Thinking Vs. Feeling: Does It Even Matter?

Alright, we get it Amelia. You took a Myers Briggs test online a while ago and got INFP. This is true. For a period, I became borderline obsessive over this compilation of 4 letters; I would make a hobby out of figuring out what type all my friends were, I researched other INFP's on celebritytypes.com and felt a deep connection to Virginia Woolf, John Lennon and Edgar Allen Poe. It consumed me for much of 2014.

Then something started to happen in the beginning of the next year that threw me off; I started scoring as INTP instead.

So at the time, I was really nerding out about my type. I was INFP all the way. I kind of assumed based on descriptions of INTP that they were similar to me only they were more obsessed with logic and more black and white than I was. The truth was, though, that even though I got INFP before, I always scored really low on feeling. The truth was that I didn't gain the same pleasure in helping people that other INFP's did. I was hardly ever deeply touched by things that happened in movies, etc. I never felt any deep, personal connection to animals. I have the distinct memory of being little and telling all my friends I hadn't cried since I was an infant.

The main reason I felt like I couldn't be an INTP was because I loved art so much. My biggest interests were always writing, drawing, and music. And at the time, I was of the understanding that INTP's were above fluffy concepts like that. I began taking multiple different personality tests, and although for a while I would flip flop between the two results, eventually I took a test that was specifically designed to tell me which one of the two I was. And guess which one I was? Yup. INTP.

My score on thinking, though, was still considerably low. The truth is that both descriptions for INFP and INTP seemed too extreme for me. INTP's are typically known as "The Logician" whereas INFP's are known as "The Idealist". While it's true that I'm extremely cynical and bitter about the world, I wouldn't say that I worship all things logical. I'm a writer, so I'm of the belief that not all things have to make absolute sense. Still, my main drive in life is, in short, a quest for knowledge of how things work and why. Does that have to mean that I don't have feelings, though?

Look up any INTP forum on the internet. Most of them pride themselves in their candid sense of apathy and will cartoonishly dismiss anyone who feels anything as incompetent and weak. A few people I know who are familiar with MBTI and all it's theoretical glory began to preach very loudly about how little they felt anything and that anyone they knew that did were clearly idiots, and honestly, it began to get under my skin. Everyone has the same capacity to think logically and to feel, because everyone's human, regardless of what they scored on some test they took on the internet. And honestly, to suggest otherwise is one of the most illogical things you can say about people.

It's similar to the theory that people are either right-brained or left-brained. I used to be very convinced that I was right-brained because of my interests in the arts, but the more I did research on the brain (one of my guilty pleasures, honestly), the more it became clear that it was just a dorky theory, and that in general, humans use both sides of their brains equally. It's only a matter of what they're using them for and when.

Because there are only 2 kinds of people on Earth... right?

For a while there, I would analyze myself in hopes of coming to some psychological conclusion. ("I must be a Feeler because I cried the other night" "I must be a Thinker because I suck at comforting my friends") and then it dawned on me- Does it really matter? Sure, this test is a fun hobby, and it helps you get a good general idea of how people think. But has it gone too far? Should I really start distancing myself from ISFJ's because they're so different from me? Should I really start only thinking of people as 4 letters? Should I really start defining myself as those 4 letters and making sure everything I say about myself sounds like I'm quoting some sort of INTP description? *Ahem* NO. I SHOULDN'T And honestly, no one really should; it's pretty unhealthy.

Of course, I've always been fascinated by the brain and psychology, and I'll probably always continue researching different elements about it. I'll probably always go to bookstores and sit in the psychology section for 30 minutes at a time skimming every book I can find about the brain. And, much to my chagrin, I will probably always consider Myers-Briggs when I analyze myself and my close friends. But I've made the decision to not make it such a defining part of the people I know that they're more my own intellectual guinea pigs than human beings. And that includes myself. Am I an INFP or INTP? Sometimes one, sometimes the other. Does that make me an emotional wimp? Does that make me an apathetic jerk? Not at all. Those are ridiculous stereotypes. Myers-Briggs is just a generalized tool to help you pinpoint how you process information; it doesn't divide the whole planet into just 16 precise kinds of people without any room for individuality.

So, in conclusion, does the difference between thinking and feeling matter? No. It really doesn't. But it's still fun.

Analyzing the Differing Opinions on Catcher in the Rye & Why I Even Care

There are three types of people in this world: those who hate Catcher in the Rye, those who love Catcher in the Rye, and those who've never read it. I, as is seemingly becoming more and more rare, belong in the second category.

I first read the J.D. Salinger novel in my sophomore year of high school with uncertainty- the overbearing book review I received from those who have already read it was that it was depressing, pointless, and that Holden was the most annoying character I'd ever read about. But, as soon as I began reading it, I assumed they were referring to an entirely different book. From the first sentence, it became more and more evident that Holden was just a fictional, slightly more bitter, male version of me. His sarcasm had me laughing out loud. I related to his hatred, and it made me feel relatively more normal. Still, though, I couldn't find a single other person who shared my opinion. They still found Catcher in the Rye to be the biggest waste of time in the history of every book they ever read.

Was there something wrong with me? Was I a psychopath for taking pleasure in a lazy, sardonic British boy's grim antics? Of course, in reading this book, we were told about the influence the book had on Mark David Chapman to kill John Lennon, which rightly caused most teenagers to take a step back from this book and read it with more caution. Still, though, I couldn't find anything in the book that had any direct messages to go out and kill someone. Therefore, I chose to interpret it my own way, and my love for the book grew even richer than before.

What began driving me crazy, though, was that I couldn't find the reason behind the title. What is a 'catcher in the rye' anyway? And then I stumbled upon this paragraph:

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
― J.D. Salinger

As a class, we began discussing the overall meaning of this passage, and what we came up with was that the edge of the cliff represented adulthood, and how sudden it feels to first fall off. Holden was angry at the concept of adulthood and how fake everybody becomes in an instant because they feel they have to. The only job he would ever want to have is to be the one that saves children from having to grow up. And that was the most beautiful concept I had ever read.

Of course, I had my fair share of things in common with Holden. For one thing, I have a distinct dislike for anything artificial in people. Holden's signature pet peeve is a "phony". I'm one of the laziest girls I know, and my goals in life are anything but written in stone. But the thing that really hit home was his deep desire to return to his childhood. There is nothing more distressing in my life than the grueling process of growing up. The fact that I'm forced to move on from all the things that made me happy in my childhood like daydreaming, playing with dolls, and not having to participate in social gatherings, is a constant slap in the face. I've always envied kids. I'll watch toddlers play with their friends in the park without fear of being judged, without any responsibilities, without awareness of the terrible things in this world. I'd do anything to be in that state again. To just run around completely free. To run around in the rye.

The fact that I found this in writing from a source outside of my own diaries enthralled me to the point of putting it in my top 5 favorite books. The rest of my friends, however, wouldn't touch the book again with a ten foot pole. This tends to make for some pretty interesting conversations.

I'll get from some people that they don't like Holden because he's so unreliable. He says in the second chapter what a great liar he was, and at the end, *spoiler* he ends up at a mental hospital, so it's hard to know really how much truth he's telling. They also feel that the plot is kind of like watching a train-wreck. When you really think about it, it's more a tragedy, and admittedly, even I tend to find tragedies incredibly pointless (Can someone please tell me why I had to read Macbeth?). So, yes- those are all valid complaints towards Catcher in the Rye, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Mine just so happens to be that the book blew my teenage mind.

It's become popular to compare Catcher in the Rye with The Bell Jar, and I can see why. The last few months of my senior year, a group of friends attempted to start a book club (inevitably, that failed miserably) starting with Sylvia Plath's most famous novel. I was always drawn to her work- I picked up her journals at the library and I found that I related to practically everything she had to say, and my very well-read grandpa recommended The Bell Jar to me several times. The two plots had very similar themes, most notably a cynical main character who can't relate to society to the point of having some sort of mental illness. The Bell Jar was much darker than Catcher in the Rye, in that the protagonist, Esther, has a strong desire to commit suicide, but the writing was still very honest and very raw, which I loved. And as one who never gets around to reading at my own leisure, I actually sat around my room getting through chapters at a time, and I was utterly fascinated.

Again, my friends thought it was depressing and pointless.

 

It began to dawn on my that my taste in books, movies, and music has always centered around extreme outcasts, introversion, post-apocalyptic situations, and depression, which for the general public are huge turn-offs. I began to question my own sanity- why was I the only one enjoying these books? But then I realized that these were all classics. They didn't become classics by accident; since even before the 50's, people craved these dark perspectives from different authors. It assured them that they weren't alone, and that it could be much worse. And whatever your thoughts are on Catcher in the Rye, these are the driving reasons I look to literature for comfort. 

How Writing Saved My Identity Despite Crippling Introversion

When I was young, I took after my dad; I was loud, witty, and very funny for a toddler. I would crack jokes to whole groups of strangers, and the crowd would roar with pleasantly surprised laughter. I fed off of others' positive attention, and I thoroughly believed that it was my calling to become a comedian. Then, something happened. As I grew up, crowds began to scare me. I would bite my tongue when I had something to say. I began to shun the spotlight. What was happening to me? Oh, great. I was becoming an introvert.

This gradual change in behavior began when I was about 6 or 7 years old (ironically right about when school started), but even then, I saw the disappointing side effects, and I had a seemingly life-long identity crisis. I began to see that this new crippling shyness was like a gray, expressionless cloak that masked my true personality and made me appear uninteresting to the average passerby, and therefore unworthy of their time. I had become a walking false advertisement, and it infuriated me.

Making friends became a real challenge, especially in middle school. I was always very nice to people, but I never made friends with people I truly related to on a personal level, and I found it increasingly impossible to do so. I had a very off sense of humor, an almost obsessive passion for old music, and even though I appeared like a decent student, I was really a terrible procrastinator and was flunking nearly all of my classes. Of course, there was no way anyone could have known that, because I preferred to hide who I really was for fear of attention, and moreover, negative judgement. I spent a vast majority of my school days feeling tremendously misunderstood, and very out of place within my little group of academically-minded girls with Taylor Swift overflowing their iPods. I came to accept the fact that I would probably always be a little off, and that maybe I was destined to never have human friends and that I was just supposed to play Jimi Hendrix alone in my apartment full of cats. I embraced this image of my supposed destiny and I almost grew content with it.

I learned early on that I wouldn't ever be a social butterfly, and that I needed to find another way to express myself. Thus began my journey into the vast world of the arts. I tried almost everything- painting, singing, photography, guitar, drama- and although I found an amount of pleasure in each of these, (except drama- trust me, my acting is worse than William Shatner)

...none of them seemed to allow enough room for me to express every element of my personality. I wanted for people to understand that I was a complex individual that was not only shy, but also ironic and sentimental and poetic and psychotic and paranoid and strange and self-conscious and cultured. For some reason, it was always very important for me to be known and understood by other humans. Still, I was unfortunately cursed with a mouth that would never open if my life depended on it. My life had become an intense battle between my longing to be known and my fear of attention.

Sometime in 6th grade, however, after being bullied relentlessly by just about every social group, I found a form of expression that finally did me justice. It was my saving grace that enabled me to express my true personality without having to socialize- writing. Ever since I was little, I loved telling stories. My dream job was to be an author, dating back to around 1st grade. It's safe to say that I was no stranger to writing.

Coming soon to bookstores near you

It wasn't until middle school, however, that I learned that all my eccentric thoughts and feelings and beliefs could be articulated on paper well in advance, and people could read it and genuinely understand me. In the social realm, I could barely scratch the surface of my opinions to people. On paper, I could write whole monologues and actually catch people's attention. People didn't have to comb through my verbal fumblings to get to the core message. I could say exactly what I mean with zero eye contact, first impressions, or misjudgements. I had the epiphany that writing didn't have to just a be a fun pass-time; it could actually be used as a tool to get people to understand who the real Amelia was. And this was the most power I had ever had.

All throughout my school days, I kept journals that dripped with sarcastic observations, lame puns, and passionate philosophies about the future. I'd use these mostly to burn excess angst, but I found that they began to help me tremendously when school called for writing assignments. I poured my heart and soul in any assignment that allowed room for such pursuits. I could get by with essays, but I found that my specialty was in story telling.

In my freshman year of high school, I had the strangest notion that acting was my calling (WHAT were you THINKING Amelia?) and I took drama. The class intimidated me on a level I didn't know was possible, but one day, I saw a grand opportunity that made it all worth it. I decided to write a play. This wasn't at all an assignment- no one asked me to expend this amount of energy on writing something. What compelled me to perform this classic act of nerdery was not for any praise- I had just developed the desire to write a comedy to see how well it would turn out. I spent about a week putting it together, and I humbly showed it to my drama teacher for overall feedback. Much to my chagrin and overall horror, she decided to make copied for the whole class to read this amateur musical I had whipped up in my spare time. I was mortified by the attention, and I was consumed with fear over what these students were thinking of me as they read it.

To my surprise, however, the class enjoyed it thoroughly. They laughed at all the right spots and afterwards expressed genuine desire to see it performed. What amused me the most about this, however, was that when the were told who wrote the play, the average reaction was "Who?" This thing I wrote had made me go from a quiet, uninteresting nobody to a clever, talented Amelia. The experience proved to me how amazingly special this whole 'writing' thing was for me in my life, and that I could use it to flaunt the kind of person I was in the way I did best.

Of course, being an introvert still provides its fair amount of frustrations. I can't just write a letter to everyone I want to get to know. I still have constant internal battles regarding my cripplingly lame social skills. It's a bitter truth that I'll always have to put up with. Still though, I can't emphasize enough how thankful I am that writing exists. The amount of words floating in my head is endless, and one day, I may even be able to make a decent occupation out of it. My biggest weakness had introduced me to my biggest strength, and if that's not personal growth, I don't know what is.

Comfort For Seniors With One Week To Go

Today, the Moving Up rally occurred, and I figured that this was the kind of quality material that I should be writing and reflecting about.

In a nutshell, I'm not sad about leaving high school. It isn't bittersweet. It's strictly the sweet stuff. My eyes glazed over as I watched the digital photographs pop up to a rhythm on that projector. I felt no personal connection to any of the people represented within them. They were all just models. They were wax statues of people with vague personalities and social lives I was never apart of. These people don't know who I am. They couldn't describe me if they tried. I'll leave high school and only two people will miss me.

And on top of it all, I'm stressed beyond belief. I have more projects to get done than I ever had to do this whole school year and I have to get them all done within the course of a week.

Wait Amelia. Stop. Think about this. You have one. Week. Really. That's it. You have one week of unbelievable stress left. You have one more miserable little week of getting up at 6:30 and getting in the car and listening to KFOG and going to PE in the cold. You have one more week of being stared at in each class. One more week of presentations, grades, assignments, Sparknotes, waving awkwardly to people in the halls, listening to music between each class, mundane lunches, going to the bathroom to kill time, tests, changing out, and running. Has it hit you hard enough yet? You are ALMOST DONE. And it isn't just a temporary done like all the others. This is the biggest done of all. This is the ultimate. You have entered hell and you can see the gate. You have the key. And it's only one week away. Can you taste it? Can you taste the freedom on your lips? All these summers have only been appetizers- they don't even compare to the real thing. Back then, it was always temporary. There was always knowledge of an inevitable return. But not this time. This time, the curse will be lifted. The title "student" will no longer apply to you. College Park won't be anything to you but an ironic repressed memory. You'll be free to live your life without grade-induced obligations. You could move to Canada. You cold write a novel on your own terms. This man-made childhood phase will come to its glorious end, and you will raise your golden diploma victoriously to the sky.

Just picture it now. You're putting on your robe. This is simultaneously the ugliest and most wonderful article of clothing you will ever wear in your life. You place your cap smugly atop your head. A smirk rests on your face. And only one week from now.

Now picture yourself waltzing down the steps in a proud little line of fellow seniors. You see your parents. Your heart beats a million miles per hour. You see the stage. And just a week away.

Now picture an amplified voice calling your name as you walk across the windy stage. You reach for the single most important piece of paper of your teenage life. You decisively shake a teacher's hand. They snap a picture of you. Your family cheers wildly off in the distance.

And all just a week away.

Eccentrics

A girl of few words
may be living in the clouds, for
eccentrics don't
live quite comfortably
in the real world;
a world of chaos.

However, when needed,
eccentrics can
return to reality and pretend to be
normal, but not well, for in the end,
eccentrics will always
yearn for their spot in the clouds.