Offense, and the Crusading Spirit
Mar. 21st, 2004 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurMore on anger issues; skip on if you're uninterested in the navel-gazing...
When pondering this point from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siderea, it occurred to me that there's a common underlying emotion below almost all of my recent angry outbursts. There's an element of fear (and more on this in a bit) but much more conspicuous is a sense of offense.
It's interesting, because that offense is most often not over anything directed at me. Sometimes it is -- for example, one moderately common trigger is a feeling that my boss is wasting my time by making me write something that no one will actually want -- but the most intense cases aren't. When I get *really* pissed off, it tends to be on matters of principle, often on behalf of others (usually others who haven't asked me for it).
For example (to be intentionally obscure), the proximate cause of this whole exercise was something that one of my friends did recently that I thought was fabulously crass, and needlessly hurtful towards another friend. I have no specific information about how the second one felt about it; certainly they didn't ask me to get involved. But the whole thing set off an astonishingly intense bout of introspective anger.
As far as I can tell, I've gotten into a habit of crusading -- taking up causes, making them my own, and trying to make them right. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing: I spent many years developing the nerve to Do The Right Thing, and I'm proud of the times I've managed to get some results. But it requires a sense of time and proportion: choosing the right battles, and keeping my ego sufficiently disentangled from the cause to stay effective. (Fanatics are rarely effective; cool-headed advocates who can see both sides of the issue but argue passionately for one are more often so.)
Somewhere in my subconscious, I seem to have gotten so used to crusading that I've stopped making the choice intentionally. That's a problem, because it is violating both of the above principles. I'm choosing my battles poorly, with the result that I'm squandering my limited energy and opportunities. (If you get angry at someone once a year, they notice it when you do so. If you do so regularly, they simply shrug and ignore it.) And I'm getting far too personally invested in every argument, which is bad for my health (because I get much tenser and stressier), and I'm losing the cool that helps to formulate a strong argument.
I do sort of wonder if part of the recent problem is being set off by the recent dramatic loss of my deepest pet cause: the Membership debacle in the SCA. There's no question that that was my first true crusade -- I've been passionately involved in this argument since something like 1990, years before most people got drawn into it. But we've been losing ground for years, and the deathblow may well have recently fallen: the (badly skewed, but not entirely invalid) survey conducted by the Board on the subject indicates that most of the Society really *do* like the exclusivist members-only model of the SCA. I'm not sure that there's an actual connection between that and the anger rising to the fore, but I cannot deny that the disappointment is sharp.
Regardless, there's a clear correlation here: what sets off the serious anger is my rather sharp sense of right and wrong. I've always been a bit judgemental in my own idiosyncratic way (an INTJ is, pretty much by definition), but I seem to have lost my conscious control over that. Historically, I've tended to be reasonably good at deciding on the proportionate reaction to an offense, but that filter seems to be malfunctioning. Okay, that's something to work on.
Oh, and I mentioned fear above. It's interesting: if I'm reading myself correctly, the fear that's underlying the anger is actually a fear of not living up to my own standards. The fear seems to be disconnected from the actual incident -- rather, I think it's a fear of not being bothered *enough*.
One part of the curse of introversion is a fear of getting involved: a nervousness that, if I stick my neck out, someone will chop it off. I spent a number of years overcoming that, getting myself to *be* involved when I thought it was appropriate, especially when it really mattered. Even today, doing the Right Thing is sometimes a bit scary to me -- I sometimes have to "get out and push" to make myself actively follow the right, rather than passively watching.
The result is that I seem to have given myself a fairly intense sense of guilt over *not* doing the right thing when the opportunity arises. That apparently manifests itself as fear (fear and guilt being closely related emotions) as well as probably providing some of the mental impetus behind the anger. Again, it's pushing me towards being just a little too invested in every little thing. I don't mind the fact of the involvement -- in pretty much every case, it's appropriate for me to care -- but the degree is often disproportionate. My ego is tending to get deeply entangled in these things, and that's generally *not* appropriate.
Really, it all comes down to finding my balance again. The correct goal isn't avoiding the conflicts, or even avoiding argument. But I need to be able to maintain enough emotional distance to let me find the right tone for each of those conflicts. Getting passionate about an argument is okay, but I shouldn't be doing it in every case...
When pondering this point from
siderea, it occurred to me that there's a common underlying emotion below almost all of my recent angry outbursts. There's an element of fear (and more on this in a bit) but much more conspicuous is a sense of offense.It's interesting, because that offense is most often not over anything directed at me. Sometimes it is -- for example, one moderately common trigger is a feeling that my boss is wasting my time by making me write something that no one will actually want -- but the most intense cases aren't. When I get *really* pissed off, it tends to be on matters of principle, often on behalf of others (usually others who haven't asked me for it).
For example (to be intentionally obscure), the proximate cause of this whole exercise was something that one of my friends did recently that I thought was fabulously crass, and needlessly hurtful towards another friend. I have no specific information about how the second one felt about it; certainly they didn't ask me to get involved. But the whole thing set off an astonishingly intense bout of introspective anger.
As far as I can tell, I've gotten into a habit of crusading -- taking up causes, making them my own, and trying to make them right. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing: I spent many years developing the nerve to Do The Right Thing, and I'm proud of the times I've managed to get some results. But it requires a sense of time and proportion: choosing the right battles, and keeping my ego sufficiently disentangled from the cause to stay effective. (Fanatics are rarely effective; cool-headed advocates who can see both sides of the issue but argue passionately for one are more often so.)
Somewhere in my subconscious, I seem to have gotten so used to crusading that I've stopped making the choice intentionally. That's a problem, because it is violating both of the above principles. I'm choosing my battles poorly, with the result that I'm squandering my limited energy and opportunities. (If you get angry at someone once a year, they notice it when you do so. If you do so regularly, they simply shrug and ignore it.) And I'm getting far too personally invested in every argument, which is bad for my health (because I get much tenser and stressier), and I'm losing the cool that helps to formulate a strong argument.
I do sort of wonder if part of the recent problem is being set off by the recent dramatic loss of my deepest pet cause: the Membership debacle in the SCA. There's no question that that was my first true crusade -- I've been passionately involved in this argument since something like 1990, years before most people got drawn into it. But we've been losing ground for years, and the deathblow may well have recently fallen: the (badly skewed, but not entirely invalid) survey conducted by the Board on the subject indicates that most of the Society really *do* like the exclusivist members-only model of the SCA. I'm not sure that there's an actual connection between that and the anger rising to the fore, but I cannot deny that the disappointment is sharp.
Regardless, there's a clear correlation here: what sets off the serious anger is my rather sharp sense of right and wrong. I've always been a bit judgemental in my own idiosyncratic way (an INTJ is, pretty much by definition), but I seem to have lost my conscious control over that. Historically, I've tended to be reasonably good at deciding on the proportionate reaction to an offense, but that filter seems to be malfunctioning. Okay, that's something to work on.
Oh, and I mentioned fear above. It's interesting: if I'm reading myself correctly, the fear that's underlying the anger is actually a fear of not living up to my own standards. The fear seems to be disconnected from the actual incident -- rather, I think it's a fear of not being bothered *enough*.
One part of the curse of introversion is a fear of getting involved: a nervousness that, if I stick my neck out, someone will chop it off. I spent a number of years overcoming that, getting myself to *be* involved when I thought it was appropriate, especially when it really mattered. Even today, doing the Right Thing is sometimes a bit scary to me -- I sometimes have to "get out and push" to make myself actively follow the right, rather than passively watching.
The result is that I seem to have given myself a fairly intense sense of guilt over *not* doing the right thing when the opportunity arises. That apparently manifests itself as fear (fear and guilt being closely related emotions) as well as probably providing some of the mental impetus behind the anger. Again, it's pushing me towards being just a little too invested in every little thing. I don't mind the fact of the involvement -- in pretty much every case, it's appropriate for me to care -- but the degree is often disproportionate. My ego is tending to get deeply entangled in these things, and that's generally *not* appropriate.
Really, it all comes down to finding my balance again. The correct goal isn't avoiding the conflicts, or even avoiding argument. But I need to be able to maintain enough emotional distance to let me find the right tone for each of those conflicts. Getting passionate about an argument is okay, but I shouldn't be doing it in every case...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-21 12:42 pm (UTC)I've grown discouraged by the SCA problems -- the membership thing is a major one, but also the creeping-rules thing that makes it harder and harder for people to do spontaneous good things without some officer getting his nose out of joint. I stepped aside for my own sake and saw few others stepping in (locally, I mean; can't speak for globally); this makes me sad, but also tells me that maybe I just can't win this one and I should preserve my sanity instead. It's still sad, though.
You write well and live in a barony full of smart, independent-minded people; can someone else take lead on this one? After all, doing the Right Thing can also mean recruiting someone else to do it in your stead. That's not cheating; in fact, it's important that there be others.
I guess what I'm trying to say in my rambling way is that being a crusader doesn't require that you be a sole crusader, and declining to be a sole crusader does not mean you are doing the Wrong Thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-21 03:11 pm (UTC)In some cases yes, and I've been slowly learning over the years how to encourage others to pick up the ball and run with it. Indeed, on the membership thing in specific, I've actually wound up as one of the moderates: there are a lot of folks in Carolingia whose feelings are quite a bit more extreme than my own.
But that doesn't really apply to most of the cases at hand here -- most of them are much smaller-scale and personal, not relevant to others. So there just isn't anyone appropriate to encourage towards it. And some of the ones that concern my club activities are simply too political: dragging others into my viewpoint can produce the sort of factionalization that I just plain don't approve of...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-21 02:07 pm (UTC)You may be interested to know that in the Jungian model of development, mid-life is the point at which one differentiates the terciary function, which for INTJs is F. The classic example is scientists who carefully avoided thinking about the ethical ramifications of their work, around midlife becoming more concerned with the applications of their work, and becoming activists. F is the function of moral judgment, deciding right from wrong. "Differentiation" means separating from the subconscious (and other functions), to become under conscious observation and control.
Have no idea if this is pertinent for your case, but I thought I'd throw it out.
Also, thinking further about my own history with rage, I am reminded that of all the subtle shadings of anger I have known, the closest I have gotten to seeing red has been when I've been badly and chronically oversocialized and otherwise forced to function against Type. For me, that meant tech support jobs. I had to deal with zillions of people, phone calls, interrupt-driven work, and no sense of permanent acheivement ("nothing stays fixed").
I discovered this on my first tech support job. I'd quickly had become the darling of the company, loved for my patience for users, solicitiousness, expeditiousness and cleverness at figuring out problems. And then 13 weeks in, I went *spung*. I was trying to design some db tables, and so I hosied a conference room with a white board, for a little uninterrupted quiet (which I wouldn't get at the help desk) so I could think. One of my adoring fans saw me through the window and walked in on me (the door was closed!) to ask me what sort of chocolate I liked so she could buy me a thank you gift. I almost ripped her a new orifice. After she fled, I was literally shaking with rage, my concentration shot. I sat -- paced, actually -- in that conference room trying desperately to get a grip for an hour, and an hour later I was just as furious, and still shaking with anger, so I walked into my boss' office and said "I'm going on vacation. Right now. I'll be back on Wednesday."
Further tech support jobs have established that I have a 10-to-13 week tolerance for it, during which I'm god's own gift to first/second tier support, after which I'm liable to put someone through a window for saying 'hi'.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 09:32 am (UTC)Funny, I was just thinking his previous post was a clear story of an INTJ learning E -- hence the confusion about "shy? yes, I am!"
10-to-13 week tolerance
Sounds like the "vacation" effect. When people move abroad, they tend to have a two to three month honeymoon with the new location, where it's all new and spiffy and they don't have any hard responsbilities yet. But then it becomes drudgework and living -- basically, the old them finally catches up with themselves in the new place. Dunno how that applies to you, just found it an interesting parallel.
For me, the point at which I get gruntled in a relationship is when people start *expecting* me to do miraculous things, as opposed to me doing things that excede their expectations...might that sound familiar? If so, and you find a solution, tell me? ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 12:11 pm (UTC)Well, properly speaking, not as we J/MB people think of I and E. They're not skills, they're preferences. So one can learn to be outgoing, but not to be an Extravert.
But that said, your comment raises an interesting point. Justin, you might want to go read this ("What changes, what doesn't change"). It doesn't apply directly to your case, because it's about an introvert in adamant denial about it. But a bunch of the consequences stem not from the denial per se, but from unmet introvert needs.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 12:24 pm (UTC)The essay you wrote leads me into my usual rant of "why do so many people (especially INTs) think of introversion as worse than extroversion" but that's probably a post for my journal.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 12:44 pm (UTC)extroversion" but that's probably a post for my journal.
1) To be clear, that was merely one example; I was not making a comment on the likelihood of Is getting mixed up about being Es. Please see this sequel for further commentary and the reverse case.
2) This is a mystery? If you only knew how many introverts I have run across who were punished by their parents for not being more like extroverts... As far as INTs go, they become keenly aware of how marginalized they -- and more importantly, their contributions -- are by being non-extroverts in USn culture. They may not care so much about being liked, but they do care about being listened to.
Note how limited the sort of "introversion" INTJs fake is. We all learn how to be fantastic entertainers/public speakers. We do not generally decide that the skill we need to develop is how to make strangers at ease, or to be able to do small talk, or to do any a number of things I don't have names for. (Think about Marion of Edwinstowe's social function within the barony.)
What we crave is "a voice", and also not to be stopped from doing those things we conclude are necessary by anxiety. We have no patience for our weaknesses. :)
V
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 06:28 pm (UTC)Interesting. That's a phenomenon I never hit, fortunately, since my mother is more introverted than I am by a fair margin. But high school does tend to be pretty brutal on introverts.
They may not care so much about being liked, but they do care about being listened to.
Actually, I've come to realize over the years that I *do* care about being liked -- I think this is some of my father coming through. It isn't highest on my priority list, but it's an important psychic need that I've found I have to pay some attention to.
We all learn how to be fantastic entertainers/public speakers. We do not generally decide that the skill we need to develop is how to make strangers at ease, or to be able to do small talk, or to do any a number of things I don't have names for.
Hmm. I agree with the dichotomy of what INTJs tend to learn, but I'm not sure I concur about it always being quite so intentional. I would love to be good at small talk, but it's a skill I've found elusive -- while I understand some aspects of it intellectually, I've had trouble putting it into practice.
OTOH, I'll grant that this might be simply a matter of not really applying myself hard enough. I *have* gotten pretty good at putting strangers at ease, a skill learned largely in the context of SCA demos. But the small-talk element shows up in how I apply that: I'm very good at interacting with strangers in a conversation that's contextualized by one of my common activities, but pretty bad at it when there isn't a focus to the conversation...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 12:26 pm (UTC)Sounds like the "vacation" effect.
Definitely a valid analogy, but not exactly the same thing. I don't think the "vacation effect" is exactly a matter of not having hard responsibilities (my personal example isn't moving abroad, but moving cross country). It's that you can only suspend judgment -- "keep an open mind" -- so long. Then all the strange-and-different things you've been keeping an open mind about, you finally have to conclude drive you up a wall. There's only so long you can tell yourself "Well, maybe the fact that the buses don't run on time and they roll up the sidewalks at 10pm is made up for by other wonderful things" before the buses and the business schedule finally irritates the hell out of you.
I managed to last about 9 months in SF. :)
While there's probably a Type component to a person's own "vacation effect" response (N vs S and J vs P have a lot to do with handling of novelty, T vs F have a lot to do with expectations), and there's got to be Type components in the two different cultures one is moving between (I went from very I+J dominant NE to very E+P dominant SF, which was a culture shock), the job circumstance put the Type conflict at extreme levels. Jobs are much more Type-specific than regions. In SF, I could close the apartment door and be little ole INTJ me; I could seek out other INTJs (though I didn't figure that out then). I had some flexibility. But working as a tech support geek, I was required to fuction outside of Type five days a week, 8hrs a day.
ˇ
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-22 06:44 pm (UTC)Hmm. I don't know either, but it's food for thought and possible research; thanks.
the closest I have gotten to seeing red has been when I've been badly and chronically oversocialized and otherwise forced to function against Type.
I don't *think* that's the situation for me. While I can get oversocialized, my threshhold is much, much higher -- I'm much more likely to wind up starved for attention than oversocialized. (Marking me as a slightly less pure INTJ than some: my particular flavor of introversion tends towards being at the edge of large conversations, more than retreating into actual alone-time.)
As for functioning against Type -- hmm, that's kind of interesting. It could be relevant, in that I'm in a position that is slightly more subordinate and slightly less influential than I would choose. As you remark later, the INTJ usually wants to be *heard*, and that doesn't happen quite enough in my current job, mostly because we have *so* many chefs in this particular company. I'm not one of the three people who actually have the title "Architect", despite the fact that I'm often acting as one. (And very much *like* acting as one.)
That's worth pondering more. It may be that the job situation is bugging more than I care to admit. If so, I'll have to think about how to adjust that...