The delicate balance of aloneness

This morning I woke up and spent a little time considering the sermon from church yesterday. I was in a pretty decent state of mind. I was trying to get my head straightened-out so I could have a productive day. Then my wife walked into our bedroom, "Can I ask you a question?"

I always feel a bit of trepidation when she asks that. I know it means there's some emotional payload coming. She gets up hours before I do and by the time I'm starting my day she has a list of items to talk to me about, things she wants to get done, and so on. We've had a few good arguments over it all. She's tried to wait a bit, but she has horrible timing. For a while she tried just hunting me down when I was in the shower. Then she tried sending me emotion-laden text messages while I was at work. Then she'd try to dump things on me as soon as I got home. Of course, by the time I am feeling balanced out in the evening she's too tired to talk and falls asleep. Our clocks couldn't be more out of sync if we tried.

Sure enough, she asked this morning, why I am "always" so hard on my oldest son? Apparently he had his feelings hurt when I told him to go out last night, put the lawnmower in the shed, pick up his two bicycles, put them away, and then close the door on the shed. Of course they had all been sitting out for days...in the rain.

As soon as the question was asked the mental walls flew up. The delicate balance of healthy mindset was gone. My train of thought was not only derailed, but the bridge was blown out from underneath it.

Suddenly I was no longer trying to have a good day that avoided moral pitfalls and was truly productive. Now I was worrying over how bad of a father I am. Is my son sitting there thinking his father hates him? Does my wife think that I'm driving him away from us? What about the other kids? Are they feeling the same way?

My morning shower is usually a refuge for me. I slowly come to terms with what the day is going to bring and try to get a bead on how I'm going to go about handling the list of things I have to do. I lost that too. I just stood there wondering if anything I do is worthwhile.

By the time I made it to work the day was destroyed. I spent lunch with my son and daughter trying to express to them that I love them by just spending time with them. It never feels like it's enough.

I was so close to having a good day. I almost had the morning just perfect. I had almost the perfect amount of solitude. Then it all got blown up. I can't even express how frustrated I am.

People are systematic

I was reading this article today and was struck by the line "The trick to dealing with [people] is not to think of them as human beings, but as systems that you have to make act the way you want." Now, this can be taken way too far, but there is a nugget of truth there.

People are not machines where you can guarantee outputs based on inputs. Humans always have choice, even if they choose not to exercise it, but people do work systematically. They tend to do things a certain way and according to a certain process because that has worked for them in the past. In that respect it is possible to predict with a high degree of likelihood what a person will do in a given circumstance.

There are a few tricks to doing this though. First, this is observational science not hard science. It is statistical and so I keep in mind that there's always the possibility that things will go differently. It's like betting on a roll of a pair of dice. If given a choice I'll always bet that the dice will come up to total seven because that's the statistically most likely number to come up. However, I'm always ready to assume that I may get something else.

Second, I begin to observe the person and analyze them. Since I can't control what their particular situation is I try to gather as much mental information as I can so that I can get the core ideas down. Soon I have a framework of how the person thinks and works. From there I can work with them in the way that they prefer to work. I can give them inputs with a high degree of knowing what the outputs will be.

The biggest trick though is to be detached. As an INTP I have a high level of empathy with people. I have a naturally strong "theory of mind" for the person across from me and I feel what they feel. This can quickly be exhausting. So, I need to break things up a bit. I have to decide what is important to observe and what is not and filter out the noise. Only then is it possible to accurately deconstruct and systemize what I have learned.

This can be most helpful in business. Most people work with expectations. In its most extreme form you end up with a government bureaucracy where every little banal thing has a form that must be filled out perfectly or it gets sent back. While we can (almost) all agree that this is ridiculous, there are varying degrees of this mindset. People need specific information to take action. They need specific requests to be able to switch into the right mindset to do what you need.

In business people say things like, "That's not the right way to do that," "That's not my job," "Well, he didn't get me what I need," or "How was I supposed to know that?" These are all indicators that the person was observing the situation from a particular system, did not recognize the input, and failed to produce the desired output. Because of this expectation on their part I can build a useful procedure or system on my end to get the desired output.

I think of these people as "black boxes". I input x, y, z and I'll most likely get product 983. If sometimes I get product 783 instead then I look to see how I can improve the inputs without trying to fix the black box. What if I also input a and b? What if I input items in the order z, x, y? I experiment a bit until I get the highest degree of predictability as I can. Then I accept some minor variation in the system.

Doing this allows me to objectively see people. This keeps me from being frustrated by them and experiencing a lot of uncomfortable emotions. It also allows me to minimize contact with people, increase my own effectiveness, and generally make my life easier.

What's the process I go through? It's simple really:

1. What do I want to get out?
2. What does the other person most want to get that also gets me what I want?
3. How can I most effectively and efficiently give that to them?
4. Test - assess - improve - repeat.

Broken people

For a long time I tried to fix the people around me, but I finally realized that all people are essentially "broken" and because of that they are often afraid, frustrated, selfish, angry, and hurting - just like me. What people need more than to be "helped" is compassion, patience and kindness.

One thing I think INTPs short-change themselves on is their compassion. Because we can enter into the mind of the other person we can be very empathic and feel their hurt, sadness, frustration, and everything else. Our natural instinct is to either run away or "fix" the problem as if it were actually our problem. But it isn't, we can't fix it and we care too much to run away.

I guess in some ways it's like being a faithful golden retriever. Imagine the picture of a sad little boy sitting under a tree. The dog quietly comes up, sits close, gently puts his head on the boy's lap, and shares in the emotion. It's almost as if he begins to weep and mourn with the child. Occasionally he licks a hand, but he knows all he can do is be part of the experience with the one he loves. There's no judgment, no attempt to fix the problem, no desire to be somewhere else, just a gentle kindness and steady devotion.

Seek to understand and care, but don't try to repair.