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You are an INFJ! Sensitive, empathic, and insightful, you care deeply about people, wanting to accommodate them on the one hand, and having strong visions that you desperately want to turn into reality on the other . . . Others are likely to describe you as tolerant, courteous, and appreciative, but also a bit remote and dreamy . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n Blah, blah, blah. In truth, \u201ca bit remote and dreamy\u201d is not how others are likely to describe me negatively\u2014\u201cstuck up, superior, stand-offish, and aloof\u201d sounds more like it, all of which are generated largely by my 91% I (introversion). Such is the life of an INFJ. I have taken the Myers-Briggs test at least a half dozen times in the past four decades, always with the same results. So be it; as Jeanne (an ENFP) says, \u201cit is what it is.\u201d Deal with it. On my tombstone will be carved \u201cHe was a hardcore INFJ. We tried to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n 2. I know more than I can put into words<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0<\/strong>For someone who teaches philosophy for a living, this one has taken a while to inhabit and embrace. Words, after all, are the tools of the philosopher\u2019s trade, tools we use to construct logical arguments, to refute other arguments that we don\u2019t like, and to reflect our fundamentally rational commitments. The older I get, however, the more I resonate with Iris Murdoch\u2019s observation that<\/p>\n To be a human being is to know more than one can prove, to conceive of a reality which goes \u201cbeyond the facts\u201d in familiar and natural ways.<\/strong><\/p>\n What I know, but cannot prove, often is what is most important to me, important not because I can make a rational case for it but because it lies deeper than reason at the core of who I am. This tends to be very frustrating to people who comment on my blog, academic colleagues, and students who expect me to embody the stereotype of the rational, intellect-worshiping philosopher. In response I frequently quote a favorite passage from Shakespeare, Hamlet\u2019s response to his friend Horatio\u2019s refusal to believe that Hamlet has seen the ghost of his dead father.<\/p>\n There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.<\/strong><\/p>\n 3. I know less than I think I do<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve been aware of this for a long time, but I thought I\u2019d put it out there because it, as the previous truth, runs counter to stereotype. We all know more than we can put into words and know less than we think we do\u2014but academics, people with degrees, and people who are confident about themselves are not supposed to admit it. Fuck that, I say. Becoming comfortable in one\u2019s own skin, which is hopefully something that becomes more and more possible as one gets older, involves admitting one\u2019s finitude, mortality, imperfections, lack of certainty about just about everything\u2014and loving it.<\/p>\n 4. Attitude matters<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0<\/strong>A couple of years ago, Jeanne took me to see \u201cBeautiful: The Carole King Musical\u201d at our downtown performing arts center. It was wonderful; the hundreds of people in attendance mostly looked like Jeanne and me\u2014aging hippie refugees from the sixties. Carole King\u2019s \u201cTapestry\u201d was one of the first albums I ever purchased; her music was a cherished part of the soundtrack of my youth.<\/p>\n The show ends with Carole King sitting at a grand piano during a 1971 Carnegie Hall concert, her first performance in front of a live audience. She sings \u201cBeautiful,\u201d which is one of my King favorites.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve got to get up every morning<\/strong>\u00a0with a smile in your face<\/strong> As the Stoics tell us, although we cannot control what the world sends us, we can control how we will process and respond to what the world sends us. How I approach the world is a choice, and I choose\u2014when I have my wits about me sufficiently to remember\u2014life and love. I choose not to be afraid. I embrace Iris Murdoch\u2019s definition of freedom:<\/p>\n To be free is something like this: to exist sanely without fear and to perceive what is real.<\/strong><\/p>\n As I\u2019ve learned over the past several years to embrace an evolving faith rather than to struggle against it, I\u2019ve found it more possible to find the divine in the ordinary, in the pleasures of daily life in the classroom (even when those present have masks on and are socially distanced and others are on Zoom), with Jeanne, with our remaining dachshund Winnie, and waiting for next season when I can again scream at the top of my lungs with 13,000-plus fans at a basketball game. And I realize that I\u2019m finding the divine more and more often because I\u2019ve become more and more comfortable as an incarnated being. \u00a0The central claim of my faith is that the primary way the divine gets into the world is\u2014despite our mistakes, flaws, imperfections, and downright evil\u2014in human form. The olgder I get, the more I accept that when it comes to getting the divine into the world, I\u2019m it. And so are you. It goes with the territory.<\/p>\n I leave you with this image from last year that Facebook reminded me of a couple of days ago. A Facebook friend took a few lines from one of my blog posts and placed it over a picture of the beautiful Ruane Center for the Humanities on the campus where I have happily taught for the past 27 years. I had forgotten writing the lines; upon reading them I thought \u201cthat\u2019s really good.\u201d Not bad for 65.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve lived almost two-thirds of a century now, so I have passed many of the birthdays that supposedly mark a passage and\/or cause the birthday person distress. 18, 21, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60 . . . you know what I\u2019m talking about. It has never been a big deal for me\u2014as Jeanne always says, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":20087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,36,40,50,56],"tags":[789,974,221,222,275,287,434],"class_list":["post-23374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-family","category-god","category-humor","category-jeanne","tag-birthday","tag-carole-king","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-iris-murdoch","tag-jeanne","tag-shakespeare"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nAnd show the world all the love in your heart
\nThen people gonna treat you better, you\u2019re gonna find, yes you will
\nThat you\u2019re beautiful, as you feel<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/766\/2021\/03\/Power-and-love.jpg\")
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