A few days ago I answered this question on Quora. And to my surprise I got 50k views as well as more than a thousand upvotes. Here is what I posted:
I believe that smart people have hunter-gatherer minds (intuitives in Myers-Briggs), whereas most people have farmer minds and these two are often not very compatible.
Hunter-gatherer people often become deeply introverted in childhood already, because they understand that they are different from the vast majority of people (INs only make up about 10% of the population) and when they grow up they feel they are misunderstood and that they can’t make a change anyway.
Read “The Little Prince” and you get an idea what it is like for a gifted kid to grow up: you see the elephant inside the boa where others see a hat (NB: this is a metaphor):
“Whenever I encountered a grown-up who seemed to be intelligent, I would experiment on him with my drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I wanted to see if he really understood anything.
But he would always answer, "That's a hat." … So I lived by myself, with no one to talk to”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (INFP)
So, what is the point of talking about something other people can’t see??? 90% of the time we would be wasting our energy and that is why we keep quiet. People would think we are crazy.
More about hunter-gatherer minds here: The psychology and biology of gifted children and highly intelligent people
Holy Smokes! I think you are on to something. I came across your comments in Quora about INTJ traits being the lone hunter-gatherer type that is successful in a farmer world and my mind just exploded. I literally am sitting here feeling my paradigm shift.
ReplyDeleteI'm an INTJ that is highly successful yet troubled by living in our modern world. Because I see it for what it is--A deeply flawed system that is not natural or good for us or the planet. I drop out periodically for long periods of time to travel & write, but I always come back to my "life". Intentional communities don't work. I've always blamed Capitalism as the "root cause" but maybe it is not. Capitalism is a FUNCTION of our farmer society, that you outlined quite well in your table.
Thank you for your great comment! Capitalism per se isn't bad, as long as it means freedom (no hunter-gatherer mind would ever doubt that, as our freedom is scared to us)... what is bad both for us and our planet: that stupid race for more and more for the sake of status and prestige. We could have good lives with so much less and trade in all the stuff for time we could spend with our friends and family.
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