Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Famous INTJs: The Good, the Bad, and the Surprising


Hey, everyone.

This blog entry is brought to you by my new novels: Remnants of Chaos: Chaotic Omens and Heroes of Majestia: The Company of Flight. You can buy ROCCO here and HOMCOF here.

 

Anyway, I've been teasing this topic for a while now, and I'm finally getting to it. So, let's talk about famous INTJs. Originally, the point of this post was to talk about a couple of "celebrities" that are regarded as INTJs that I can not and absolutely will not recognize as INTJs. Two of those said people: Al Gore and Hillary Clinton (spew!).

However, not everyone in the MBTI culture recognizes Gore and Hillary as INTJs, thankfully. Two others I have difficulty with accepting are Mark Zuckerberg and Stephen Hawking. Now, that probably strikes many of you as weird. Why wouldn't I accept Zuckerberg and Hawking as INTJs? Well, neither one seems open-minded enough to be INTJs. There was a story I heard about Zuckerberg, I've no idea if it's true, but it goes that someone wrote "Black Lives Matter" on a board at the corporate Facebook office. Well, someone erased "Black" and put "All" and Zuckerberg lost his sh*t. Now, if you're going to tout and support a movement like "(X) Lives Matter" then you should support the idea that "All Lives Matter" and an INTJ should know that.

Looking at Hawking now, he once said he doesn't believe in God because the universe is running fine without one. My response? "Hey, assh*le. Maybe the reason why the universe is doing just fine is because there is a God." Some of you know I am a practicing Catholic, but I do admit that there is a possibility, an extremely slim one, that I'm wrong and that there is no God or that Catholicism is wrong. I once thought myself a snowflake for those ideals, but I learned the other day that 64.4% of INTJs admit to belief in a higher power (source) which is pretty amusing seeing as how all the MBTI experts say we're the least likely to believe in a higher power. But getting back to my point, because both Zuckerberg and Hawking don't seem to be able to see their own closed-mindedness is the reason I have difficulty accepting them as INTJs. Some would argue that INTJs don't see their biases, but as I tout, INTJs can be anything and do anything they want, and that includes being able to see and recognize their own biases.

Anyway, going to back to Gore and Hillary (gag!), I was looking for sites that supported the claim they're INTJs and sites that didn't. What's interesting is that if you type "INTJ celebrities" into Google, all sorts of people pop up, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, C.S. Lewis, Dan Aykroyd, Angela Lansbury, Maria Shriver, and Rudy Giuliani. And then, if you click on a site like IDRlabs.com, all sorts of interesting people show up. Now, Isaac Newton and Nikola Tesla aren't too surprising, but when you see Marx, Nietzsche, and Ayn Rand all right next to each other, that is surprising. Well, I'm not surprised to see Marx and Nietzsche together, but Rand does surprise me since her philosophies are so different from the two of them. Rand followed in the footsteps of Aristotle and Aquinas (two of the greatest!), and condemned philosophies not all that dissimilar from Marxism and Nietzsche's philosophies that helped to inspire and influence fascism and Nazism. Although I will admit that I can see an INTJ who is in power easily becoming a fascist, but I can't see INTJ thinking processes leading to socialism and communism. Anyway...

As you scroll through the list, there will be other surprises like Martin Luther, but you will eventually get to the "famous" INTJs whose pictures are outlined in black silhouettes demarcating them as evil. To be honest, the only two I've heard of are Lenin and the "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski. But despite their evil, they do say some things I can understand. For instance, Varg Vikernes, murderer and arsonist, said "If you imagine a thing happening in your head, you will make it happen--that is, if your willpower is strong enough." I know exactly how he feels.

But beyond the baddies, you come to the actors and there are quite a few surprising ones in there like Jodie Foster and Ashley Olson--I never in a million years would've thought either of the Olson twins could've been INTJs. One of the ones that really gets me is Jay-Z, but that's mostly because he's married to BeyoncĂ© who according to IDRlabs is an ESFP, the sworn enemy and complete opposite of the INTJ. And then there are those that I'm glad to see like Patrick Stewart and Francis Ford Coppola. But all this insight into who is and who isn't an INTJ raises an interesting question: how can so many different kinds of people be INTJs, from the good, the bad, and surprising?

Well, being an INTJ isn't like being in a band, family, or particular religion--there's no single set of rules or morals we all must follow. Being an INTJ only identifies the way in which we experience the world, think about the world, process our thoughts and experiences, and how we are likely to go about doing in the world. I know that last one sounded off, but think of it this way: there are different ways to go shopping. Some good are good and some are a waste, but an INTJ is likely to go shopping in the most methodical, efficient way possible barring any strange or unique circumstances, like phobias or too many people in an aisle.

I'm not pointing this whole how-it's-strange-that-so-many-different-weirdos-can-be-INTJs because I want to make a point that we're all different or some crapola. It's just a sobering reminder that because you are a certain way or hold a certain belief etc, that doesn't mean everyone who is also that way or has that belief will be just as awesome or as suck-tastic as you. I once saw a show where a guy had a near-death experience where he got to meet Jesus, and he asked the Big J which religion was the right one, and the Big J said, "There are good people in bad religions, and bad people in good religions." So too is it with personalities; there are awesome INTJs out there, and there are INTJs out there that are full of suck.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that without any of these people actually taking a personality test, we can't be sure if they are or are not INTJs. Many of these famous MBTI type websites don't agree with each other--they could be wrong. And I could be wrong about Gore and Hillary, but I really can't express enough how much I don't want either of them being an INTJ.

Anyway, that's it for this week. I apologize for not having this up last week, but it was Halloween. I tend to get lazy around the holidays, even minor ones. For next week, I'm not sure what I'll do. Maybe I'll do the last and least 5 ways I buck the INTJ stereotype, or I'll make a response to another INTJ blog I saw. Either way, we're sure to have a lot of fun.

Keep writing, my friends.

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