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Depression

Now to one of the dark sides of an enneagram 5-1 INTJ. It seldom hits me, thank God, but depression is not pretty. Especially the perfectionism of the Enneagram 1 is especially susceptible when things are no longer perfect, which already happens through natural use. In other words, as a toddler, I could not have it when a string of sausages was cut or something was carried out of the store. As long as you are in a healthy state of balance, you can live well with it, but in a depressive phase, things like that much pull you down a lot. Sure, I take care of my things to avoid them get signs of wear, but it can not be completely averted. In a healthy state, you can live well with it, because once there are two scratches in something, the third is no longer tragic. It's one of the unsolved problems I carry around with me. You also have signs of wear on your own body, and you can not do anything about it. Or take our 5 "steam locomotive: We've been riding it for a few miles and now it turns out that not everything is designed for extended use. Much is simply glide-bearing and these bearings are also worn out, so that the whole control gets more and more slack. You can fix everything with more or less effort (drill and insert bushings) and keep it that way for a while, but it's not made for eternity either. This takes a toll from a perfectionist, if despite all efforts, the wear is faster than the repairs.

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S-thinking vs. N-thinking and big vs. small companies

After the last posts you can almost imagine it, but I currently have such a case of low motivation. Interestingly, diary writing works very good and this blog here is essentially that. I can thank my luck that everything worked out otherwise I would be out of commission for weeks, this experiment has actually worked and illustrates just very well the difference between sensor (S) and intuitive (I) types.

To understand what this is about, I have to explain: There are two ways to install built-in sinks in kitchen worktops: laid-up and flush-mounted, so there is no protruding edge :

flush-mounted installation in stone worktop

flush-mounted installation in stone worktop

The problem was for years that this was only possible in waterproof materials, because you have to mill a rebate in the material and in a chipboard you cannot make the cut edge totally sealed and it inevitably swells up. There were manufacturers offering solutions for factory-builtin sinks, but these were expensive and limited to the models they had in stock. Until somebody had this idea:

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Sigma Alpha

Today I once again had a great example of what it means to be an INTJ sorting in the social structure as Sigma Alpha. My uncle is a fan of old pinball tables and nine years ago or so, a dealer has lent him one so he can replicate it in the simulator. Since then it was with in our warehouse. Because there piled up so much stuff I asked friendly if it can be returned again and today should be the date. An older man arrived with a rented transporter and nothing else. He probably had a defect in his car shortly before Trier and had to take a rental car. I do not know why he did not reload his tools, but he showed up naked, so to speak. He did not know much about pinballs and my uncle (ENFJ) talked to him a lot when it came to loading the thing. I was in the warehouse and wanted to stay out of the issue. Actually …

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Dating and Relationship

I got my hands on a GeoWissen special issue on love. On the one hand, there were very interesting topics, such as the need for a fundamental similarity and understanding between the partners for working relationship. On the other hand, I'm probably doing everything wrong on my online profile, because I wrote a lot there and regularly use more than the recommended 250 characters for the primary message. On the other hand I've learned enough in recent years about personalities just to be sick of pretending to be someone else. If only because I'm terrible at it. Yes, I like reading and I am also eloquent. The typical article here has something like 6,000 characters and that's an extent that reads really well. I also read the dossiers in ZEIT and they are many times longer. Not to mention the series Tarrin Kael by Fel - this is a truly epic fantasy story with 3.5 million words. Admittedly I need a few weeks for that, then it's not going to be an afternoon anymore.

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Powerless, part two

I have already written about the Cassandra Syndrome and that I'm powerless about the big things, so now the whole thing from a much more personal point of view. It is also a very good example of how the time in school can shape a child. I had the misfortune to be enrolled as one of the youngest children of the year and was always very weedy and already weird at that time, all in all an unfavorable combination. Back then the term was not as popular as today, but it was classic bullying. One outstanding example were my shoelaces set on fire. Or earlier the almost exemplary: Take-the-cap-away-and-then-throw-it-in-a-circle-around-you. Now there are several ways to deal with such a situation: Either you swallow it all and it breaks you, or you are going to fight through. I did the latter and maybe that's why I'm standing where I am right now. The people who have not learned to fight for themselves - maybe because they never had to - they had it more comfortable, but then are quite helpless if such a situation actually occurs years later. For me that's an old hat: I'm used to fighting for what I want and biting through even if it hurts.

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Gifted Kids

Due to a TV tip, I watched a series of Einstein Junior, a quiz show for highly gifted children around the age of ten. While I found the moderator a bit misplaced - why of all things a comedian which must display his disguise cravings in innumerable segment clips - the show was quite revealing.

As is known, I busted the MENSA test with a score of 126, as it is known that this is not enough for the membership. Now the children who were proven to be highly talented, had to solve a whole series of tasks and I was able to participate in front of the TV - and the results were enlightening. What I already knew before - mental arithmetic and memory were to blame - has been confirmed. Interestingly, in some tasks, I was even better: ultra-short-term memory (remember 4 symbols in 4 colours for a few seconds) and compare two 4x4 matrices with symbols. I also was at least equal in spatial imagination. And I am not too far behind in mental arithmetic. But for the memory *cough*. The candidates had to learn a card deck of 52 cards before the show and then recite this in turn, which of each team at least one accomplished. I would have completely failed, I could have remembered maybe five to eight cards.

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Discontented

Even if you are very introverted, you always have to deal with people. And sometimes you question what their attitude towards life is. And maybe that has something to do with the personality type too. I'm an entrepreneur and work with a variety of companies, including my assembly company. Here the relation was right from the beginning a little tense. We have agreed to the same conditions as with the previous assembly company - a flat rate percentage of the value of the goods - and we also made the schedule the same as before. But because the assemblies needed much longer, the system did not work for them, since higher costs on one side didn't lead to higher revenues on the other. That they are therefore dissatisfied, is in principle still to understand. They were used to hourly pay. What I can not understand right now is - if I now bill for an kitchen move on a hourly basis - that's what they always wanted - why are they still dissatisfied just because of complications? If additional repairs have to be made, that means nothing more than more hours (which can be easily justified) and thus more revenue. It's like asking a taxi driver in Berlin to take a passenger to Munich. The vast majority are likely to rub their hands because of the easy money. Their attitude would be comparable if the taxi driver refuses because it takes too long or is too far or too boring or whatever.

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Stephan vs. PrusaI3Mk2 vs. NinjaFlex

An ulterior motive when buying the 3D printer was the ability to print with a variety of materials, depending on the purpose. A filament with special properties is NinjaFlex with a Shore hardness of 85A very elastic and thus ideally suited for seals, rubber feet and so on. The fact that the material is compressible also makes the prcessing very delicate. Here are four samples and the story behind them:

NinjaFlex samples

NinjaFlex samples

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The Ideal Artisan

So, after knowing an ISTP and dealing with a lot of other craftsmen, I think it is time to write something about the relationship between INTJs and crafting. The title of ISTPs is "the Artisan", but are they best suited for building things? True, a lot of the professionals are from that type, doing a portfolio of skills every day. When Time is money, you need work fast. But for bigger projects, it is very important to look at the big picture, where you will finish if you start there and then it gets difficult. After working with professional crafters for the last months, I can tell you a lot about this difference and my constant fight with these types to think first. As an INTJ, that is the logical way to start something, as usually I didn't do that particular task before. I am going to think ahead and build the project virtually in my head and only after that result is meeting the criteria I have set, I pick up my tools. The next point is being a Perfectionist (Enneagram One) - I envision something which is very hard to do even better and that is my benchmark. And INTJs have the focus and versatility to get to that mark, whatever effort it takes. SPs are adaptable to deal when something is not a standard situation, but are shortsighted in the big picture. SJs may look into that, but are much too rigid and quickly lost if the situation get into unknown territory. This shows also in the usage of tools. If i have a task and the tool is somewhere else in the building, I don't mind a few minutes to get there and do it the best and easiest way possible. An SP is more likely to simply use the tool at hand which is usually slower and the result is less perfect. And because of that constant need to improve, I am often torn between the lack of time for said improvements and the joy of benefication when I did them - which usually asks why I didn't do that sooner. But S Types don't feel this need for improvement, a big difference.

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Typing the Enigma

As I wrote before, typing the other members of my family was quite easy: My mother is INFP and my brother ISTJ. But my father was quite enigmatic and I couldn't pin him down, because he showed traits of ISTJ and INTJ at the same time, like the disregard for rules and at the same time constantly asking other people for help while I as an INTJ like to figure out these things by myself. Because he frequently terrorised my mother with clear-up attacks like "whom is this? Take it with you!" and the state of chaos our home was which caused a lot of tension I never doubted that he was an J. He clearly is an Introvert as well as a Thinker without much emotional reactions. The crucial insight I got after I read this about INTPs at introspektivblog.wordpress.com: "we put something away, and after two days it gets invisible for us".

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Intuitives oder The Search for Peppp

No matter what you think of MBTI & Co. - there is one distinguishing feature that divides people into two groups. Like sheep and border collies. On the one hand, there is the (large) majority that has found its place in society, and on the other, those who that is simply not enough. People who stand out of the crowd and want to make a difference, and often enough they accomplish that. Or, to put it even more florid, these guys have a lot of pep or buzz. That's somethink like a very catchy description of the "N" vs. "S" of the four letters and probably the most impacting aspect.

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Sensitive

In the environment of Introvert Intuitives there is also a whole lot of highly sensitive people (HSP). These are extremely sensitive to seemingly normal environmental conditions. I do not really count myself to this group. Why not really? What I have noticed - and in recent times intensified: I am in a sense already very receptive to my senses.

feet in stream

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I don't like lids

Jar with lid

Well, the lids on containers are not meant by this headline. After all, you want the paint to stay in the bucket and not spread out everywhere. But lids in a figurative sense ... they are an unpleasant experience.

To understand that, I have to look back in time: As a child you start to discover the world and the possibilities are limitless. Just completely without a lid. The older you get, the more you begin to understand that the world is more like a holodeck, where at some point the wall is there and can not be moved. This means that the seemingly infinity has a limit.

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