distance. Then I started feeding them and they soon learned that the price for being fed was that I touched them. Now one of them will climb into my lap, and ironically he's the one who accepted the petting last. All three will accept petting without food now, and the longhair calico will accept a full brushing.

I'd love to be their home but we may have to leave this summer to pursue an internship, and also we're not allowed indoor pets although we do let them in occasionally to warm up.


I don't understand people and people don't really understand me. But I have always felt an affinity to animals. Having been adopted rather late (I was eight, and by then the chance of being adopted is almost nothing by the way) I feel a connection to the homeless, the abused, the rejected animals. The ones who once had a home but came home pregnant one day and tossed out. And yes, that happens around here. Or the ones who were cute as kittens but when they grew up were just tossed outside. I feel for them and it pains me that I can't do more for them.

And here's one of those "causes" where my INFJness comes out even more. On an individual in a community basis, TNR is a good thing and works well. It's when the multi-million dollar, national organizations go around promoting it as the end-all solution to feral cat problems that it becomes a hot topic for debate in my circles. Those circles being Wildlife that is.

Returning non-native, invasive species to their non-native habitat after being caught is just mind-numbingly counter-productive to most people in the same field I'm in. As a single person in a small community it's the lesser of two evils since you don't have a shelter to use to re-home them and work with them in. Those large organizations that actually do have the money to re-home and work with the cats though, have no excuse. They need to stop thinking in the "dog & cat"/pet mindset and start thinking in the overall "animal" mindset.

Sorry but... I mean, this is a "causes" thread, right?? :rant:

 

[subwayrider]

Sorry but... I mean, this is a "causes" thread, right?? :rant:

Hehe. Certainly, sir. I enjoy reading about all your causes.
And we spread awareness this way

 

[NiennaLadyOfTears]

And here's one of those "causes" where my INFJness comes out even more. On an individual in a community basis, TNR is a good thing and works well. It's when the multi-million dollar, national organizations go around promoting it as the end-all solution to feral cat problems that it becomes a hot topic for debate in my circles. Those circles being Wildlife that is.

Returning non-native, invasive species to their non-native habitat after being caught is just mind-numbingly counter-productive to most people in the same field I'm in. As a single person in a small community it's the lesser of two evils since you don't have a shelter to use to re-home them and work with them in. Those large organizations that actually do have the money to re-home and work with the cats though, have no excuse. They need to stop thinking in the "dog & cat"/pet mindset and start thinking in the overall "animal" mindset.

Sorry but... I mean, this is a "causes" thread, right?? :rant:

Ok, our local "wildlife" consists of racoons and opossums.

So what do you presume we do with a town that is overrun with feral cats? Round them up and euthanize them? This town doesn't have the resources to do that. They don't even have animal control vehicles. Okay, well they have one, and its job is to pick up roadkill, most of which happen to be feral cats.

Sure, we have a few birds. I only ever see robins and cardinals. But these ferals don't seem to eat birds. I've never seen any evidence at least. They're great for rodent control however, and that's why this community does nothing about it. Unfortunately however the population on this block is getting to an unsustainable size. That's why I want to see if we can get a TNR program started here. The locals like ferals because they keep up on the rodents. If we fix the females in this colony there will be no more kittens.

One of these females was pregnant twice this year. Both times she lost all the kittens. Some genetic anomaly or something probably; she's not too smart and she was also born blind. Her brother died of a heart defect earlier this year.

The other female in our area gave birth to four kittens, one of which became roadkill and the other three are the ones we have tamed up. One of these is female, and if we can manage to scrape by the money, we might take her in to get fixed herself.

 

[Nitesteamer]

How has your experience in counseling been?

It allows me to completely remove myself from my own needs, and I'm pretty sure that the other person sees that in most cases.

I love being in my own world, but I also love being completely out of my world(for short bursts).

 

[Lerxst]

Ok, our local "wildlife" consists of racoons and opossums.

So what do you presume we do with a town that is overrun with feral cats? Round them up and euthanize them? This town doesn't have the resources to do that. They don't even have animal control vehicles. Okay, well they have one, and its job is to pick up roadkill, most of which happen to be feral cats.

Sure, we have a few birds. I only ever see robins and cardinals. But these ferals don't seem to eat birds. I've never seen any evidence at least. They're great for rodent control however, and that's why this community does nothing about it. Unfortunately however the population on this block is getting to an unsustainable size. That's why I want to see if we can get a TNR program started here. The locals like ferals because they keep up on the rodents. If we fix the females in this colony there will be no more kittens.

One of these females was pregnant twice this year. Both times she lost all the kittens. Some genetic anomaly or something probably; she's not too smart and she was also born blind. Her brother died of a heart defect earlier this year.

The other female in our area gave birth to four kittens, one of which became roadkill and the other three are the ones we have tamed up. One of these is female, and if we can manage to scrape by the money, we might take her in to get fixed herself.

If they can be saved, then I'm all for rounding them up and adopting them as house cats, or as some rural communities have, "barn cats".. My gripe is with the large welfare groups launching multi-million dollar campaigns advocating TNR programs as the end-all solution.

If finding them a home or placing them in a permanent shelter isn't a viable solution, than I'm for euthanasia before re-releasing them. It's a harsh, but necessary evil. You, me, or the techs at the shelters who administer the process, aren't the ones responsible for killing those feral cats. It's the idiots that think releasing a cat into the wild or not bothering to keep an eye on their own cat and just let them wander around the neighborhood, that are at fault.

If you want to see the other perspective on this, find a local Wildlife Rehabber and help them out for a while. You'll get to see first-hand what kind of devastation a feral cat community can wreak on an ecosystem. They aren't house-cats that will leave a gift on your doorstep. If they kill something, they're going to keep it and hide it away from others - you'll never see it and never know!

So as to not start another paragraph with the word "if" I'll vary it a bit... hey look at that! But really, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to any "nuisance" wildlife such as mice. A house we rented while having birds living with us was infested with them! A few concrete boards to replace the drywall, and some construction adhesive to patch the gaps in the floor/walls kept them out of the "bird room" and reduced their numbers exponentially since their food supply was cut off. No cats ever needed to be involved

 

[GracieRuth]

I like Bickelz because he always reminds me of Butters. Could be the icon, but I'm not sure.

I've always been cause driven. From the time I was twelve, I used to go play piano at the Penial Mission in downtown Los Angeles where my uncle was the pastor and my dad preached once a month. My INTJ dad and I would have debates about the idea of making the free meal conditional on attending the worship service. My dad believed it was important to feed more than just the stomach. I prefered the way the Catholic Midnight Mission did it -- a hungry person isn't going to listen to a sermon, feed them first.

I remember attending a peace march in 1979, supporting Carter's low key response to the taking of American hostages in Iran, because I wanted to avoid violence. Now I look back in a kind of embarassed nostalgia at what a naive young leftist I had been, because I see that regardless of what message Carter was trying to send, the message RECIEVED was that America was weak. 1979 was the beginning of the problems the US would have with terrorism and Islamic Fascism.

The whole reason I chose to become a teacher in inner city schools was that after sitting idly in an accounting deparment for years I wanted my career to be of service to humanity, and what better thing to do than to teach someone how to fish, as the saying goes.

When I was a young married gal, I had a lot of "conspiracy" conversations with my ENFP brother -- we talked about supporting Solidarnosc in Poland, and the unusual alliance between Reagan and the Pope regarding communism. I pinpointed Apartheid as a major world concern, and my brother went to South Africa, even met with Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela, and he was there as moral support as many of his colored friends went to vote for the first time. For many, many years my brother and I had this kind of me being the brain and him being the arm kind of idealist pair.

We split ways over Israel. My brother is basically one of those naive pacifist peaceniks that goes yearly to the West Bank. I certainly see problems -- I'm not blind, and Israel like any country makes mistakes, and there are a lot of ultra-orthodox nutcases that are willing to break Jewish law in order to expand Israel into the West Bank. But I believe my brother is being USED by those who have NO INTEREST in peace, those whose single minded goal is the destruction of Israel, and establishment of a Sharia state. Oslo was my turning point, when I had the epiphany that some people in this world really do NOT want peace.

So I guess that in addition to the charitable stuff I do, my present cause du jour is the survival of Israel. It's the trickiest cause I've ever championed because it is NOT clearly black and white and NOT simple. I think that as a young adult, I lacked the sophistication necessary to traverse these particular waters, but after decades of trial and error fine tuning my spidey senses, I'm ready for this.

 

[jn56uytrx]

Do any of you INFJs have any causes you fight for? What are they? If you don't have a cause now, have you ever? What made you give up on it, if this is the case? Do you think having these causes is an essential part of being INFJ?

I haven't been much of a fighter for causes in my life. That's not to say I haven't considered things and even thought about stepping up and fighting, it's just the actual doing part that I'm not so great at getting to. I'm more theoretical and sometimes I think I work it out in my head and then the energy dissipates and any anxiety I have about conflict and exposing myself to criticism tends to overwhelm the remaining energy.

Where I do tend to actually act is in smaller interpersonal arenas. I feel empathetic injustice when I see people being treated unkindly. Sometimes I just get privately angry, but sometimes I'll actually speak out. The thing is, mean people are mean. As soon as you speak up they turn on you. I'm usually not so strong as to be able to stand up against those assaults. Hopefully just the initial speaking helps somebody even if I chicken out under pressure and back down.

I've been trying to get stronger lately. Both in being confident enough to say I don't value something and stand up to the backlash, as well as in looking within myself to really assess what I value and what I don't. Part of the reason I don't have a lot of "causes" is because I tend to be able to see lots of sides to things. Fighting for a "cause" means that you've taken a stand on one of those perspectives and you're willing to fight for it to be the dominant perspective at the expense of other perspectives. In a weird way, my not fighting for many "causes" might actually be a quiet reflection of my true cause.

I think I sound a bit different than the infj description, but I don't know if that's because the description doesn't really capture something essential about being infj; if it's because of other aspects of my personality that are not related to type; or if it's because I've just got a healthy dose of the "p" running through my infj.

 

[TaylorS]

Rights for the Disabled and those on the Autism spectrum
Economic Justice
Anti-Consumerism
Defending the separation of Church and State

 

[FindingMyself]

I actually feel kind of bad sometimes, because there are a lot of causes I feel strongly about, but rarely get to be active in those causes, outside of those that overlap with my career goals. I feel strongly about animal rights (I'm not fully vegetarian, but do try to buy organic and local when I can afford it); immigrant rights; LGBT rights; the environment; while I disagree with some of the tactics of my town's Occupy offshoot, I do fully agree with the movement as a whole; I am pretty much a pacifist. I guess you could say I'm your typical "hippie" minus the drugs and orgies (and, for the moment, the long hair, although I did use to have that!). But I feel like I'm not doing enough to actually put these passions into practice, if that makes sense. I hope that's something I'll be able to look for in the future.

 

[Raccoon Love]

I actually feel kind of bad sometimes, because there are a lot of causes I feel strongly about, but rarely get to be active in those causes, outside of those that overlap with my career goals. I feel strongly about animal rights (I'm not fully vegetarian, but do try to buy organic and local when I can afford it); immigrant rights; LGBT rights; the environment; while I disagree with some of the tactics of my town's Occupy offshoot, I do fully agree with the movement as a whole; I am pretty much a pacifist. I guess you could say I'm your typical "hippie" minus the drugs and orgies (and, for the moment, the long hair, although I did use to have that!). But I feel like I'm not doing enough to actually put these passions into practice, if that makes sense. I hope that's something I'll be able to look for in the future.

+1. This is me exactly.

 

[Sai]

im a socialist militant . Im a very justice driven person and i have a very big regard for Honour. Though i never mix my old honour values with politics!