Thought for the day

Thought for the day

Day Seven and Plan D completed

Yellowstone is a busy place.  Despite the incredible scenery, you have to search for some solitude.  You also have to search for a camp site. 

When I rode into the park there is a sign with camp ground vacancies.  There was not much open and they were on the north end of the park. 

So after the geyser show, I went on my quest to find a campsite.  I passed three that were full.  I headed north past the West entrance to Norris campground.  It was full.  I checked the walk in sites.  They were full.  I ate a granola bar and pondered my situation.  I was tired.  The nearest campground was an hour away and there was not guarantee that there would be any room there.  The north road was under construction and was now unpaved.

I think I was on at least plan D by this time.  As plan A,B and C had not worked out.  I decided to use my charm.  I rode around the campground until I found what I was looking for.  A truck, with a motorcycle and  a very large travel trailer.  It had Texas plates.  I used to live in Texas.  They owned motorcycles.  They were not using the tent area. 

I went way out of my comfort zone and knocked on the door.  George answered and I explained my situation.    After a brief inspection that I was not obviously an axe murderer  and a discussion with his wife in the trailer he agreed to let me stay.

I set up my tent.  A modest home but I will sleep well tonight.  I eat the second half of my Jackson Hole sandwich.

 

Yours truly

George comes out.  He is a member of the Christian Motorcyclist Association.  We talk. I have not talked to anyone for more than a few minutes in a week. We talk a lot. His focus is on proselytizing.   We talk about  families and divorces.  He is on wife number three.  She is unhealthy and never left the trailer while I was there.  We talk about Texas and motorcycles.  He travels for six months of the year.   In his experience men who ride motorcycles solo are running from something.  He has seen a lot.  He has a solution.  It is Jesus.  The highway of hope…

George is an interesting guy.  I am not convinced I need fixing but keep some of these thought to myself, not to debate my kind host. 

Plan D is a success.  The air is crisp and cold.  It will be a nice night.

Dating adventures, a legend in the making

At least I leave an impression.

Once upon a time I dated a woman.  She had good taste in music.  She had her own motorcycle. We got along pretty well.  I make pretty good company.

I analyzed her musical tastes and made her an awesome mixtape. She loved Robert Earl Keen and Bruce Springsteen. She was very pleased.  It was not hard for me to do.   I enjoy my music.

I was lonely and she was lonely. I think she was falling in love with me, but my mind reading skills are weak. I am patient and in no hurry. There were some red flags.  It takes some time to gain my trust.

I was not yet divorced.  I was still pretty, make that very, naive.

Theresa called one night with a sense of urgency.  She had to come over.  She told me she that she was thinking about sleeping with me.  All good at this point.  But.... she has herpes.
I reassured her and told her that I would need to think about that for awhile.  I really needed time to digest this information and sent her on her way.

After some due diligence, thank you google, I decided that was not something I wanted to deal with.  I let her down as gently as I could.

She was hurt.  That is understandable.  It is tough to be a 50 year old with baggage.  We all have some baggage. I tend to try to hide mine.

I got a nice card from her in the mail.

Then I received some vicious drunken texts.  F bombs away.  Personal attacks.  Theresa, that is fucking scary. I think that puts you in the category affectionately  known as bat shit crazy.

Fast forward three years.

I have been trying to meet with a woman who lives near by, let's call her Linda.  She has an interesting profile and seems sane.  She has befriended me on Facebook. Based on the superficial social media information, I thought we could get along fine.


We are texting back and forth.  Then silence.  Then a strange response.


Linda is best friends with Theresa.  Cincinnati is a damned small town sometimes.


Apparently Theresa still talks about me.  Apparently she still likes me. She regrets sending the drunken texts.  Three years later she has not found anyone nearly as interesting.
She is screwing up my dating adventures. I am a legend in the making

A great INTJ description

This is probably the best description of my way of thinking I have seen online.  It is spot on.  The only significant difference is that I find myself surfing the web more and reading books less.  Thank you David Boles

http://bolesblogs.com/2005/06/24/mark-of-the-intj-rational-mastermind/

Mark of the INTJ Rational-Mastermind

My temperament type is INTJ or Rational-Mastermind and I’ve known that over many tests over the arc of my life and here is a fun link to a fancy online report on my personality type that makes it really easy and clear to understand how your type affects you and others around you.

If you decide to get tested for your personality type for the first time, please have it done in person by a professional so your results can be deeply studied and then explained to you.

Now I will make a brief attempt to explain some, but not all, of the oddities of the INTJ personality type. I am not making any excuses. I am just telling you what many of us are like and where we are coming from.

We are kind of rare. We make up less than 1% of the population. These “Marks of the INTJ Rational-Mastermind” are from my experience. Not all INTJs are created from the same bolt but many of us share some suggestions of these marks.

Oh, and when I say “we” let’s say I mean “me” because if I don’t I will be attacked by the other INTJ Rational-Masterminds who see themselves as independent and above being included in this prattle:

We are Information Hounds
We must know. We must always be learning and researching something new. I have 27 magazine subscriptions and my Post Office Letter Carrier is not happy lugging all that paper my way every week. I have 1,200 books in my bedroom alone. I read 12 online newspapers every morning. My books are my friends. I mark them up. I dog-ear them. I write all over them.

Books are tools that are friends. I listen to the TV, radio, my CD player and surf the web all at the same time. It drives people nuts! I promise you I comprehend it all. I am listening and watching and memorizing it all. Please don’t complain about wasting electricity or needing more room for your clothes in the bedroom. There are newscasts to memorize and friends that need shelves!

We Are Not Cold and Distant
We do not see ourselves as being cruel, cold, distant, unbending, unforgiving, mean, icy or impossible but sometimes people use those words to describe us. We are factual… some might say “lawyerly.”

We like references that back up ideas. When you accuse us of inappropriate past behavior and we ask when it happened, and where we were and what the weather was like and who was with us, please don’t take those questions as being argumentative or difficult. We are just trying to place ourselves back into that space and time to re-examine what you did not appreciate so we can fix it later.

We are not necessarily trying to catch you in a lie, or in a disremembered moment, in order to win the argument. We don’t live in the past or really even ruminate much on past events — unless we are actively correcting something for future use — so any clues and hints you can provide to help place us back in time and space helps us a great deal and we are probably not trying to give you a hard time.

We Are Viciously Loyal
We do not betray and we do not tolerate betrayal in others. Our word means everything to us because promises influence our acts. We do not collect friends or affection. We pick a couple of people and stick with them forever. We are not picky or choosy.

We just know what we want and we don’t want to waste an instant deceiving someone else’s good intentions if we are not interested. You always know where you stand with us. If we like you, we say so. If we don’t, we won’t have to say it out loud for you to know.

We Do Not Make the Same Mistake Twice
If we screw up it is rare if we willingly do it again. We are fixers. We are forward thinkers. We like to re-imagine the future with new behaviors that will result in errors not happening a second time.

Emotional? Heck, yah!
Sure we get angry. We are not emotionless. We have passion and magnitude and we express it when our values are violated (see Loyalty above) and that passion often gets misunderstood for anger.

Sometimes we are not great about sensing how you and others feel so you need to tell us so there is no doubt and if you are taken aback by what you feel is anger, ask us: Are you angry? We will likely be surprised at the question because we are probably just excited, hurt or trying to passionately explain the position we value.

Disconnected
We are sometimes accused of being disconnected from the rest of society. We aren’t disconnected to the present. We place the present past behind us because we are already in the future. Funerals, for me anyway, are a waste of time because we are not our bodies.

That thinking, I have learned, is offensive to many people on a plethora of levels. I am extremely connected to what is important to me but that interest does not sit looking back. Life stands in front of you and that includes everything that has already come before.

“Moving forward…”
As future thinkers, we have, at times, the uncanny ability to know what will happen in the future before most of the people around us. That ability is sometimes interpreted by others as being “arrogant” and we work on trying to keep our mouths from always saying “I told you so” because that doesn’t go over well even though we are right to say it.

In meetings I am fond of saying “Moving forward…” and “What’s next?” because getting stuck repeating the details of what has already been discussed is historic and problem-solving is anticipatory. INTJs are prescient.

We have the gift of, not predicting the future, but of knowing what will happen before it happens based on cultivating, chalking out and extending the current situation. Sometimes that can be scary for us because we can see something bad happening before our eyes before it actually happens.

We are not, however, mind-readers, so you can never assume we know something about how you feel unless you directly tell us. We don’t like to guess how you’re feeling so instead of playing with us, just lay it all out on the table.

No Living in the Past
The past is not of great interest to us. What’s done is over and what we think about today can change tomorrow, so let’s get a Plan and then a Plan B plus a Plan C and… so we can always stay ahead of the curve.

We live in the ether beyond the cutting edge and sometimes that place is a little isolating. We are often alone but never lonesome. We live without regret but that doesn’t mean we are content. What’s done is done. I find myself thinking two years ahead of others in what will be and what must be and what why be.

We Don’t Chat
We are not chatters. We don’t do small talk. We don’t need to drone on about the weather or our families. We are not terribly concerned about being liked or not. We are to-the-point. I tell people I work with that when it comes to criticizing me or my work to “be blunt and cruel, it saves time” and some people get offended by that statement because they think I am asking them to be mean and to insult me. I am not.

I am asking them to get to the point. Don’t poke around the issue. Stab at it! It’s okay to be direct and decisive with us. It’s pretty hard to hurt our feelings when it comes to work. We don’t like busy work. We like to get things done the right way first and move on… so know what you want before you tell us what you need.

Sometimes We Disappear
Disappearing is, perhaps, one of the most annoying things some INTJs do that people dislike. I promise you we are not trying to insult you or to hurt your feelings by leaving. We leave, usually without comment, from groups or meetings or parties or get-togethers because we become interested in something else. It’s that simple.

We decide to investigate elsewhere. No malice is intended in disappearing. We don’t see it as disappearing. We see it more like, “moving on…” When I get asked later, You said good-bye before you left, right? and I stammer out an Uhh as an answer, I realize my host probably wondered what happened to me.

Saying good-bye is a ritual that seems silly because I will see everyone again soon; but manners and societal norms require following particular stations of behavior in a standard order and I need to be more alert and adhere to those expectations in public where I can easily be misunderstood. We do great in one-on-one situations. When there are more than three people in the room we tend to hang out in corners by ourselves. Mingling is not a strong INTJ trait because it usually involves idle chatter.

When I warn people beforehand I am not good in non-structured group activities with people I don’t know because I am “painfully shy” I usually get laughed at for awhile because they think I’m kidding. A more helpful response is, “hang out with me and I’ll introduce you to some people.”

Right and Wrong
We generally have strongly-held values about right and wrong and “right and wrong” for many of us are defined in a social sense and not necessarily a religious one. We know the world is grey but doing the right thing — the promises we make to each other kind of morality — is important to us because it helps shape the world into the worthy and the unworthy of our involvement.

Seeing Justice done is a vital element for us because it carves the right stake in society.

That wraps up a quick glimpse into markers for helping you identify and, perhaps, better tolerate, INTJ Rational-Masterminds
lurking in your midst.

Don’t despair the one-percenters!

We may be awkward but we aren’t that awful! Don’t run from us. We make loyal allies, we can help you figure stuff out and we are really good at creating plans that stretch five years into your future… if you can find us before we disappear.

 

Thought for the day

Day Seven Continued

So where was I?  Oh yeah, Jackson Hole Wyoming on my way to Yellowstone National Park.  A gorgeous ride with the majestic Tetons on my left, sunny blue skies,  and Old Faithful ahead of me.    Something I had been looking forward to for days, months and years. 

I was surprised that I did not see more wildlife through the valley and into the park.  The park is busy.  When I pay my fees to get in I notice that most of the campgrounds are already full.  There are some in the north part of the park.  Something will work out, I tell myself.

I head towards the geyser basin.  Nature’s own Disneyland.  We have exploding geysers, wildlife and waterfalls.  I have read that the entire park sit atop an active volcano.  Sometime she is going to explode and life as we know it will be change.  Mt. St. Helen’s was nothing compared to this one when it goes.  It will happen, but not on my watch.

They have added a couple of new buildings since my last visit.  More parking as well.  More buses and more people. 

I am sensing a theme here.  So many people find a nice thing and then because of the popularity, they screw it up.

The Old Faithful Inn is a majestic building.  Open to the ceiling with trusses build from logs. An incredible stone fireplace.   A National treasure. 

I know where I am heading.  To the  deck overlooking the geyser.  The countdown is on.  20 minutes or so before the next eruption.  What a great day.

The geyser burbles and makes some small blasts of four to five feet.  Steam seeps from the opening.  Then it quiets down.  It repeats its burbling and small blasts.  Then it quiets down again.  Then we get a sustained blast of four to five feet.  Instead of quieting, it grows and blasts to its full potential, 100 feet in the air.  Old Faithful continues this sustained blast for minutes then slowly subsides.  The water drains back into the geyser leaving steam and an odor of sulfur.  Until the next show.  Well worth the trip.

Do not fall in love with me,a poem

Love leaves scars.  In some respects I am unique. In others not so much. 

This is a great poem. Perhaps I am being pretentious, but I would like to think, and at some level I know, that I am not the only one with scars. 

Full speed ahead. 

So sad

Sometimes I hate it when I am right

My intuition was correct.  It is over.  I knew it was coming.  It was pretty good while it lasted.

My earlier post from July:
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7646236209855165689#editor/target=post;postID=3999270097508569843;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=53;src=postname


I have made my final mix tape.  It is awesome as ever, I am real good at communicating in that form.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/playlist/dave-has-the-blues/idpl.3f872501bb394a27baa1a1d4a2edb46d
Help me.  Women are tough to understand.  Sometimes Barb seemed so damned happy and proud to be with me.  That was a recently as three weeks ago.  The smile,excitement and love was sincere.  Barb is genuine.  I never caught her in a lie, perhaps an omission or two.  That is fair and expected. 


Then, it seem responsibilities, obligations, and worries kick in.  I become a chore and unnecessary in the space of a week.    


I have my flaws.  I think she still carries that wonderful Catholic guilt.  Her youngest son is a challenge.  I have been there done that.  Her perfect sister has convinced her that gluten is evil.  I am not into religion. and that bothers her that I will not likely be travelling to heaven.  It is hard to teach this old dog new tricks. 

Here is the main problem:  http://markmanson.net/fuck-yes

Fuck yes.  I only felt it at times from her and it scared her.


The sex was not fuck yes for me. 


The intellectual stimulation for me was not a fuck yes.


Best to move on.


I need a plan. I need some company.

Back to the dating pool.....