(Part 3) Top products from r/INTP

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.

Ok, well let me preface this by saying that while I am indeed a PhD student, I am a brand new one, and I wouldn't want to assert any undue authority on the topic. I definitely encourage you to continue to explore these ideas on your own, but i'll give you a quick rundown of the topic as I understand it.

Complex systems science is a broad, interdisciplinary research program seeking to explain how organization emerges from the interactions between multiple independent agents in the absence of central planning and control. Each agent is following their own rules according to limited information about a shared environment, but through regular interaction with other agents certain system level structures and/or behaviors may emerge.

A classic example (IMHO) would be flocking behavior. For a long time researchers were trying to figure out how flocks of birds controlled their movement in flight. They spent a long time looking for some sort of "bird leader" (really), before realizing that those decisions are really being made by the flock itself through a form of collective computation rather than by any individual or group of individual birds. An individual bird will make sure it is pointing in the same direction as the birds around it (alignment), and stay as close as it can to the birds around it (cohesion), without running into other birds or crowding them (seperation). As long as all the birds are following those rules, the flock can move just fine. With just one or a few birds the interactions aren't very interesting, but when you scale it up you can get some pretty spectacular collective behaviors.

Now, my own background is in international relations and public policy, with a focus on political economy. My focus as a graduate student is on the processes by which informal norms and values are codified into formal institutional structures, and how the specific knowledge, beliefs, and values of individuals result in the collective behaviors and cultures of larger scale actors in the international system (nations, states, ngos, corporations etc.)

In addition to what I had said above, we're talking about fractal structures, self-similarity at scale, distributed information processing, the evolutionary algorithm, chaos, information and entropy à la Shannon. In my opinion at least these ideas will be the basis for a new non-linear, computational scientific paradigm which will finally allow us to gain insight into problems that have resisted analysis through traditional functional or linear regression type analysis. I also happen to thing it is the perfect XNTP discipline. So many different and challenging things to learn. So much of the foundation is still being laid here.

This is alot of text so far, and I'm not sure I've even conveyed anything of value, so I'm going to quit here. I'd be happy to try and answer any other questions you might have. I love this stuff and I love talking about it.

Here's some further resources:
Web
Complexity Explorer
Santa Fe Institute
New England Complex Systems Institute
Books
Think Complexity(pdf) -Allen B Downey
Complexity: a Guided Tour - Melanie Mitchell
Complexity: A Very Short Introduction - James H. Holland
Out of Control - Kevin Kelly

Edited: for formatting (I am not very good at Markdown) and to add a sweet bird video.

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!

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.

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.

Reality can have objective necessary a priori form. That form is provided by Euler's Formula and the Principle of Sufficient Reason. If reality didn't have a necessary absolute form, we would be living in a chaos that could explode or implode all the time. Reality wouldn't be consistent, nor would it obey its own rules (it wouldn't be necessitated). Reality isn't a chaos; it's a conceptual mathematical organism trying to reach subjective perfection. It does so using objective mathematical waves (sines and cosines). This is the language of base reality.

>Here are a few things that the foundations of existence definitely aren’t made of: love, consciousness, faith, mysticism, emotion, uncertainty, randomness, indeterminism, chance, accident, probability, statistics, emergence.

------------------------------

>They want to assert objective meaning to life, but they themselves are assigning that meaning, so it cannot be shown to be objective.

Our subjective thoughts are about our own internal impressions and mental contents (and how we process them), yes. But things do have objective qualities, traits and aspects. We live in an objective world, and this world is held up by the constitution of mathematics itself. 0=0 and 1=1 are tautologies; they are eternally true and inarguable. They are never up for debate.

All your assumptions will be wrong if they stem from the wrong ontology. When talking of philosophy, you must clarify what kind of ontology you are talking about. Are you talking about a universe made of faith, mysticism, or reason? What is your thought based on? What is its substantial grounding? Empiricists in particular are "seeing is believing" individuals, and they assert this with a religious zeal. They can't explain what they are talking about; they can only point to examples. There is no empirical Grand Unified Theory of Everything. There can't be, given that the scientific method (today) is all about sensing and measuring and observing before you can make any kind of claim.

>Personally, I find the idea of something outside of me assigning meaning to my life to be intolerable. Imagine you have a job you hate, no good friends, no partner, and an oppressive family,

These do present objective factors in your life.

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.

You might be interested in reading http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/0195393023/

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, seems like a good book to read at the moment, given the increasingly angry partisan divide in scoiety.

Amazon.com version

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
  

I highly recommend picking up Some of the Dharma if you haven't already OP.
It's a hell of a read, full of short poems, drunken thoughts & writing tips.