Posted by:
justarelative
(
)
Date: January 11, 2015 10:01PM
qq,
For perspective, I am an INTJ who was raised in another One True Church, not Mormonism, but similar in many respects. (I'm on this board because I have Mormon relatives.)
Listening to you brings back memories, bad ones. But first, let's review the portrait of an INTJ. Here are some selections from the book "Please Understand Me" (1984) page 180 and following:
"INTJs are the most self-confident of all the types... Found in about 1 percent of the general population... preferring that events and people serve some positive use. ...a word which captures the essence of INTJs is BUILDER -- a builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models."
"To INTJs, authority based on position, rank, title, or publication has absolutely no force. This type is not likely to succumb to the magic of slogans, watchwords, or shibboleths. If an idea or position makes sense to an INTJ, it will be adopted; if it doesn't, it won't, regardless of who took the position or generated the idea. ... authority per se does not impress the INTJ."
"...INTJs need only to have a vague, intuitive impression of the unexpressed logic of a system to continue surely on their way."
"The INTJs ... use their intuition to grasp coherence."
"INTJs are vulnerable in the emotional area and may make serious mistakes here."
Perhaps you can relate to those descriptions. I sure can.
It wasn't until I was in my thirties -- and out of the OTC -- that I fully grasped that I was a brilliant systemic thinker. (Don't mistake that for a bragging statement. It's how I was made; I had nothing to do with it.)
As a brilliant systemic thinker in my thirties and forties, I was building software systems for corporations around the world. I was VERY good at it, and not just in my own eyes. More than once I was the guy that was brought in to save someone else's failing project.
Even though I didn't know it at the time, looking back on my teen years I can see now that I was an emerging brilliant systemic thinker then. And I was using brilliant systemic thoughts to analyze the OTC. And my analysis was doing nothing but making me crazy and angry.
The INTJ mind insists on seeing the world, and its various parts and pieces, as systems. And the INTJ mind insists on finding the coherence in those systems. And the INTJ mind instinctively rejects authoritarian messages such as "because I said so" and its many variations.
Here's the problem: Mormonism (as well as the OTC I grew up in) is an incoherent, authoritarian system. For the INTJ, an incoherent system is the ultimate crazy-maker. An authoritarian system is the ultimate angry-maker. And an incoherent, authoritarian system is ... there are no words.
I feel for you kid, I really do. If there were easy solutions for you someone else would have posted them already. Maybe what I'm saying will give you better perspective on YOURSELF as one of the ingredients of the problem to be solved.
One last thought: The mistake I made back then was concluding that, since the OTC was the ultimate reality (so I had been told / indoctrinated) and since the OTC was incoherent, then it follows that reality is incoherent. Life is absurd. That was a bad road to take; don't do that.
Best to you,
JAR