When you read people about MBTI, they’re all INFJ! If I exaggerate a little I’d say 95% say they are INFJ, though it’s 1% in reality.
“OMG THAT’S SOOOO ME!”.
“I’m an empath, an introvert, I’m so rare, I can feeeeel people”. So rare but they’re all “so rare”. Why not, after all: it’s all a game of grids, right? Percentages for people are rarely accurate, and one can’t forget that some “types” are sometimes used as an excuse or justification for certain unhealthy behaviors – like “I’m doing nothing because I’m like that, so there”.
oOOo
I got rhythm
I got music
I got my guy
Who could ask for anything more?
Mike Oldfield really?
When I was a teenager I went to the neighbors’ house with my parents to have a pre-dinner drink. It was very quiet and boring.
I was maybe 13. My neighbors had two daughters. One of them, who was maybe 16, showed me a record with a blue butterfly on the sleeve and put it on the turntable. It was Platinum, by Mike Oldfield. The most incredible artistic shock of my whole life. I fell off my chair. Almost cried.
What was it? It was like a 20 minutes long track with a disco rhythm, gorgeous guitars, breaks and crescendos. I was flabbergasted. It was pulsing rocketing ideas everywhere. My head exploded.
Years later I understood. Skills. In Platinum, Mike Oldfield :
- had the bottle to build a 20 minutes disco complex instrumental “thing” with big guitars, disco rhythms, a big brass and a Phil Glass repetitive ending.
- is a great melodist.
- likes crescendos, likes to pull levers on crazy levels (cf Amarok)
- obviously looks for the audience’s ecstasy.
- is a bit crazy, daring crazy, the good crazy.
- has a VERY special guitar sound.
- dares an energic Punkadiddle “rock with a recorder and a crowd”.
- writes dreamy echoes in the night (Woodhenge).
- A Gershwin cover track.
So, I bought the album and it was my very first LP! Listened to it for months before I bought others (Ommadawn, etc).
There’s a big question today, in my head, about why he lost his skills as a composer. Lack of energy or inspiration is common when you come to 50, 60 years old, but…
oOOo
There once was a lion who was too lazy to hunt for his food. He pretended to be very sick and announced to all the animals that he was soon to die.
“Please,” he said, “come visit me in my cave and bid me goodbye.”
The lion looked so weak and helpless, the animals felt sorry for him. One by one the visitors came. One by one, the lion ate his fill of them!
When fox arrived to pay his last respects, he stopped in front of the cave’s entrance and looked closely at the ground.
“Come in quickly, I am dying!” cried the sly lion, impatiently.
“No,” said the fox, who was equally clever, “You’ll not have ME for a visitor, though you moan and pout. While I see many footprints going into your cave, NONE are coming out!”
oOOo
Ahhh the rest job face :
oOOo
oOOo
Collins Dictionary: Resignation is the acceptance of an unpleasant situation or fact because you realize that you cannot change it.
Descartes: My third maxim was to endeavor always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than the order of the world, and in general, accustom myself to the persuasion that, except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
W. Somerset Maugham: I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
oOOo
I read about a study on the factors that employees consider motivating. Good wages, interesting work, the security of the job, of course, but the number one factor was “to be valued”. Really valued.
It’s not about a bonus or a “best employee of the month” challenge. It’s something like :
“I see what you do and I appreciate what you do”.
People often do the best they can with what they got. And they wait, they need to be seen…
Makes sense, right?
It’s a special case for life, this theory telling that everything we do in society is to be loved.
Thanks for reading!
a french toolbox 