Knowing yourself

[BrainlessSquid]

Does being an introvert help you know yourself better?

I can understand others well, but I have a hard time understanding myself. :/

I can easily describe others but I can't describe myself.

Are you extroverts in the same situation?

[ouronis]

I'd say it's more of a learned/environmental thing for the degree to which you can understand yourself. For the tendency to want to understand yourself directly, probably related to introversion.

[Computer Loser]

The best way to really get to know yourself is to... just experience life. Just like getting to know someone else, it takes time. You'll learn far more through experiencing life than by interviewing yourself and taking tests. It's life experience and what u do, that helps u peel off what is not needed, keep what is needed (the core of who u are).

Kinda like refining precious metals. Gotta use that heat to see that beautiful diamond.

[Aeris]

Who am I?
I tend to count on my memory, on my ability to see things and use logic to figure out a way, but some days I cross streets without even looking. My memory goes to hell, I can't see what's right in front of my face, who am I then?
Am I my thoughts, my actions in the present or in the past, am I my plans for the future?
Am I a good listener as I was called? Am I who people describe, am I who I think I am, but if I do not think, am I still?
Who am I in the space between my thoughts?
Am I the feelings I reject, am I what I do in life, am I in relation to others?
If I am a listener, why doesn't everyone talk to me? Am I a role I have accepted or the one I secretly long for?
If by having lived my life by my side all this time I can barely describe myself, who am I then to describe others? I have changed and I change still, so by the time I define myself fully, won't it be time to revise how I view myself?
The only constant thing in life is change, am I change? If so, what's the point of defining change? It changes, it's its nature.
Why should I care who I am and who others are? We all are change.
All there is is the movement of change.

[The Reality Denialist]

One as to ask what is it?

Seems like people lay down rules based on their own perception but then there is also a thing called Dunning-Kruger effect which skews stuff even more. I have a bit advanced self knowledge regarding issues that many people find bizarre but then some specific things like perception via senses as I live my life is next to null. It is like people focus on bizarreness and do not see the other side. Multisided analysis requires you to trust in distrust and advance your understanding in those issues. So yeah. It is very hard to define.

[consentingadult]

It has nothing to do with being introvert or extravert.

You cannot truly know yourself, because you cannot observe yourself objectively. All ideas about who and what you are, are completely subjective constructs.

For more insights, any frehsmen's year textbook "introduction to social psychology" will be of help.

[Sol]

Ne should relate the most to understanding yourself and others as persons. For S types it should be harder.
The personality is your reactions on external not lesser than on internal. So introvertion does not improve the knowledge of Self.

> I can easily describe others but I can't describe myself.

The important is to describe correctly. In what you think about yourself is easier to notice wrong and this may make you lesser assured.
Also you may block the understanding of something in yourself and so to makes thoughts more muddy. And from types point - there is what you understand and may describe in yourself better.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

idk ime extroverts will say things to me like 'bnd is shy' or 'bnd is loving and kind' or 'bnd plays the victim' or 'bnd is smart' or 'bnd is too lazy.' It's like objective but vague snapshots of the shell of my persona kinda? It lacks dark underpinnings or nuances or something, even the negative criticisms. Like I get what they mean and I don't necessarily disagree but there's more to the story that they don't see, because they are an extrovert that doesn't have as much of a richly layered inner world.

Introverts will comment more on my personal likes and dislikes, like its a lot more Fi-ish than just how I'm coming off objectively. 'bnd's favorite season is autumn and he used to like Buffy the Vampire Slayer' , 'bnd doesn't like state institutional authority' lol and they also judge me more how I protect their sensitivity as well rather than just the reverse. Like an extrovert feels tank-y if we get along, rape-y if we don't- introvert there is more middle ground like two girls pulling each other's hair equally... and then there's variance in that, depending on how much I personally like the introvert, and how much they like me lol.

[SGF]

Does being an introvert help you know yourself better?

I can understand others well, but I have a hard time understanding myself. :/

I can easily describe others but I can't describe myself.

Are you extroverts in the same situation?

1. NO
2. Same. Its like trying to scratch the middle of you back without a backscratcher.
3. Kinda. It took me a while. Look at my signature, it all fits like a puzzle.

[leckysupport]

It's easier to misunderstand others than to misunderstand yourself... hence why you believe you understand others more than yourself.

Alternatively "seeing yourself in the mirror", is something you can only get via external means, either someone tells or it becomes more apparent as you interact with people. This type of self knowing is the hardest to confront in my experience since it always feels like a hidden attribute of yourself - something which is the center of you (personal).

I'm of the esoteric opinion that our understanding itself (and possibly mind) exists between ourselves and the outside world, it is only through interaction, observation and manipulation that we can actually begin to make a decent stab at understanding almost anything, reflection never happens without external stimulus.

Anyway, I just felt like waffling near incoherently...

[Beautiful sky]

Yes and no I think everyone takes a self assessment at some time or another. Introverts may do it more often

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

IMO I or E does not matter in the long run because life provides the impetus that may be needed either way. Also, many people need guidance/help with sticking to the pointers while doing this work.

interesting article i came across today: https://www.wired.com/2012/05/the-se...th-bruce-hood/

[DirectorAbbie]

To know yourself, you must have times of introspection - times when you're with your thoughts and few distractions. Perhaps introverts would be more inclined to have such times, but I'm not one and the introverts who've already commented are saying NTR.
Perhaps an intuitive would have more such times because they're more likely to linger within their thoughts. But perhaps a sensor would be more likely to have such times because they're more likely to be doing things with their hands while their mind is free to wander.

I first knew myself when I was 15. I know myself better now, but that's because I both know who I was then and I know who I am now. That me only knew version 1.4 of me, but now I'm on version 2.2.
I can best describe the people I spend the most time with. And I've spent a lot of time with myself. (I don't talk to myself though - I never have anything interesting to say that I didn't already think of.)

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

I don't talk to myself though - I never have anything interesting to say that I didn't already think of

Sounds like a good way to stay in touch with reality

[The Reality Denialist]

Heh knowing separation from others is considered some sort of step in life. I can not recall this happening to me. It sounds bizarre that people can't see themselves as separate entity from the get go. I have always been apt recognizer why people are not one beehive and are their own entities. Dunno like I have said before I kind of see schizotypal character in me meaning reading too much into this (skewed over active theory of mind in terms of recognizing separate cognitive processes).

[Expansion]

It might relate to not having a steady core, meaning you change with the ideas and concepts so you are growing faster than the pace of your environment. You don't say i'm X in Y neighborhood because Y is considered a static snapshot along a leading edge of reality. You are nowhere because you are everywhere, so X doesn't mark the spot.

If you are not present you are in the future.

Thought crosses my mind a lot, because taking quizzes on behaviors in self reporting i find the questions un-answerable because i shift like a chameleon.

When i first got into MBTI the test showed unknown type. A lot of contradictory inputs i assume.


* resurrection alert*