> I'm using that, it's wonderful! The extension on my browser purely a reading aid. I'm what they call a 文盲 but as long as I hear it, I know what it means. It also has definitions on it. It's actually a really great tool. If your on Chrome, the extension is called "Zhongwen Chinese Pop Up Dictionary."

Yea I was going to recommend that as well, it must be perfect for you! I should probably do that more (play the sound of a text) to help improve my listening comprehension...

> 礼物 refers to the actual object, but 送礼 is usually used to refer to the act.

oh interesting, never heard that before...

> Wow. Not going to pretend to understand that. My dictionary is telling me it means "property, justice, integrity, and honor" (the four social bonds) when put together. You can read that?!

well, I just know about 禮 and 儀 from confucius, I studied 論語 (analects) for a short time and these are common themes and used as individual words. 廉I'm actually not too clear on. 恥就是「恥辱」的恥。I think it means 面子

> C'est l'internet. Si on n'utilise pas une dictionnaire, c'est un peu fou! et il y a beaucoup des personnes mechants qui l'utilise. And nope!

tu as raison! personnes méchants? qu'est-ce que ça veut dire!?

> 哈哈我也打错字了。我也没建构哪个”褴“。我想写"烂"。对不起啊！自己的中文这么差，还想帮别人。其实，我对中国城不是特别收。我妈等我上大学以后才搬到城市里。大部分得时间，我在学校呆。我只去过一两个餐馆。好像老城的吃的比新城的更地道。您能不能提出几个好饭馆？

呵呵，没关係， 我们都是从声音大出来的，至少妳的语言很流利，我在两个方面都很差。 你太谦虚了！嗯中国城没有那麽特别，但是那里有真宗中国菜，所以我常常去买东西或吃一顿饭。对於老城新城，我觉得两个都可以，depends what kind of food you want and how good the chef is... 比如说香港点心，万寿宫、名轩还好。两个都在“新城”（新城表示chinatown square 那个地方对吧？）的附近。。

你喜欢吃什麽菜？北方菜， 有一家叫「北国饭店」，by 31st and halsted, 那里的小笼包不错，週末有豆浆油条。在郊区有一些好的，都在Westmont 的附近，那边有些台湾饭店，也很便宜的。Also the new Korean place in "old chinatown" is actually quite good!


> Haha why do you think I quit. I have some old textbooks from Chinese school. Also, I'm going to try and qualify for the Chinese for Chinese speakers class at my university, and I'm taking some of my mom's old cookbooks with me and attempting to translate (I have to do it if I'm hungry, right?) Apparently once you learn 3000 words in Chinese, the language becomes very easy. Did you take formal classes or self taught?

I didnt think you quit, just wondered what resources you use to learn .. chinese school, that makes sense...

yes, you will starve if you don't finish the translation! I bought a really good chinese cookbook (in english) once but i never use it... it's much easier to pay someone else to make the food for me, I guess I'm lazy... this is the one i got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394496388/ref=wms_ohs_product_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1


> Did you take formal classes or self taught?

I took classes with private tutors at first, which I think was very important. I had one teacher from mainland china and my current teacher is from HK (yes, part of the reason i use traditional characters, but I prefer to use them regardless as i study ancient culture and I find the system to be better). currently I don't have a chinese language class, but I study chinese calligraphy and other such courses wherein we use mandarin as a primary language, so this is greatly helping improve my vocabulary and conversational skills...

> Jealous, you can claim true loyalty. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be hard to label me as a bandwagoner since I didn't start watching until 2010, but in all fairness, I didn't know hockey existed until then. And yes. Very epic. Very amazing. Also very frustrating. That's pretty unfortunate that you don't have time :(

I watched the game last night. I chose a good one to watch !

Words out of my mouth. With the isolation thing, I have found some like-minded individuals who I can chill with from time to time to fall into worthwhile conversation and debate. Tending to be INTJs, (not like that matters), the fresh insight and alternative perspectives that they provide make me value another's company and appreciate some relationships. Still, my amount of solitude is ridiculous. I love it, but can make me feel inadequate and ashamed when around others. A quote (from the movie Hot Rod... I know) I like to remind myself of: It's only embarrassing if you care what people think.

In terms of thinking spirals, the incessant flow of my thoughts was actually what led to my exploration of the world of intoxication. This could numb my head for a while, but believe it or not I quickly grew to miss my constant internal monologue. It's part of who you are as a person, and hey if anything it keeps things interesting.

The depressive and anxious states can be closely correlated with the constant analyzing (duh) due to the exhausting nature of such thinking, but the two are much higher correlated when negative thinking patterns have etched a strong synaptic path in your brain. Back in June I finally realized just how wholly and severely this subconscious negative spin had on my mental, emotional, perspective, and social states. Remember when you were a kid, and you'd swim in a circle in the hot tub to make a whirlpool, then suddenly try to swim in the opposite direction? That is literally (yes literally) how I visualized my thinking spiral in my mind, deciding to try to push against the current and shift my thought patterns into the opposite direction. I began reading up on not only how to shift my thinking into a clockwise direction, (get it, like counter-clockwise is negativity because you keep going back and cluttering your mind with thoughts of the past), but also why to make such a shift. Show me the statistically significant evidence and I'm in.

It's been almost four months to the day now; I've had multiple people comment on how positive, optimistic, and upbeat I am, which I find utterly hilarious. I haven't had any sharp dips in emotion, I am better able to focus my time and energy on the task at hand, and I feel almost as if I have a clearer lens on my perspective of life. It isn't even a conscious thing, which was exactly the goal. In fact, this is the first time I've thought about this in a number of months. My reflex response now moves in the clockwise (wise ha) direction of thinking. Looks like I've finally reversed the swirl of water in my whirlpool!

I'll link the sources that helped my mental shift if you want. This is really long I'm going to stop now. As much as I feel I can never properly express myself, this feels good to write it out. Thanks for that.

Edit: Hope I don't sound like I've got it all figured out. Just sharing a small victory that has had slight yet significant benefit on my life.

Edit: SOME THINGS I'VE FOUND HELPFUL: (I can't give full credit to any one thing... ultimately I just held it in the back of my mind as a goal, subconsciously acting on it)

• Mind Over Mood (workbook) by Greenberger & Padesky
  
  
• Meditations to Change Your Brain by Hanson & Mendius I highly recommend this audiobook. It allows for guided meditation... convenient and helpful. The only breakdown of the chapters that I've found is here
  
  
• On that note, Mindfulness Meditation aka Compassion Training (found in some chapters... want to say Ch 5 or 6? of the audiobook linked directly above)(the gist of it)[http://youtu.be/AKKg3CDczpA?t=23m33s]
  
  ^^ These have been most helpful to me.
  
  
• The entire lecture by Richard Davidson as also linked above is a great watch if you have some time
  
  
• The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Richard Davidson
  
  
• Words Can Change Your Brain by Newberg & Waldman
  
  
• The connections between mind-body-mood which I learned about via a CBT clinical psychology course... This is helpful for understanding just how much influence your thinking has. this is the gist
  
  
• the whole field of Positive Psychology check this out or this
  
  
• Verbal Tics That Define Us and How They Spread to Others
  
  
• The Power of Suggestion
  
  
• Can't talk about pushing for self growth without this... The Dark Side of Self-Improvement
  
  
• Ignore the title of this - I personally like this article for how neatly it organizes our levels of thought. A recent post and thus a recent read, this article has made me more aware of when I'm experiencing "primal" negative patterns, allowing me to cast such indulgent and immature thoughts aside much more easily. A longer read but WOW is it worth it.
  
  
• okay I actually just came across this website but it's actually really relevant + free + seems cool based on my 3 mins of exploring it
  
  
  
  From there, I think it was a mix of past knowledge and (some of) the sources I mentioned above, as well as random other readings and conversations. I want to continue linking things but I must go study. Here's a science of happiness research article dump (stolen from Happify): http://my.happify.com/research/ . Or just go to http://my.happify.com/science for scaled down summaries of some of these (have to make a free account first I believe... worth it).
  
  
  
  Y'all looking at this list I made I'm frustrated because I can't pinpoint one specific source that pushed me from contemplation into action. Hopefully these resources in addition to your own experiences will be enough for at least one of you to make a significant and lasting change.

>廉I'm actually not too clear on. 恥就是「恥辱」的恥。I think it means 面子

I don't think 面子 by itself means embarrassment. Perhaps "respect" or "face." I usually hear it used negatively, but it can also be used to mean "save face" or "preserve self-respect." ”保存面子“或者”保持面子“ as opposed to “没面子” or “丢面子” meaning "no shame" or "loose face." To my understanding, 恥辱is more like "defeat" (KIND OF LIKE HOW THE BRUINS FEEL BURN. sorry had to), but that might just be modern colloquial?

> 我在两个方面都很差。你太谦虚了！

才不！好多你用的词儿，我连想都想不起来。像“谦虚”这种词儿，我连听都没听过。

>嗯中国城没有那麽特别，但是那里有真宗中国菜，所以我常常去买东西或吃一顿饭。对於老城新城，我觉得两个都可以，depends what kind of food you want and how good the chef is... 比如说香港点心，万寿宫、名轩还好。两个都在“新城”（新城表示chinatown square 那个地方对吧？）的附近。。

我也没觉得中国诚有什么特别的饭馆，但是老诚有个小点心店叫“Chui Quo Bakery“。我最喜欢是它们的肉松包（当然，它们的点心都好吃极了）。这个店以外，我也没有很深得印象对那里的饭馆。只有些随随便便吃饭的地方。我说的“新诚”是Chinatown Square.

>你喜欢吃什麽菜？北方菜， 有一家叫「北国饭店」，by 31st and halsted, 那里的小笼包不错，週末有豆浆油条。在郊区有一些好的，都在Westmont 的附近，那边有些台湾饭店，也很便宜的。Also the new Korean place in "old chinatown" is actually quite good!

我喜欢山东湖南菜（北京菜应该算是山东菜吧？）你去没去过“Katy's Dumpling's" in Westmont? 我对韩国和台湾的菜不是特别的熟悉。


>I didnt think you quit

Sorry forgot I never mentioned I went to Chinese school. I hated it. As a 7 year old I never understood why I had to sit in a hot class room on Saturday while all my friends were chilling in their backyards.

>it's much easier to pay someone else to make the food for me, I guess I'm lazy... this is the one i got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394496388/ref=wms_ohs_product_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1[1]

Damn no preview. Oh well. I am looking into an English one. Understandable though, Chinese food can be obnoxious to make. Some families cook in the garage because it's so messy. Learning is a must for me though because I'm horribly picky.

>I took classes with private tutors at first, which I think was very important. I had one teacher from mainland china and my current teacher is from HK (yes, part of the reason i use traditional characters, but I prefer to use them regardless as i study ancient culture and I find the system to be better). currently I don't have a chinese language class, but I study chinese calligraphy and other such courses wherein we use mandarin as a primary language, so this is greatly helping improve my vocabulary and conversational skills

Wow. Dedication. It's nice that your teachers are from China and HK though. Taiwanese instructors tend to have accents. Since your studying ancient culture, do you learn how to interpret ancient Chinese? Or is the class English based? Haha you're going to end up more eloquent than the majority of the population.


>I watched the game last night. I chose a good one to watch !

What are you a good luck charm?


>tu as raison! personnes méchants? qu'est-ce que ça veut dire!?

J'ai parlee de les "trolls" et les "grammar nazis" et les autres personalites ennuyeuse de l'internet

I don't game anymore myself, save occasionally and rarely.

Of course there's nothing wrong with entertainment and diversions, and certainly nothing wrong with games, of themselves.

But people who get sucked into video games, and spend a good portion of their life and effort in it, are wasting their lives away, in my opinion. And I think it's unfortunate, and all too common.

People who game obsessively do so because they find their real lives unsatisfactory. So, they look for distractions. This is a similar impulse to people who lose themselves excessively in sports, fantasy stories, and so on.

Video games are literally designed to keep one engaged and returning. Just enough challenge to keep things interesting. Too easy, or too difficult, and most people simply walk away. But that sweet spot between easy and difficult, eustress, keeps pressing that dopamine button in the brain. And one gets hooked.

Compared to games, real life is far "too difficult." But here's the thing: the rewards for applied effort in real
life are much greater as well.

I like to think of myself struggling to "level up" in real life. Building a better career, better physical health, better social networks, more wealth, better family life, more knowledge, and so on. Sometimes I do well, and sometimes I struggle and I fall behind; but when I get it right, when I apply myself with the right habits, right disciplines, and correct methods consistently and regularly, the rewards are real, and way, way better than in games.

If I'm a hero in a game, that heroism is over the instant the game ends. But if I become a badass in real life, that's a completely different thing altogether!

Not to say that there's no room at all for games in life, or that we should get rid of them entirely. We should, like anything pleasurable (food, alcohol, etc.) learn to keep our use at a moderate level, lest we become addicted and let it run our lives.

I'm not against video games per say. But I feel it's all-too-easy to get sucked in, and fritter away one's life in them.

I'd rather spend 10,000 hours mastering the guitar, than mastering Guitar Hero.

However, we can learn a thing or two from games. Check out the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal. I don't agree with all her premises, she's far more supportive of gaming than I am, but it's an interesting and well-thought-out read.

Philosophy, writing, gaming, art (music, photography, /r/glitch_art). Honestly anything classified as a "soft science" kinda gets my motor going. I also really like anthorpology...specifically food anthro. I just started reading through Salt: A World History, and it's been interesting so far. From Amazon:
> In his fifth work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Salt is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.

• The New American Bible, Revised Edition
  
• How Could You Do That? The Abdication of Character, Courage, and Conscience - nearly lost concepts in our society with which everyone needs to re-acquaint themselves
  
• Peer Marriage: How Love Between Equals Really Works - the dynamics of egalitarian romantic relationships
  
• Pride & Prejudice - a literary masterpiece
  
  Particularly for INTPs:
  
  
• Mansfield Park - this often overlooked work of Austen's has a female introvert as the main character, and also examines the consequences of what happens when personalities that aren't necessarily inherently flawed end up in exactly the wrong places and positions
  
• How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less - ignore the title, what this really is is a simple, clear handbook to social interactions, a must-read
  
• The Platinum Rule - valuable guide to workplace interactions and behavior

Some things I have found to be total game-changers:

Check your neurotransmitters. Try supplementing with 5-htp (precursor to serotonin) and tyrosine (precursor to dopamine). Both are OTC and both absolutely work. 5-htp improves my mood and sleep quite a bit, and tyrosine in the morning dramatically increases my motivation. If you're eating poorly because you're bummed out, it is further depleting both of these.

I asked a similar question about being an unfulfilled adult INTP, and someone recommended "Mindset" and "Your Own Worst Enemy." I read both books and they have not just been apt; they've been life-changing.

Agreed on quitting the drugs. Escaping from the root cause of your malaise will only make it worse and continue to damage your self-esteem.

Practice standing up for yourself, setting personal boundaries, and telling others exactly how you really feel, if you don't already. Let other people have their own reactions to it. Depression and anxiety often coincide with codependency. Everyone I know who was codependent had generalized anxiety, and once they started asserting themselves it went away. The more you do it the easier it gets.

Strategically remove people from your life who do not make you a better person when you spend time with them. You become more like the people you choose to surround yourself with whether you want to or not.

Also, don't get overwhelmed by the choice of "what to do with your life." Any decision you make is not final, just the step before the next step. It's okay not to know. Take a look at how you prefer to spend your free time for clues about what you're really passionate about. You can either monetize these activities or identify aspects of them that you love, and figure out careers that share those aspects.

Best o' luck!

Well the most likely way the planets could affect anything, would be in the different gravitational configurations they form as they move. Somehow that creates a kind of consciousness-affecting "weather pattern" on earth, where certain emotions/personality traits are emphasized and certain types of events are more likely than others. What's the mechanism? Well if you believe that galaxies or the Universe could have their own form of consciousness (I've lost you here, haven't I) and we exist in some kind of "field" of consciousness (as every native/shamanic culture believed) then the gravitational fields could have a lens-effect, acting as a prism, either filtering out or strengthening certain "wavelengths" of the overall Consciousness field here on earth.


I could go on in this vein, but I'll just say that I believe we live in both a Holographic Universe and an associative Universe, and possibly even a quantum computer or any number of things we can't even imagine.


At one point I thought maybe the gravitational fields might influence personality by affecting Meiosis, but that wouldn't explain how they also affect world events at any given time (and that's what Astrology has mostly been used for throughout history, determining the best time to do something, like start a war).

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL, BUT DO NOT GIVE UP.

>I can’t change anything and I can’t make history.

You can't change history but you really do have the power to change. Change is often frustratingly slow, but it is real. Start small. Like really small. Like clean up your room or eat a bit better, or exercise.

​

I'd recommend checking out this book.

Just push forward, one day when you are working on an engineering project you are gonna realize their importance. Use Schaum books to help you with whatever you are stuck with.

https://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-College-Physics-Outlines/dp/0071754873

Try this online class it might help you:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Good luck.

https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095

A great book. Awesome big picture perspective and helps put so many different ideas in place. Almost done reading it.

Ditto on the GEB (if you have the attention span to get through it).

Though, if somebody wants a cheaper/more 'lay' introduction to neurology, I highly recommend Beyond The Zonules of Zinn, and In Search Of Memory, for nice 'big-picture' reads on the subject.

EDIT: This one isn't totally neurology, but it gives a really awesome rundown on the development of written language and reading in the brain: Proust and the Squid.

>I think I found a subreddit full of different renditions of me, living in other people's bodies. Or copies of me, possibly from another dimension

Us INTPs sure do seem to have a lot in common!

I mean... I just read one of AJ Drenth's books on the INTP, and the panpsychist perspective on the universe he suggests INTPs instinctively lean towards is pretty much identical to the perspective I described in this article a couple of years ago.

It boggles my mind, really, that there's people out there who think of the MBTI as just "astrology for geeks" when people with at least this particular type seem to share so many ideas, emotional responses, quirks, etc.

When I saw this Reddit link earlier this week it made me remember something I typed up long ago. After digging in the dark corners of my e-box, I found it. However, I have two concerns with it. First, I don't know the origional source. Was this on a website or book? Odds are it is this book which I have lost, if so. Is there critizisms over how the functions are determined, or the functions themselves? And finally, I would like general feedback if possible. I plan to use it as questions about this sort of thing pops up frequently and should be easy for me to grab.

Read:

• How To Win Friends And Influence People
  
  
• Getting Things Done

I suggest your mother to read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-Edition/dp/0071771328

Basically, it teaches how to deal with conversation where the stake is high, the emotional run high, and emotion vary. Just like your mother's case. It's really difficult to converse rationally when we are angry, threatened or feel unsafe. From what i read, this book teach you how to detect the cues of unsafety and make the both side calm and converse rationally.

Well, this book can help you to deal with those situations. But just like ANY advice, this book is not solution for all situation. There are always be some situation that can't be solved by rational conversation. Even so, i believe this book really beneficial for me and hopefully your mother.

My INTP and INTJ book recommendation would be Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer. It’s a book about intuition from the perspective of a psychologist and neuroscientist. There might even be a Ted talk by the author. Read it as the author is a strong believer in the power of intuition which Jung claimed was “perception via the unconscious”.

Kapitoil is a really good, very quick read that I think a lot of people here would enjoy.

http://www.amazon.com/Kapitoil-A-Novel-Teddy-Wayne/dp/0061873217

The Element - Ken Robinson This book might help.

well actually, according to Lenore Thomson, Ti and Ne are both functions that have primarily right hemispherical activation.

Read this book.

Amazon.com version

The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot > *

I'm not sure if this would appeal to anyone else because I'm somewhat of an aviation nut but that is certainly not the focus of this book. "Chickenhawk" by Robert C. Mason, is a non-fiction memoir about Mason's experiences being sent to Vietnam as a newbie UH-1 Huey pilot in the Air Cav and how he learned to stay alive. I don't usually like doing this but if I had to guess, I would say he might be an INTP based on his interactions with the Vietnamese, disregard for bullshit Army regulations, and his unemotional descriptions of horrific experiences. Just trust me, you will like this one.

• http://www.robertcmason.com/gallery.html
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Chickenhawk-Robert-Mason/dp/0143035711