Does anyone feel "odd"? | Page 2 | INFJ Forum

Does anyone feel "odd"?

Hi,
I haven't posted before so sorry if this is the wrong spot. So I've known I was an INFJ for a long time, but I didn't know until recently that my "quirks" are literally just built into my personality (like inability to fake a smile, loving being around people some days then feeling desperate for alone time the next, etc.) My question is: Does anyone else feel like their always the "weird" one in the room, even though they go out of their way to appear perfectly "normal"?

I can feel a little odd or not "normal" but that happens when I compare myself to others. I try not to do that these days. I try to focus on being healthy, honest and comfortable with myself and loved ones. I accepted I think or interact a little differently than most people.
 
Thinking about this a little more. I didn't realize I was weird for many years. Once people started calling me weird it made me super self-conscious and it made me withdraw a little into myself, trying to hide it. It was probably one of the worst things I ever did to myself, like inflicting pain to yourself.
 
I can relate to this a lot. I feel like such a weirdo sometimes but it's ok, it's just a feeling.
 
Everyone feels odd because everyone is odd underneath the exterior persona. Just think of all your co-workers and all their secret, fucked up fetishes and neurotic insecurities. Same with your closest family - and you and I as well.

The trick is to be okay with it, I think. Once you catch the belief that you're different from everyone in this regard, you're headed down the path of shame. We're all wading in a cesspool of our collective nature.
 
Yes, I can relate. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the room who can read the room and everyone else is oblivious to what everyone else is feeling. I appreciate my NF friends very much when they're with me because then I don't feel like I am the only one who is tuned in to what is really going on (between people) - yk?

I mostly feel way more intense than I see other people behaving and I filter/censor my intensity to be more at the level of those around me, but I am aware that this is something I am doing and they are not. Like it is more complicated being myself than it would be to be them, though I realize that may not be a fair/true assessment.

And alone, well, I often kind of just drive myself crazy with my intense thoughts/feelings/imagination.

I would bet you're not weird or alone when you're among INFJs.
 
Yes, I can relate. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the room who can read the room and everyone else is oblivious to what everyone else is feeling. I appreciate my NF friends very much when they're with me because then I don't feel like I am the only one who is tuned in to what is really going on (between people) - yk?

I mostly feel way more intense than I see other people behaving and I filter/censor my intensity to be more at the level of those around me, but I am aware that this is something I am doing and they are not. Like it is more complicated being myself than it would be to be them, though I realize that may not be a fair/true assessment.

And alone, well, I often kind of just drive myself crazy with my intense thoughts/feelings/imagination.

I would bet you're not weird or alone when you're among INFJs.
Yep. I always wonder what other people are thinking, if they are noticing what seems obvious. Also i ride the subway, walk the city, and roam the corporate hallways every day wondering how i or anyone else can continue doing this crap every single damn groundhogs day. Does it keep anyone else awake at night wondering how to escape the 9-5 matrix, or are they all just really ok with this existence? That's what makes me feel odd every day.
 
Yep. I always wonder what other people are thinking, if they are noticing what seems obvious. Also i ride the subway, walk the city, and roam the corporate hallways every day wondering how i or anyone else can continue doing this crap every single damn groundhogs day. Does it keep anyone else awake at night wondering how to escape the 9-5 matrix, or are they all just really ok with this existence? That's what makes me feel odd every day.

Most people just go on busy with their live and all the commodities around it. It's the future orientation/ big picture mindset in you that focuses on these things (I have it as well, so there understanding). But there's a good outlet here in this forum for discussing such topics.

In regards to escaping the 9-5 matrix, it's a bit of a spiralling loop on that one. Because you start to focus on the negativity of it. The 9-5 system is stupid, it takes too much from every individual's own time. However, it's how modern society has evolved to and now revolves around. You, me, everyone are part of this society and thus are ticking around that "corporate" clock. Even the corporates themselves tick around the same clock.

So it's better to focus away from the 9-5 matrix as being a ball and chain and rather put your own time in projects/people/things that matter to you and make work as pleasurable as possible. (Anyway, that's my personal take on it.)
 
Reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the cave:
[It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

Not with the prospect of death, that's just silly <Plato>.

https://www.academia.edu/34282871/Allegory_of_the_Cave
Therefore, according to Plato, people will start recognising the real objects behind the shadow and darkness if they can achieve the true knowledge and share the knowledge with everyone.