Masks, archetypes, subconscious legend and magic

[Aquagraph]

Woke up at 5 AM. My friend is waking me from my sofa for the Wake & Bake. He just drove here unexpectedly and came through the backdoor on his own.
After the joint in the sauna and the general how-do-you-dos, he left. I, the extreme extrovert who has to define itself by its observers, was left alone and high. It got me thinking about myself, then socionics, then about posting.

Most of you here grew somewhat over socionics and typing. Not to say it wouldn't be practiced here, but for the most of you it seems to be a certain kind of a toy; to play with, to play together with and, to all you, in various degrees, to be played by it. Yet these masks seem very real.

Keep on reading the paragrafs below, the magic and legend in the thread name won't be referring to any of the fantasy stuff. Unless you really want to.

Friend of mine told me about Gandalf being based on Väinämöinen, main character in Kalevala, the finnish national epic. It is true that Tolkien read Kalevala. In Finnish. In the old Finnish which is already incomprehensible to me, especially since the story is in poetry.
Later, another friend declared that Gandalf mainly got it's inspirations on Merlin. Very plausible. Why were they so similar? ..Later on, came Albus Dumbledore.
If you study any of the "good wise wizard" archetypes, they're always pretty similar.
We're culturally trapped in archetypes.

Did you know that the word "inspire" came from latin words which mean for the spirit(us), to step in. You are the well of spirits which affected to you. Be it from the primal source of inspiration (the organic and non-organic nature), self-conscious nature (the cultural creatures) or the inspiration wells made by the latter (art in all forms to a highly extended version of the word; literature, pictures, film) besides the reflections of culture (language, religion, myths, so forth).The simplifying, categorizing, optimizing human mind is very prone to making these symbols, set of characteristics and qualities in these subconcious icons. Even so far to take all of us with us to be influenced by these subconscius legends.

We've taken a part in a play with many customized masks. Some of us forget that we have a face under them. I'm one of them. And highly aware of it.

Your types are a new assortment of myths based on other myths. You were playing your part even before you knew about socionics. Now you're propably doing even more so with slightly changed formula. Hopefully you're doing it somewhat consciusly as the mind can mold itself while it is discerning of it's own mechanics. The observer watching the observer observing itself can be a self-undoing process, making room for building some new culture within.

Thoughts?

[Gilly]

It makes lots of sense, in fact it resonates very closely with my own theory of type definition. This is part of why I hold that types are not inborn, at least in their full manifestation; I think there is a chance that at least temperament is inborn, but when I see the obvious recurring scenarios in peoples lives and relations, most poignantly familial relations, and how often they seem to come to "archetypal" fruition, and how often socionics type reflects this in an expectedly fitting manner, you just kind of take for granted that the whole mess is moving along together.

[Ave]

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Your types are a new assortment of myths based on other myths. You were playing your part even before you knew about socionics. Now you're propably doing even more so with slightly changed formula. Hopefully you're doing it somewhat consciusly as the mind can mold itself while it is discerning of it's own mechanics. The observer watching the observer observing itself can be a self-undoing process, making room for building some new culture within.

Thoughts?

Actually Jung defined the type and the achtype as two distinct things... that one went beyond the other. But we assocciate(unfortunatly) masks of sorts with types as we stereotype and associate images with type which leads us to relate the types to archetypes in a way.

[The Ineffable]

I don't believe in this archetype story, I believe in the laws of nature. This faith makes a fallacious causal assumption in the existence of common causes of different types, inheritance that may be or may not be true, in different cases. If we meet alien species, they may likely share traits with us, some may have limbs like our terrestrial animals, some may have fins to swim: that doesn't necessarily imply that we inherit common traits from somewhere, but that we are all products of the laws of physics, laws which make certain imaginary phenomenae impossible, others very common. It is the same thing.

I don't think there's such thing as a "full manifestation" of a type. A Promethean liberal mindset in a Promethean authoritarian social context, both which come from our human nature, will likely end in Promethean fate, even if Prometheus never existed. Even these typical values emerged for definite reasons, authoritarianism was not there since the beginning of time, but it emerged from necessity: full unity to defend against a threat, when it is commonly perceived as such, as a common purpose. And unity for a greater power is not the only thing, but other things as well, one that comes to my mind is different necessary and simultaneous designations that obviously one individual can't be assigned alone.

Walking down this case (authoritarianism, leadership), I'm gonna give you an example: playing an online battle multiplayer game, I reached the point of giving orders to the team I find myself into, when we loose constantly: "stick together!", "open the gate!". When I'm not doing that, and the necessity is stringent, often someone else does. Why? Because we loose, and because it's obvious how we can win, and because it's obvious that the ones who are united and disciplined win much more often (clans). So I don't need to be aware of and impersonate some big badass leader archetype, neither to enjoy that role, in order to behave that way - in fact I oppose unreasonable authoritarianism (for the sake of it or for the sake of tradition). Of course, someone can associate you with some Chinese master general for good reasons, that doesn't imply that you ever heard of him or his deeds, but merely that you had similar cognitive caracteristics, similar knowledge (likely experience), and faced similar circumstances.

I do believe that personality type (not sociotype) is determined by both internal and external factors, in my opinion the absence of the latter (the NF style) is what eventually leads to the belief in that mysterious (spiritual, etc) or imaginary causal connection to an ancestor or sybling, since no material justification is allowed for this identity.
---

- I know I switched my analysis from the type of an enlightener to the one of the leader, but that should be irrelevant.
- I use type in its general sense, it may or may not be related to the sociotype. No model is employed for types and archetypes and their number is arbitrary. Types and archetypes are subjective, no consistent criteria are applied - different selections end up in different topologies - the emphasis on one or another is a matter of personal preference or cultural inheritance.

[rat1]

The self relates to others; the self typing eventually gives way to a dynamic use of functions. That doesn't abandon myths.. you take on the role of the hero. Dismissing myths is a mistake just like dismissing functions is a mistake. But the hero is the center of myths. I have become more open to other peoples points of view throughout this.. I was incredibly angry when I first came here, that's mostly gone now. The hero is what all the other mythical characters center around.. Functions are the same way, they all coordinate around eachother to form the self in a negative or positive aspect.

[Aquagraph]

@The Ineffable
How does your basis exclude mine?

[The Ineffable]

@The Ineffable
How does your basis exclude mine?

First of all, directly connecting the archetypes to the sociotypes, direct link which I reject, for reasons in the bottom of my post. The answer to this question was already there.

Then, I disagree with the assumption that human types of individuals are necessarily causally related, or related to archetypes, by cultural or spiritual means. I'm not excluding them, in some cases it may actually be the case (at least the cultural influence), however there are natural means to create similarities between them, which I am inclined to find more likely, but which your theory neglects. Moreover, in Socionics, the type is determined by a certain configuration of the psyche, it is not a role model that one inherits or follows. The sociotypes are presumably part of the human nature, neither accidental nor optional. Other than that, you may want to read this post that I just submitted.

[The Ineffable]

Functions are the same way, they all coordinate around eachother to form the self in a negative or positive aspect.

Could you explain what you mean by "negative" and "positive"?

[Aquagraph]

Thanks.

I'll try to articulate some coherent thoughts in a bit.

Same here. I was planning to write something about my inspired roles, especially in ILE and SLE.

I'll be also expecting someone to try to retype me based on my writings.

[rat1]

i think creating your own myth is better than reading about past ones.

[Aquagraph]

i think creating your own myth is better than reading about past ones.

To be inspired by yourself without outer influence or to choose to be hacker of self and choose the traits to pursue and reprogram yourself?

[Aquagraph]

Is this completely too incomprehensible or something as I have to bump this to keep it alive?