Alone time

[RubberDucky451]

I'm wondering what other INTPs do with their "alone time" without the distraction of other people.

1. When do you take your alone time?
2. What do you do with it?
3. How long do you take?

Around 11pm+
For me it's usually music or some good sci fi
3 hours and im recharged

 

[loveofreason]

I'm here.

In better circumstances I would spend more alone time just walking some place wild.. no humans, just plenty of sky, wind and other elementals.

I would spend more time in moving meditation as it helps the mind flow, process fully and let go.

When I move into my own place again I will set up space for 'sound-bathing' as music is essential to emotional processing.

Duration? I can take weeks, but this is never available now... If I had maybe three whole days a week to myself I could cope well with humans for the other four... maybe...

Just an hour or two of each day is not enough as it takes me so very long to relax from the anxiety of being around people... an hour or two is enough time to worry about the fact that humans will soon be in my vicinity again.

I guess I'm saying that alone time is essential for maintaining well-being of mind, heart and body... but from my present perspective there can't simply can't be enough of it for it to be beneficial.

 

[Carnap]

I need lots of time. Sometimes it seems like days of alone time, depending on my circumstances. However that's hard to judge since I have such a very limited circle of people in my life (don't live near family, have 2 friends that don't live nearby and you don't see any new ones flocking to me).

I usually take my alone time when I start feeling stressed and irritated. I feel like in no way could I even study or do much except internet. I am on the internet all the time, it is not only my sanctuary but almost an addiction and it keeps me from getting things done.

Recently I just took 12 days of down time (from a certain situation) and now am ready to get going again ! I feel like I'm in a charming and good mood and am sort of looking forward to sneaking back into my school environment.

 

[Ermine]

I need a lot of time, but the amount I get is in several small intervals throughout the day. I spend most of my lunch time to myself while making art, I often take a nap in the car after I get home from school (one of the few totally quiet places at home), once I get home I spend about a couple hours here, and I stay up late, resulting in more quiet time. Overall I probably spend about 5 hours of relative recharging time a day. I'd make it more if I could though.

 

[preilemus]

1. whenever I am home

2. I contemplate anything thats on my mind

3. anywhere from 3 to 8 hours

 

[truthseeker72]

I never to seem find enough alone time these days (and this is true even without having children),

The only reliable alone time I enjoy is working out at the gym.

If I can find any other alone time, I'll usually read, surf the net, or take a nap.

 

[RubberDucky451]

Any specific songs you guys find that relaxes you in a more significant way? Here are a few albums of mine.

Arcade Fire/Funeral
Fleet Foxes/Fleet Foxes
Patrick Watson/Closer To Paradise
Riceboy Sleeps/Riceboy Sleeps
Andrew Bird/Heretics
The Strokes/Is This It

 

[Tyria]

I usually try to take time out during the afternoon or at night (times for me when things slow down enough to reflect.

I usually take the time to read, reflect, think about things, or play a game. I often listen to music if I can.

I can spend anywhere from an hour to several hours in this time. It depends on what is going on and what I have to do tomorrow.

 

[preilemus]

relaxing music! (warning: this list may be subjective to subjectivity):

Massive Attack/ Mezzanine
Pink Floyd/ Dark side of the moon
Tears for Fears/ The Hurting
Tiamat/ Wildhoney
Theivery Corporation/ The Cosmic Game
Bob Marley/ Kaya
The Clash/ Sandinista!
David Byrne/ Rei Momo
Donald Fagen/ The Nightfly
Juno Reactor/ Beyond the Infinite
Kirsty MacColl/ Tropical Brainstorm
Squeeze/ Singles 45's and Under
Steely Dan/ Aja
Sublime/ Sublime
New Order/ International

 

[Fedayeen]

90% of my time is alone time.

Damn, I hate that other 10%

 

[Venture]

I'm wondering what other INTPs do with their "alone time" without the distraction of other people.

1. When do you take your alone time?
2. What do you do with it?
3. How long do you take?

Around 11pm+
For me it's usually music or some good sci fi
3 hours and im recharged

1. I mostly come onto this forum but have many other tabs open on the internet.
I am usally where nobody is.

2. Anything I feel like doing, Video Games, INTP forum, I read, listen to music, or sit there and do nothing.

3. A couple hours, I almost always need more than two hours. But in other terms I have had A year and a half of 'Alone Time'.

 

[Toad]

For me, probably one day for every 3-4 days I hang out with my friends. If I'm working and am around people all day than I need the whole night.

 

[Sciosa]

1. Where and whenever it becomes available or necessary. My parents and I have discussed my tendency to short out, and they don't argue if I suddenly vanish.
2. Research. Mostly. Creativity is for work. Study is for play.
3. Relative to the amount of time I've spent in social settings and the breadth of the social setting in question. Six or seven hours in high-capacity settings will shut me down for the rest of the day. The same amount of time in low-capacity settings will only shut me down for two or three hours.

 

[Fleur]

I take my alone time whenever it is possible. Mostly it happens to be in mornings (while my family members are sleeping) and afternoons (when they are gone on their own). Why do I mention my family? Because they are the ones who are flying around me constantly, so they are the main obstruction about me being alone. I am kind of restrained from society, yet I am rarely alone.

So I seek for some alone time by wandering around while listening to music, and the time earned by this roam is used for thinking and day-dreaming.

When I have an opportunity to be completely alone (and be in the house), I write, draw, read or surf in the web. Or pick up some random activity, for example, building constructions from domino or playing with my sister's metronome.

I need a great amount of time to refresh myself; I am one of those who can spend weeks without saying a single word, and an average school-day takes almost everything from me. When I return home, I am a wreck.

 

[The Fury]

I don't need too much time alone, I like to take two hours to myself everyday but if I don't get that I'm usually OK. There are times however that I've taken weeks off from humanity, I try not to do that more than once a year because after a month of being alone with very little interaction, it can be hard to readjust to the social world.

 

[Concojones]

I do take a lot of alone time, but I'm not even sure I need any:

Isn't it rather a question of balancing busy with quiet periods? My student summer job used to be selling stuff on fairs - pretty intense (constantly persuading new people), after a few hours you're exhausted. So I was (just a little tad) more cautious with my energy and that worked well - even if I still did loads of talking. I'd spend the evenings alone, but if something social came up instead, I really enjoyed it, even after the intense day.

Which brings me to another point: my impression is that our personalities evolve with circumstances: a new 'extraverted' lifestyle will, after a transition period, feel OK. Once back in your old circumstances you'll tend to gravitate back to quiet, but only to some extent. Just my personal impression.

Solitary activities: gardening, reading w/ music in the backgroud (most relaxing: slow melancholic stuff: Marc Lanegan, Leonard Cohen, Richard Hawley, ...)

 

[Sciosa]

Which brings me to another point: my impression is that our personalities evolve with circumstances: a new 'extraverted' lifestyle will, after a transition period, feel OK. Once back in your old circumstances you'll tend to gravitate back to quiet, but only to some extent. Just my personal impression.

I have to disagree from my own experience. There was a summer, a few years back, where it became the mission of my circle of acquaintances to engage me in social activity. Nearly all of my time was occupied with these social engagements, and I was consequently unhappy, burnt out, and withdrawn after the first couple of weeks. Even if I enjoyed the people I was with, I could only enjoy their company for so long before I needed to be left alone-- otherwise, I started disconnecting from the situation. I've always been easily overwhelmed in social settings, and my relative level of social activity has never changed that tendency.

Personalities do, of course, evolve-- as a child, I was loathe to engage in any amount of conversation, whereas now I am capable of interacting on a fairly comfortable level with persons of close acquaintance-- but the fundamental aspects of the personality remain intact. (So: although I have evolved to be more functional, I am still fundamentally solitary.) This, of course, assuming that there has not been a catastrophic failure to account for. Exposure to alternate circumstances calls for localized adaptation to those circumstances-- not for large scale readjustment.

I think that the only way large scale readjustment can take place, period, is if that adjustment is an effect that the personality is deliberately and consciously working to produce. Excepting brain damage, psychosis, and tumour-induced personality changes, of course.

 

[Ermine]

I do take a lot of alone time, but I'm not even sure I need any:

Isn't it rather a question of balancing busy with quiet periods? My student summer job used to be selling stuff on fairs - pretty intense (constantly persuading new people), after a few hours you're exhausted. So I was (just a little tad) more cautious with my energy and that worked well - even if I still did loads of talking. I'd spend the evenings alone, but if something social came up instead, I really enjoyed it, even after the intense day.

You bring up a good point. I spend much of my time alone, but it isn't really satisfying unless the rest of it is spent working and/or socializing and being around people. I really need to work on being more busy eg. always have a project in the works, talk to people at lunch instead of hiding in the art room, do a lot of mental and physical work during the day.

However, I really don't want the other extreme. My sister and mom are borderline introverts, and while they are really social away from home, they have to do some extreme nap taking and other solitary activities to recuperate. I'd rather be on standby mode (mostly talk when talked to) away from home and have enough energy to do whatever I want whenever I want.

Which brings me to another point: my impression is that our personalities evolve with circumstances: a new 'extraverted' lifestyle will, after a transition period, feel OK. Once back in your old circumstances you'll tend to gravitate back to quiet, but only to some extent. Just my personal impression.

I'll have to disagree as well. I remember with my first job as a cashier (nonstop socializing) that I kept trying to adjust but even after a month of working day in and day out, I kept getting listless at work and was always depressed and irritable when I got home. I just couldn't live that way.

 

[Chimera]

1. When do you take your alone time?
I take it whenever I can, actually. There have been times when my friends invited me to parties or movies or something and I declined, knowing that I needed to be alone for a while. Logically, I knew that if I went anyway, I would probably be in a crappy mood anyway.
But, sometimes I get the craving for company when I'm alone. Not a whole group of people, maybe one or two. I don't really know what triggers it, but it's a terrible feeling. Definitely not welcome to someone who tries to be as independent of others as possible.

2. What do you do with it?
It really depends on my mood. Recently I've been playing WoW, since my sister got me into it. And yet, that isn't exactly alone time, since I almost always play it with my sister. We have a history of bonding through games.
If I really, really need some alone time, I get out of the house. My favourite place to go is the traintracks near my neighbourhood. Once I'm there, I just walk until I'm too tired to think anymore.
Other times, I go to a park (they're usually deserted around here), or sit in my tree, get online, draw, read, write...lately I've been sitting in my room singing softly to myself with my cat curled in my lap. o.o

3. How long do you take?
Depends on how long I've been around people. When I get home from school, I like at least 3 hours to myself. But when I'm around people for prolonged periods of time, like at a friend's sleepover or something, then I usually like to have the entire next day to myself.
There are also weeks that I try my hardest not to be around people at all, at school or at home.
And again, lately I haven't wanted to be around much of anyone, online or not. My sister is the only one I really feel the need to be around, because she's going through some drama. Maybe that's draining me; I dunno.
​

 

[The Lurker]

1. Every night when my family isn't around to poke into my bubble. There's nothing more irritating than having someone try to start a conversation with you while you're absorbed in thought/music listening/internet reading, expressing said irritation, and then being met with frustration because you're "rude" and "don't care".

2. I introspect a lot. Perhaps too intensely at times because I've been known to send myself into bouts of depression from self-criticism of past mistakes, etc. that are hard to break out of (though I don't let it get to this point as often anymore). Otherwise I'm playing video games, surfing the web, listening to music, or searching for some other activity to dissect. I'm probably one of the few INTPs who doesn't read that often.

3. This depends on how much I've had to socialize lately. An average school day is pretty draining, but something like a get-together with friends is absolutely exhausting in the end. I need about 3 or 4 hours to myself after school, and greatly prefer that I have the majority of a day after a social gathering. If I don't find myself getting enough alone time, I just avoid people as best as I can; I've gone many days at a time hardly interacting at all with people.

 

[kchikage]

Most of the time my mind will be alone. I don't care much about conversations not regarding to me or things I am not interested in. (Normally, then, get scolded for not paying attention.)

2. Research. Mostly. Creativity is for work. Study is for play.

Same~~

Depends on my mood. Sometimes I will spend a long time by myself, sometimes the whole day with friends socializing.

sorry for spelling errors.

 

[Seducer of the Homeless]

erm....

i just kinda dwell in my room, internet, self-pity, guitar, iPod, books, magazines or just contemplation/dreaming

at school i am loud, but often at lunch i just go alone to the Science Labs and just sit, listening to the sound of distant children, just thinking.
then some idiot walks past asking the whereabouts of my friends, the ungraspable concept of solitude.