May 25, 2004

Knowledge without Wisdom is Useless

This EXTP girl leads with her senses and intuition. This means that I sometimes make decisions with facts and personal experience, and other times I let my intuition decide for me.

This morning in my daily conversation with Kris we discussed that N's (those who are intuiting) and F's (those who are feelers) can sometimes justify what they think is right by feelings and thoughts or be more easily swayed by another's thoughts or feelings. This is because we are more abstract thinkers. We are the "what if"-ers of this world. Concrete thinkers are the "this has happened so this is how it is" or "the rules say so, so it must be" of the world. Apparently 60% of the nation is concrete. That leaves 40% of us abstract. I know that statistics aren't the best measure of anything, but they are all I have to go on, so I am using them.

Feelers have to be careful in their friendships or at least their understanding of them. Emily at I Don't Think once wrote a post that discussed that just because she has these virtual discussions with people, some daily, it doesn't make them her friends. For example: I may have polite encouraging discussions with people on my site, but I am not that friend and neither are they mine. When I read this, I wasn't sure what to think. My interactions as of late have helped me along with this thought. Just because we comment on one anothers blogs; just because we might e-mail occasionally, doesn't make us "friends." Now, I can name a few that I truthfully feel (intuiting) and know that were we to actually meet and be able to physically spend time together (shopping, dinners at my house, lunches out, telephone conversations) we would be "friends." So, there are some that I think of as such, but in reality, with the rest we just have similar thoughts and have a mutual enjoyment of one another's opinions. This doesn't equate to the committment of a real relationship. To R I am committed; to my children I am committed; to Kris, Eddie, Flaca, Kelli; my extended family, but not you who read my thoughts, share my political lean, like my anecdotes of family life. Quite simply: typing my personal thoughts into a program that then publishes them on the world wide web for anyone to read doesn't equal friendship, and neither does my perusal of your published diary or political diatribes mandate my devotion to you. I think sometimes people think that and I know that I have allowed myself to think the same; in fact, most recently. So, now that I have wrongly intuited and wrongly sensed, I won't be making that mistake again. It may take both to teach me, but I do retain and rarely forget a lesson learned.

Posted by Rae at May 25, 2004 01:54 PM
Comments

I'm an ENTP and I rely on that "gut" feeling that us Ns have all the time. I need that face to face interaction to make the final decision though.

Posted by: emily at May 25, 2004 02:11 PM

Me too, Emily. A lesson learned, a fool I am not.

P.S. I have gotten carried away with reading way too much political stuff and haven't read you lately, but like I said above, "a lesson learned..." Am adding you to the Thinking Women of the 'Sphere, 'cause girl, you think :)

Posted by: Rae at May 25, 2004 02:22 PM

You know Rae I've been thinking about this as well, and I got to the point when I share only the things I think others might like to know about me, but, I "Keep my own Secrets for the ones closer to me".
Thanks for having me as one of your, you are one of the dearest to me, see you!!!

Posted by: virginia at May 25, 2004 08:01 PM

Very thought-provoking.

I admire your willingness to share your feelings even when it appears that you may have concerns about giving your affinity too freely.

I hope that life gives you more time and more opportunities to love.

Be well...

Posted by: David at May 26, 2004 01:49 AM

David, I hope life gives me more opportunities, as well. I needed to give myself perspective on this whole blogging/virtual "relationship" and determine where it was going and establish boundaries. I am not negating that a friendship can establish itself by means of the web, but I am saying that for me, it must be affirmed through personal face-to-face interaction.

What a lovely way to sign off; I rather like it.

How interesting that as I was reading your blog, you were reading mine and as you were commenting on mine, I was also on yours....

Posted by: Rae at May 26, 2004 02:29 AM

For those of us like me who see history repeat itself over and over again in people's lives, (I have 250 people in the production division that I lead) there is no greater red flag than "meeting on the internet" I'll be reading often.

Posted by: R at May 26, 2004 10:11 PM
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