- Me Rule: I used to think I had communicated in an unclear way. That I had explained myself wrong or that I hadn’t clearly laid out my premise or information.
- Stupid Rule: Then I thought people were dumb. Stupid.
- Teaching-Myself & Others Rule: Then I started teaching and I realized that my communication is clearer from learning how to teach better—-I’m often thinking of teaching like telepathy and a form of mind mapping. I listen to the other person and seek to understand their mind’s paths and “language”——their perceptual systems and ideas. And then I try to communicate in that way. Simple, complex, with illustrative narratives, teasing, jokes, straight facts but I attune myself to them to first understand then be understood. (yes, Covey is all over this one! lol)
Bigger and Better
Now I’ve moved into a broader way of seeing people. I do a lot of social psychology research, classes, learning and therefore rely upon the sound judgment and observations of people smarter than me in the subject of people. Leaning on or into their knowledge allows me to process people and their actions through that lens. I also regularly look for multiple reasons—-my damning one—-
- ”That son of a bitch did such and such because….!”—-that’s my damning thought. But that’s my thought of knowing the other inside and out AND their motivations.
- I then put that thought aside and look for an alternative—-”You know I bet he did that because as a child he didn’t get a whole lot of affection and loving, so he’s an asshole now because….”
- Then I add in a neutralizing thought to myself: “You know he SEEMS like an asshole to me because I’m assuring my own ego that he is considering me enough to be shitty towards me. but it’s not really about me, is it? He’s doing that because of his own reasonings and he’s not considering me. He’s not considering me.”
- “Will I die from this? What is the affect and effect upon me? Why am I really upset at this?” that’s generally my bigger introspective consideration for things that rub at me for longer than a moment or two. What is this reminding me of? What is this doing to me personally? Sometimes that includes the past where you changed the situation but not the person.
Example:
My mother was slowly getting sicker and sicker. I was visiting as much as work/time/holidays permitted from NYC to Charlotte. My stepfather was there but my mother, in her financial largesse, had essentially purchased him as a companion years before and he had only recently started working full time in security. But he was unhappy with that, always wanting to open a business. Finally my cousins suggested I find a way to come for an extended period of time—-visits and money and sending stuff wasn’t enough—-she was dying and he was cocking everything up. It took about 6 months but finally I was able to go, lock, stock and barrel.
He and I are driving along, probably to the rehab hospital she was in and he asks me, having been in Charlotte for awhile, what kind of business would I start?
(My mother had several businesses, when they met and had closed them out over the years. But he had the bug but not the work ethic or education.)
I was managing my media business—-books, TV show, etc. from my laptop—-I suggested that children had come to the house to offer lawn care/I’d seen bigger groups with vans doing the same; everyone in Charlotte drove entirely too much—-I become an expert on the bus system—-it stopped ten feet form the house lawn—-they would honk for me. 90 cents each way.—-so, auto care; and maybe real estate—-buying and renting out (I eventually investigated this deeper and their form of Section 8 Housing—-for lower incomes—-is an inspector comes out, proofs the house and then its listed on a website and the prospective tenants check it out and a voucher system is worked out—-owner paid monthly.)
Mike, the brain trust that he was, suggests that the lawn business sounded good. He could get some illegal Latinos to do the work/pay them cheap and I could manage them.
- One, I confronted his abject racism
- and then two, I pointed out that there are employment laws and logistical management of getting lawns-clients, which takes time, and there were bigger 1 man or more, services in operation, locking down neighborhoods and commercial sites——
- and three, I had a profitable media business that I was running from there and no interest in lawn care or its’ management, or being a manager of that kind of business……which is why for years prior and continuing, regularly getting a profit from it, I had a media business.
He was miffed and baffled. Actually he was also lazy—-wanting ME to think it up AND manage it. Because that would be my interest—-but he was thinking from HIS perspective and desires.
- He wanted to be a business owner. he’d even printed up business cards. But hadn’t done any of the work.
- He wanted to be in charge somewhere in his life—-he wasn’t even in charge in his marriage—-so he wanted to be Big Man, somewhere.
- He was greedy. We were riding in a Mercedes, that had seen better days, but with half of their household income going to medical bills—-he couldn’t afford the premium gas he was putting into it nor the expenses. He lost the key once and I chipped in and gave him the $300 for the new key fob. Yes, a Mercedes key fob is $300. A few months later I saw key fobs programmable for sale at the mall kiosk, $30. Having grown up in poverty he had horrendous money management skills which is why my family said I had to intercede—-eventually I just brought her back to NY upon her request.
But I tried to be all reasonable and stuff until I realized it wasn’t that my logic or budgeting or truth were somehow mis-communicated.
He was an idiot. Who’d grown up in poverty and been bought cheap by my mother, they burned through millions, had barely recovered to a middle class lifestyle, and now she, the Brain for years, had opted to eat herself to death, taking half the household money with her as she sat in a medical rehab for 2 years.
And here I was witnessing all of this.
In some ways, I didn’t want him to be an idiot because he was of course older than me and my mother’s husband, though never having been my father. He tried calling me son and such and I nodded politely. I’m not one of those nickname, baby goo gah people. Kyle, you may call me Kyle. Sir in a pinch.
More and more of his hairbrained schemes—-I should apply to foster kids down there for the check—-came out and I realized he wasn’t creativity looking for an outlet, he was an idiot looking for money. Manpower happened to see my resume online and that I was in Charlotte so they contacted me for a managerial position, ostensibly at a company campus there but after interviewing on the phone with the company—-they explained the 1st year at least would be in Oregon.
Mike was like it’s $80,000 a year when could WE get the money?
I gently explained to the fool that I had moved from NYC to Charlotte to be closer to and helpful with my dying mother. Would it make sense to move to Oregon to commute back and forth to Charlotte?
Oh, he said. He actually said Oh and I saw a little bulb alight in his head.
Then he asked why didn’t I just go onto Shark Tank and have them buy my business and get money for it so that I could be like Tyler Perry and have money?
It was then his rank stupidity (and my mother’s issues in choosing such a fool) were supremely evident.
I wish I could tell you he got smarter—-he didn’t. He went so far as to hire a lawyer—-because the County Clerk wouldn’t allow him to assume control of my mother’s interest in the house and short sell it. He wouldn’t allow the short sale because it made no sense—-the house, due to the Housing Recession, was underwater. It had been purchased for $110k—-high end for Charlotte—-but the recession knocked the value down to about $70k. I explained to Mike that historically real estate increases in value 3 to 5%, so it was a 7 to 10 year recovery time. But I could help him maybe expand the bedroom and kitchen—-the contractor original owner had designed the house plot on an acre in such a way that the foundation had been laid to expand one day.
The County Clerk, whom I had to get involved because originally my mother’s SSD was going into their joint account and Mike was spending it, putting the private rehab she was in into arrears—-my move was just have her check go to the rehab as everything else was covered but that check amount. Which they did. I had no interest in any form of control of their monies, nor signing my name to anything.
The judge then explains—-having merged the cases, my not knowing about Mike’s attempt to get her half to sell—-that he won’t do that either because if the bank takes the house at its current value of $70k, Mike has to move and still OWES $40k on top of whatever his rent will be elsewhere. Duh.
Then Mike tries to sue me in civil court for staying in the house—-not understanding as I explained years before when I would visit and stock up the house, clean it, pay bills, send things—-they were on a fixed budget that the State was administering and watching to allot Medicaid. If you have a rent paying tenant in your house then those monies become part of your household budget. Duh. He hires a lawyer but in a twist of fate—-it’s a civil case so the judge says I can cross examine him—-it was the highlight of the whole fucking sojourn to do so for an hour where I broke down everything financially. To the end of the case there was nothing to charge. So he paid thousands for the lawyer and time, I paid a small court fee and when he arrived at the house with the marshal to evict me—-I’d already left town with my mother the day before—-yet another expense to him. Thousands. It cost him thousands to get——-all the bills.
INTJ mastermind
rewindddddddddddddddddd flashback like in one of those movies………….
When I had arrived in August, standing in the hospital room with them, I thought to myself—-I should just plan this out and move her back to NY. He’s an idiot. I distinctly had that thought and idea but I thought to myself—-don’t be a control freak, if this is their choice—-aid, help but don’t control.
Six months later, when she wasn’t dying—-fast enough, I said to her I should go back to NY for the Spring semester/teaching, she begs me not to—-she suspects he’s having an affair. Don’t leave her alone. I stay and confirm that he is cheating but my family and I, tell him that it’s clear that their marriage will never be the same, so we don’t care, as adults. He refused to tell us the truth.
I saw him clearly then. he also kept asking me about insurance policies on her that I may’ve had. Finally she says she want to go back to NY, her disastrous marriage is over.
All the court bs was just my buying time to work out moving a house full of stuff, getting students to Charlotte to help with the packing and driving, designing how to transport her by plane or car and arranging an apartment in NYC.
An INTJ has already seen the outcome and potential steps through the situation. I had assessed it 16 months before we left. I simply was going to stay hands off.
He panicked that I was there—-trying to buddy-buddy up to me, control me, threaten me, he even made sure that the cousin who had sexually abused me as a child was at my mother’s birthday party (yeah, he was playing dirty pool.) But when I threw him out of his own house 6 months into being there, tired of his drama—-I told him he hadn’t raised me, I’d been off to college when she bought him and his ire was at her using up so much of his life—-that’s who he was really angry with and that I’d been helpful and silent out of piteous gratitude—-he’d taken the bullet for me so I could have a life, become a man and not become my mother’s son-husband under her financial control (did I mention when I chose to go to a collage she didn’t like she took away my trust fund, so I paid for college myself?) But he had chosen her/this life and he was sure as fuck going to ride this horse to pasture.
As an INTJ I can tell you that it took awhile to understand his anger was at her when he would slip and say things—-like faggot——around me and all of his little digs. But it wasn’t about me. The most difficult part of being in a situation where it seems like your every action and words are misunderstood is to understand that Mike is a liar, always has been which is why he was 10 days out of jail for selling crack to an undercover cop when he met my mother in an AA meeting.
I also had to understand her psychology in choosing such a person for abject control and manipulation and constant attention. Did I mention a few years earlier she had moved in a BOYFRIEND with her and her husband? A mess, they were a mess. Again, removing myself from the equation of their drama and barbs—-even telling them in the hospital that they could continue to say what they would—-I’d disconnected those buttons a long time ago. Push as you like, nothing would come of it.
I’d been free, a man, had money, wasn’t dying, and wasn’t leaving him like his mother had when she’d died when he was 13—-my mother, a psychology major saying that was her leverage over him that he’d never leave her because of transference of those unfinished childhood feelings—-I asked her did she know she was Darth Vader in manipulating him in such a way?
An INTJ sees everything but may hold off from acting for three reasons:
- Not everything do we need to fix, interfere in, control. Some things are in the purview of life, fate, chance.
- While capable of abject ruthlessness that would make Genghis Khan clap, we often are trying to measure out the appropriate response to dysfunction, resistance, etc.. Tactical nukes? Physical violence? Drug plantings? Sarcasm?
- A wise INTJ assumes that an adversary, an opponent, an enemy is as smart as him or smarter (I do) so I triple plan, triple check, double layer my responses and reactions. I try to do what I would do against Kyle to beat Kyle, assuming you are as smart or smarter than Kyle. (Which forces me to be more innovative.)
I came to forgive her and pity them both, and eventually understood that as a constant liar he assumed everyone was lying to him, for his same motivation of money, power, victimology-pity. He couldn’t see all that I am and was present as wanting to assist him because of his taking the bullet of my mother for me and being with her. He could not see the blessing that would stand by him in financial and death throes for her and mayhap for him one day.
Epilogue
Several years later, he is finally able to sell the house. They bought it 15 years prior for $110k. He sells for $116k. For shits and giggles I run a backtracker on the buyers——they had the house appraised—-for $156k.
After yearly property costs and moving—-he essentially paid the mortgage on a home——like rent—-for over a decade and got no equity as me and my older cousin, a mortgage broker, were trying to show him how to do. (My cousin suggested he sell the house to me for a dollar and then I rent it back to him. Mike didn’t want to do it, afraid I would throw him out. Which I did anyway. I would not have bought it as I knew it had at least 7 years to go to break even to its overpriced sale price—-neighboring homes were selling for $40k to $90k—-it was overpriced when they bought it. My idea had been the expansion of the master suite and kitchen—-I would’ve helped over the years to about $25k, which then would’ve given him a project to boss people around on, and at the same time increased the value to near what it was appraised for, or more. Or simply keep building and roll out in financing to buy another property and so on. Logic and thinking escapes Mike.)
Mike wanted to be in control, in power and get money, but lacked the thinking, education and patience to even maintain (yes, he’s still driving the rundown Mercedes….and let’s all clap at the current EXORBITANT gas prices. He was doing $150 a week then in gas, he’s hit over $300 now. He was eating turkey neck soup and free lunches at the security post. I’m sure it’s even tighter now. Yes, there’s something in here about culture/race and education as the elderly couple who bought the house and had it appraised—-White—-my cousin and I with superior strategic, financial and real estate acumen Black, therefore distrustful, to a Black Mike.)
If people misunderstand me, I look first at myself, my communication. Then at their communication ability and finally, I deeply allow for the fact that I’m seeing perhaps mutual benefit from the communication while they have an entire other agenda based upon culture, age, education level, critical thinking capacity. I find that I understand people better and understand why they might not ever understand me when I do the above.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenix
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