Being unknown

[Da Blob]

I must say, I find the above amazing... Thanks.

You're the one that deserves thanks for indicating you understood, ironically the very thing we are taling about.

It sure can be frustrating, and at times I must confess I give up trying to have others understand, but the problem is, that by doing so, I give up on a part of myself every time I do so, rationalizing it away, saying that perhaps it isn`t really so important?

Yeah! but if 'it' isn't important, it means that you are not important (or so it seems)

It can make one despair

Yes, feel despair for the Others, the ones that live with the illusion that they, themselves, are understood and they understand everyone.
At least we have our eyes opened to this quandary and can start to seek a way out of the trap. It is sad, on the list of things that people list as qualities they look for in a lover or friend, how often is Understanding on that list?

But, while not everyone can understand everything about ourselves, it is reassuring when, like the diamond in the rough, we find someone we can connect to in some fashion, and who can connect back. One small connection, a teaspoon of understanding, is worth more than than the whole mountainous range of misunderstanding we have to endure, day after day.

Yeah! It gives us a reason to believe that we are not crazy - just constantly misunderstood.

Trust is valuable
the rejection poignant
and the blessings?
insurmountable.

Ditto

.
EDIT: they call it the Curse of Babel...
Genesis 11 1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech

 

[Ogion]

I can relate to much of the above said, though not to all of it.
I agree that most people know next to nothing about you and probably aren't really interested in learning more. It's more convenient to let it be that superficial. People thusly can act as a group which seems to know each other and which gets along well, even though it is just fake-knowing. And to be honest, ther are lots of groups in which you don't really want to really know everyone. I mean, a class in school for example. What you want is a nice atmosphere in which comfortable learning is possible, but you don't want to bring enough mental capacity into it so that you could really know everyone. If there are single persons of the group that you want to actually get to know, you become friends with them.

It gets harmful once one person wants to become more familiar with another person, get to know that other person, become friends, and that other person still clings to that superficiality-strategy, ignoring the attempts of the first person to go deeper. Not only because it just hinders real friendship to grow, but more because that first person invests personnally into that relationship, leans himself out of the window (as we have a phrase in German, i dunno if it is an english phrase as well), and the superficial behaviour of the second person lets that first person hanging in the air and dismisses and disvalues the personal investment of the first.
Even more annoying is it, when the first person could have expected more personal investment coming from the second. Like when it's a child-parent relationship, when the child rightfully could expect personal investment from the parent.

Now one thing i can't relate with is the whole art/creativity-thing. But that's not because i dismiss art/creativity as a means to express oneself, but rather because i personnally have very little connection to art. I put (consciously and sub-consciously) no value, no (hidden) meanings into it/can't read those meanings in others art that is. I'm not sure if i can explain that properly, because probably most people can't understand it (because art has meaning to them). To say it shortly, art does not touch me in any way apart from may that i recognize aesthetic beauty.
But please, do not read this as a dismissal of art/creative expression, it's just a 'shortcoming' (or more neutral, characteristic) of me.

One other thing i observed with me: That chamaeleon thing others alraedy mentioned. I find that i can very easily fake personal investemnt when talking with someone. It's like i can talk with taxi drivers (who are strangers to me) as if i were talking with someone i know, but actually i just employ a very superficial persona of me as a means of handle such conversations. Conversations (now perhaps not with taxi drivers, but for example with wider family, aquaintances etc..) about personal things. Standard question e.q.: "How's university going for you?" Standard answer of me: "It's going well." I give this answer without it having to have any basis in my real faring at university, just for the purpose of the conversation, because i know, that ultimately these persons do not really wish to hear something deep about me, do not really wish to know how i fare at university and so on, but are just making 'conversation' and may have a superficial interest in it (want to know that i am faring well). So that'S what i give them. I can do this very extensively/convincingly, i think. To myself i think that i have no interest in that other person getting to know actual me, because that would be much personal investment, where at the same time i won't be sure if that other person is willing to do the same. Maybe i'm doing injustice to some of the persons (that they really want to hear about actual me, not chamaeleon me) but i think i have no person whom i would really be willing to show actual me, apart from maybe my parents/brother and one or two friends (which are all friends i have). But even they (the aforementioned) may know a few more % than the normal 1% superficiality, but it still is way below 50% (of what i know myself about actual me).
So i wonder if ever someone will get to know me anything near how i know myself...

(I hope at least parts of the above are understandable )

Ogion

 

[mikal]

I think often about 'being unknown' and I'm glad I find this thread. I red everyones posts and must say a lot of things you said applies to me.

It bothers me very much that persons I love the most don't actually know who I am, don't even bother to find out. But it's kind of mutual. I don't know who they are, too. Nobody's trying to reach the other person's soul.

Very often, when I speak to one of my best friends, and catch us talking so superficially, (trying to describe what we ate, who we met, how we brushed our teeth today; endless talk about routine actions) I wish to say: 'please, just stop! i'm so tired of this.' These conversations always piss me off. But I don't say anything. I just silently listen and wish to be alone and gone.

Recently I spoke with my friend about this question: 'With whom you can be most you?'
My answer was: with strangers.
I opened myself the most to people that I never saw again (that I met on the train, in hostels; but never exchanged numbers with). And you know what? They understood. I felt they understood a lot. I saw them and they saw me.
And I still carry with myself part of those people, their words and their eyes.


p.s.this text might be grammatically incorrect. if so, forgive me.

 

[Carnap]

Great thread. I don't have a lot to say for the moment, but I was especially intrigued by some of Cobra's comments, notably when he said "I think that it's perhaps an extension of INTPs' need for clarification. How do you feel about me?"

I constantly do that. I am always telling my fiancé about my day and then grilling him about minute details of how people react to the things I do or say. It must be frustrating for him to be asked to interpret others' feelings/responses to me every single day.


Also, Da Blob raised the essential question : what is the self? I am so supposed to be writing a paper on this, I'll start tomorrow . But yeah, cogito ergo sum is the supposed universal self that we all have, a presupposed soul, etc. But if you think about it, maybe the self is just conciousness of a will to power, or conciousness of experiences, etc. and in this case the "unknown" is normal. We all have unique experiences and they are filtered by our specific biology (ugly, estrogen, alpha male, etc), so communication with others is almost impossible. We will always be communicating with others at slight cross-purposes.

 

[chocolate]

Hi Fusion Knight,

I'm a bit late to this thread sorry.

Comments:

I am a bit of a paradox here: I don't mind sharing a lot of my life (in the sense of what is happening, in a factual way), but very few people really know me, including my family. There is only one person that has ever truly known me and that person will be my best friend forever even though we rarely talk anymore (an ENFP). I think it's a combination of people not wanting to know and not having the ability to know.

I have this friend who keeps trying to date me and it really offends me that he keeps trying these sentimental things and doesn't realize (after years!) that that just makes me gag (not in front of him of course!). He didn't even bother to try to find out what makes me tick.

I am very curious about other people. I wonder what people (like you) are thinking when they're watching a ballet, listening to music, when they first wake up, go to bed, eat lunch, how they learn, what they're afraid of... I wish I could know other people more, but I don't want to come across as creepy, so I try to quash that quite a bit. But it is fascinating to me. I have very few friends that I didn't wish I could know more about, but I wonder what's appropriate (and if they would even want to reveal anything to me or if they are happy with the surface).

It blows me away (and makes me a bit sad) that there are so many people out there living their lives and having their important things and people to them, and I will never even know they exist! And that is practically everyone that ever existed!!! I wonder what is different about their lives and what is the same and what would change (and how dramatically) if our paths had crossed...I also wonder how many fascinating people I have seen somewhere on the street, in the airport and missed out on, how many people I have seen more than once and never knew!, how many of us have a mutual aquaintance but will never have heard of each other...

I'm sorry to hear that people don't respond to your art, I always feel special when someone shares their art with me (sometimes it's songs, or photos, or drawings...), I feel I am getting to see something deeper and something that not everyone gets to see. You are braver than me, I don't sing my own songs for other people because they're too personal.

Chocky

 

[Gorgrim]

People, the vast majority, cannot understand, I find. It is not that they misunderstand me on purpose, it is not that they didn't hope they could understand, but they are unable to.

everybody relatively close to me, or 'anybody i know' (Class mates, friends, family.) don't want to look at reality in the same way as I, only a few are intrigued in my actions, many find it abnormal, and they are deterrent of me, not in any directly harmful way, but I find when i am in that reality mode I don't come off well to alot of people.

I appreciate those few important people who seem to appreciate me back, though, I don't have the skills and/or I am not on the same exact page as alot of those, and our communication and understand of eachother could in all fairness be better. I would like to employ some better danish in the conversations. Though I am more used to english terms.

I remain unknown because. In order for the world to wish to know me, they must first be interested in what I am about. However, interest must overcome their fear of my lifestyle or philosophy, fear of discussing it or the consequence of not being as 'normal' as before.

I am vastly unknown to the majority of the people. They may be interested in me, but overcome by their fear of what I am about. There is the few who share interests with me. They may be mundane, but I guess discussing mundane things never lead to the understand that doesn't leave you feeling unknown. That's why when it comes to the less general interests, the non-mundane, the interests that are rare and less normal. Those are the ones I want people to see, and those that people rarely see.


@ Da blob, I agree, trust is often for things or people that are fleeting, it creates discomfort aswell as happiness, but trust is quickly full of problems. You could say one is irrational when trusting. When one cannot always trust something without being betrayed.

But then, there is always a certain amount of trust in ones reality. And a certain trust for seemingly free-willed humans, that they see a reality similar. One must have trust and be willing to be betrayed, when it comes to reality.

I don't understand though, for example, what one does when they trust that their pet is still alive, when they are betrayed. All these attachments to uncertainty (people especially) create betrayal. If you calculate what causes that betrayal will be, well, too much trust is obviously problematic. Thus, ones trustful attachments, and dependancies on uncertain things, are potentially damaging for ones self. I suppose that one can outweigh the benefits from trust over the problems from betrayal, but I can myself conclude that it is a very risky business that I am not good at

 

[Thread Killer]

I've revealed different sides of me through different stages in my life and I still do such. I've tried to reveal myself but it never ever worked. I just can't do it. So I reveal half-truths at most or utter lies. I prefer it that way. My mind and inner world is too complex to even understand myself. I like living this way, though. I like it as long as I am not lying to my own self which is easy to do when you are so used to playing roles and living as if life is a stage.

 

[Solfege]

Much of what everyone's been saying resonates with me. At this point, the thought of revealing anything truly significant about myself, even in the form of art, paralyzes me. I'm not sure if I'm even capable of doing it, because there's so much complexity that can be revealed. On the rare occasion that I do show someone my art, I present it to them casually, half hoping that they won't get it, and then I get disappointed when they really don't. But it's partly my fault for not letting them know how much it means to me in the first place.

What's more, by telling myself that those close to me can't or won't understand, I've lulled myself into a false sense of security (i.e., "if they don't understand me, they can't hurt me"). On one hand, it's often necessary to present only half-truths to the world for the sake of functioning, but if I'm honest with myself, I know I don't really want to do that all the time.

chocolate:
I'm the same--always wondering what's going on in other people's minds. It saddens me to think that all these infinitely complex people may have the same reservations toward me that I have toward them, and that I will never get to know them as deeply as I wish to. I suppose it makes me a hypocrite, being so curious about others while simultaneously fearing self-disclosure. It's just that I can't help but feel as though we've all abandoned each other in favor of life's silly minutiae. And the more abandoned we feel, the more we withdraw. It's so easy to lock ourselves away in isolation, to think that none of us should have to reach out first when no one else is trying. (Knowing this, I treasure others' efforts to allow me even brief glimpses into pieces of their identities.)

 

[Jennywocky]

Something Noddy and I were talking about, I wanted to bring up here: I often feel like the person I present to the world is only surface-deep. But it's more than just a mask for the public world. I feel like I am 99% unknown even by the people closest to me (my wife, my parents, my brother, my closest friends). There are thoughts, dreams, fears, questions that I have that I cannot bring myself to share with others, even those who I trust and know love me.

The thing that really saddens me, though, is that nobody seems to realize that what they see is only 1% of who I am, or if they do realize, they don't really want to know the rest. Do the rest of you INTPs suffer this same sorrow of being unknown? Is this just the standard human condition across all personalities?

I don't know if it is a standard or whether INTPs experience it more.

(Maybe INxx's experience it more? Because of the nature of their inner self? or INxP's?

INxP have a judging function, so they don't take things on face value: They have to evaluate everything via Ti or Fi, using Ne as a data source. INxJs might do better in that they "see" through their primary, with Ni, and so they just go by what they see about themselves. They "know" things. INxP's never "know," they always have to derive a conclusion based on Ne. This means there is no closure. And thus, we never know if we are accepted as who we are. It's always dependent on the data cues we can perceive or guess at.)

I will say from the personal level that I do not feel known, even among the people that know me, and I despair of ever really being "known." My whole life feels like a quest to know and be known, but I can never go deep enough to feel satisfied.

I do have lots of dreams, I think, but I'm never quite sure how to articulate them. It is like I have to evaluate THEM too, to see if they "really are my dreams," and I am never quite sure if they're totally real, so I never share them. At this point in life, I actually am more cohesive on them than I ever have been before, but it's still shifting and changing all the time.

Maybe it's the "third-person observer," observing ourselves? Everyone elses seems just to assume things about themselves, thus not having doubts about it. I feel like we are always evaluating ourselves from the outside, to "test" our feelings and desires, and so we're never sure enough to act strongly on them or bother to share them with others until we ARE sure... which never really happens?

 

[mathy]

I do have lots of dreams, I think, but I'm never quite sure how to articulate them. It is like I have to evaluate THEM too, to see if they "really are my dreams," and I am never quite sure if they're totally real, so I never share them. At this point in life, I actually am more cohesive on them than I ever have been before, but it's still shifting and changing all the time.

Maybe it's the "third-person observer," observing ourselves? Everyone elses seems just to assume things about themselves, thus not having doubts about it. I feel like we are always evaluating ourselves from the outside, to "test" our feelings and desires, and so we're never sure enough to act strongly on them or bother to share them with others until we ARE sure... which never really happens?

I do the same thing... I start thinking of all the possibilities I have in life, what I could do, what I could be, where I could go... but like you, I'm not sure if they're real. I always second guess, rationalize, everything I think I feel I want to do. And I certainly wouldn't share these thoughts with others. I have before, shared something I was dreaming of at the time, with someone very important to me... but he just didn't get it. Didn't realize how important it was to me to be able to share a feeling I was so unsure of with him... scoffed at the idea. I used to try to do the same thing with my family, with similar results.

You said it much better than I could in the last paragraph. To be outside yourself, dreaming, yet having to analyze yourself at the same time...

So much of what you all have said has resonated with me... I'm so glad to have found this forum. It's a relief to know that there are others out there that could possibly know what confusion exists in my own head.

The ultimate question for me, as Da Blob so eloquently put it, is... who am I? Until I have a better understanding of that question, I can't possibly expect others to know. But, I imagine that the more I learn, the more questions I will have. So maybe it's an endless struggle (perhaps struggle isn't the word--I find it more exciting than that, perhaps journey is better suited) and I can never expect anyone to really understand (or even partially understand).

I'm rambling. Forgive me.

 

[chocolate]

chocolate:
I'm the same--always wondering what's going on in other people's minds. It saddens me to think that all these infinitely complex people may have the same reservations toward me that I have toward them, and that I will never get to know them as deeply as I wish to. I suppose it makes me a hypocrite, being so curious about others while simultaneously fearing self-disclosure. It's just that I can't help but feel as though we've all abandoned each other in favor of life's silly minutiae. And the more abandoned we feel, the more we withdraw. It's so easy to lock ourselves away in isolation, to think that none of us should have to reach out first when no one else is trying. (Knowing this, I treasure others' efforts to allow me even brief glimpses into pieces of their identities.)

It's as if there is this code: don't ask; don't pry; don't reveal. I don't know why it's there, protection maybe? Are people scared to get to know others? A couple of weeks ago I started talking to a friend I'd known casually for a few years (hi/bye level). Somehow it got pretty personal and I told him something very personal about my past, he could see I almost started crying just to bring it up. I felt so ashamed about it and wished I hadn't told him and wished he hadn't seen me affected like that. On the other hand, I really appreciate the things he told me, and even though I'm embarassed about it, I also feel nice that we are sort of like friends now.

@ mathy: You're not rambling; I totally get you! I am always doubting everything! Yeah who am I? Great question!

 

[Da Blob]

C. H. Cooley is a sociologist who brought the concept of "People as Mirrors of Self" into the mix way back in the early 20th century, but not too many have paid attention to him.

What several people have described in this thread is the emptiness of existence as a mirror.
When people look at you they do not 'see' you, but rather some type of reflection of their own selves.
What seems to be odd about us, is that we do not see our Selves reflected in others. It is like we are invisible- no reflection in the mirror of humanity...

To a certain extent becoming a 'good' mirror is quite a social skill. There are those individuals who seem to always provide a 'positive' reflection which strokes the egos of their companions. Others (such as me) are piss poor at providing 'good feeling producing' reflections...

I think we all get tired of existing behind a one way mirror, like one sees on all the Cop shows, Silent spectators walled off from reality. Yet there is so much risk involved in breaking that one way mirror, in the hopes of letting others see your true self. You might just find your Self naked, alone in a room with one way mirrors on all the walls except for one.

I guess the challenge is to be able to ''recognize"... the few individuals in life that have broken through the glass barrier of the mirror and walk as transparent windows revealing Self - as if young children are such creatures or as the Emperor in his new set of Clothes.

 

[snowqueen]

What an interesting thread. I could have quoted something from every single post. I think the situation for me is very similar with some particular differences. When I was 12 I met my best friend, an ENTP, who completely 'got' me. We were inseperable at school and she brought me out of myself. She was the most popular girl in our year and many people said 'why on earth is she friends with snowqueen?' because I was just weird. But I learned a lot from her about relating to other people and my friendship with her (which has endured) has been the main anchor in my life. Her love of me is unconditional and she knows my dark corners and thinks they are beautiful. The main problem for me is that having that friendship has made me want that level of understanding from the men I've been in intimate relationships with. Of course, I don't/haven't got it so I remain single. I think Da Blob is right - I haven't ever consciously put 'understanding' high on my essentials list and so haven't made enough effort to let men get to know me before getting into a relationship. And as someone else said (sorry I didn't quote) people are a bit freaked out when the person they thought they knew becomes almost literally someone else.

How many times does one have to have Trust Betrayed,
before one quits Trusting?
Trusting is a risky, often painful, seldom rewarding
part of human relationships.

Yes, I have trust issues galore, but I refuse to become mistrusting just because people don't get me. It seems rather childish - and as LOR said, we also have a responsibility to make the effort to know others as they are. Having children has really helped me learn to do that. I have an ENFP daughter and an IXTX one (I think she is more S but not sure about J/P) She always tests on the borders. While sometimes in my darker moments my wail is always 'why do the people who are supposed to love me always betray me???', at others times I am immensely grateful for the people who have supported and encouraged me and loved me.

Recently I spoke with my friend about this question: 'With whom you can be most you?'
My answer was: with strangers.
I opened myself the most to people that I never saw again (that I met on the train, in hostels; but never exchanged numbers with). And you know what? They understood. I felt they understood a lot. I saw them and they saw me.
And I still carry with myself part of those people, their words and their eyes.

I relate to this very strongly especially when I was in my 20s. I used to hitchhike a lot and travelled a fair bit and a loved those encounters. I have an ability to make a very quick connection with people - the intuituve aspect I guess - and make people feel valued and appreciated. But it is transitory - I could not make a relationship with them. For this reason a lot of people describe me as 'amazing' or 'inspiring' but it doesn't help my self esteem - because I see it is almost a 'trick'. Nonetheless I have met people later who have thanked me for my input so I guess it is not too harmful.

Also, Da Blob raised the essential question : what is the self? I am so supposed to be writing a paper on this, I'll start tomorrow . But yeah, cogito ergo sum is the supposed universal self that we all have, a presupposed soul, etc. But if you think about it, maybe the self is just conciousness of a will to power, or conciousness of experiences, etc. and in this case the "unknown" is normal.

Actually nowadays I find the idea of a fixed inner 'self' quite unnecessary (and very limiting) and when I stopped the endless search for the 'real me' my life became a lot easier and I felt a lot less 'mad'. I prefer to think of my personal experience as a set of tendencies which shift and form in social encounters. Thus I am constantly forming and re-forming within an interdependent web (my context), constructing and co-constructing myself. I see the MBTI as helping me to understand my tendencies and hopefully use them more creatively.

INxP have a judging function, so they don't take things on face value: They have to evaluate everything via Ti or Fi, using Ne as a data source. INxJs might do better in that they "see" through their primary, with Ni, and so they just go by what they see about themselves. They "know" things. INxP's never "know," they always have to derive a conclusion based on Ne. This means there is no closure. And thus, we never know if we are accepted as who we are. It's always dependent on the data cues we can perceive or guess at.)

I found that very helpful - thank you.

 

[Jennywocky]

What several people have described in this thread is the emptiness of existence as a mirror. When people look at you they do not 'see' you, but rather some type of reflection of their own selves.
What seems to be odd about us, is that we do not see our Selves reflected in others. It is like we are invisible- no reflection in the mirror of humanity...

Beautiful insight.

And it explains a lot. Yes, we're like the ghosts, having slipped through the cracks, and we have no reflections.

To a certain extent becoming a 'good' mirror is quite a social skill. There are those individuals who seem to always provide a 'positive' reflection which strokes the egos of their companions. Others (such as me) are piss poor at providing 'good feeling producing' reflections...

It's partly practice, partly desire, partly need.

Mine seems to be less about making someone feel good (that's a little too much for me) but definitely having an innate sense at this point about how they will respond to the sight of a particular facet of myself and thus what parts of me disclose in order to win and maintain positive approval.

There are benefits to being less conciliatory, though, one being that you never get trapped in a cage / doll's house of your own making.

I think we all get tired of existing behind a one way mirror, like one sees on all the Cop shows, Silent spectators walled off from reality. Yet there is so much risk involved in breaking that one way mirror, in the hopes of letting others see your true self. You might just find your Self naked, alone in a room with one way mirrors on all the walls except for one.

Really true.

It's an odd risk -- so debilitating, yet so... toothless.

What exactly are the risks? Why is it so innately horrifying to be naked in front of other people? All I can think of is that we mask ourselves because we're afraid if we show ourselves to others, then they'll refute or ignore us and thus we won't exist. As long as we stay hidden, we're safe and lack of attention won't make us disappear. But to be someone who looks for validation externally as to our meaning for existence, then to get no response? That must be like death.

But that's an illusion too, isn't it? Even if everyone else was gone, wouldn't we still be, on our own terms?

The last two years for me have really been that journey of being naked in front of people... and not allowing myself to melt away like mist if someone disapproves or ignores, but just keep "being" anyway. In some ways, it's terrifying and exhausting; in other ways, I still get frustrated with myself... why am I so vulnerable in the first place to that reflection I receive back from others?

 

[Ogion]

Wow, nice post, good thoughts, jenny. Sorry, i have nothing more to say to it now, but i wanted to say that

Ogion