What does it feel like to be highly intelligent? by #KylePhoenix

 

It depends on if its’ supported by those around you or if you use it. I move through lots of environments—-differing intellectual spaces but I spend a lot of time, traversing, on trains, etc.——so I feel it more acutely—-the shifting of the intelligences around me and the usage of mine. Also teaching means that I’m always sort of directly looking at, evaluating thinking—my own and others, most people might or narrowly do so for their own—-it’s called metacognition—-thinking about one’s thinking. Or even critical thinking—-thinking critically about matters in front of you. Most—-like 80% of people do neither. Honestly, most people sort of plod along from intent to desire to stimulus to response.

I’m not saying people are bad or dumb, I’m just saying that like weight lifting or jogging or volleyball—-most people can physically do it but don't, specifically choose not to—-when the aerobic exercise, the stimulus, the action itself, would alleviate health issues, lengthen life, strengthen them. Freedom, freedom to choice, also has an inverse effect of people choosing NOT to do things——like think.

Point 1: It Feels Like I’m Doing Something That Most People Don't Do Regularly

Yesterday, preparing for an educational presentation, I was thinking about my own thinking—-what I do, don’t do, differently. I was then thinking about someone I’d been listening to, communicating with from school and the issues she was having. I thought about from not just what she’d told me but from my objective assessment of her—-age, race, children, social class, educational level, work history—-I enter all of the date—-including behavioral psychology, movements, facial ticks, idioms, your unconscious tells, the way you think—-I enter it all into a folder—-that folder in my head—-with your label on it is connected to a Server in my head that runs an assessment of you—-what do you believe—why? What would you believe? What’s your tell, your gaps, your lies, your ego, your consciousness, your history, your faults, your strengths, your flaws, you level of self-awareness, you trauma, your pain, your parents, your culture your political beliefs—-I sieve everyone through these things—-adding tidbits as I might gather from you over time so that my folder people isn’t simply Them as they’ve presented—-it’s also like a Test Mirror—-where I’ve designed a facsimile of the totality of you and the more contact and information I get—-I’m filling in the mirror jigsaw puzzle of your psyche. Half the fun is being right about someone—-whether they know or not and predictive analysis of what they'll do, how they’ll act, what they want, what they really, really want.

I don’t want to be right or aim for it to get some sort of masturbatory jouissance—-I aim to be right to complete my composite of you. Which is why I can stand and welcome contradictions and readjustments to my composite.

Most intelligent people want to be right—-I want the composite to be complete,

Point 2: It Feels Like I’m Often Ahead or Advanced From Where Others Are “At”

In conversation I often slow down, leave roadmaps, crumbs, red flags, large billboards—-I catch myself doing like a footnote to my own discussions—-which is how I know the other person’s place.

It’s like a radar—-or sonar—-I’m pinging you with ideas and words and concepts—-I’ve learned as a highly intelligent person to ping one at a time, less pings at a time and slow down to receive and de-code the returning ping.

But I’m often consciously doing this. I also sort of lie to people—-I know what you meant. I understand.

(When I say I understand, I’m not being ego satisfying or people polite—-I know what you meant. Being highly intelligent, means I know I’m smart, I have known since I was about 7—-

(I was just telling a friend how——-small I find compliments to my intelligence——because I’ve gotten them for decades from children, parents, teachers, peers, coworkers, strangers, train conductors, vagrants, cashiers, sales associates, cops, criminals, hookers, strippers, students, even animals. Telling me doesn’t enhance you in my view, nor does it enhance me or my ego. Imagine this—-I tell you that you have hands (if you do. Wow, your hands have 5 fingers! Wow.” Would you think I was————exactly, it would sound flat banal, pedantic to you. That’s how compliments to highly intelligent people sound based upon their being intelligent. Now if you tell us, something we’re working on—-is novel, the approach good, unique—-THAT is a compliment. The quality of the vehicle’s travelling, not the fact that Mongo has spotted a car.)

—-so I’m in no way ego tied to not knowing. I’m completely comfortable NOT knowing and learning—-which is an exercise to reinforce becoming smarter/highly intelligent. I’m not threatened by ignorance, I’m enlivened and enhanced by it.)

I slow down for YOU. I slow down so I don’t tell you that I knew the answer…about 20 minutes ago but I let you tell the story because I might even enjoy your company.

Check this: a friend wanted to have a birthday arty at a nice restaurant. We checked out two places downtown and uptown locations. he decided on the uptown, a dozen of us went, I paid, a good time was had by all. He then said to me months later, we should go back to that place. I said sure, it was one of my favorite restaurants. Favorite? he asked.

Sure, I’d been there at least half a dozen times before his party that year. And maybe 20 times or more over the past 5 years since I was first taken there by a firm I worked for. I often took dates, family, friends, students there—-I loved it. He pointed out I’d never said anything.

Like what? I asked. The whole history and bibliography of my history with the restaurant, it was germane. Was it?

I don’t always fill in my whole history with something because I might be enjoying you, the event, the place, etc. with and for you. But yes, technically, it’s a way of being ahead but I’m so used to being ahead, having done or thought or know things that in our sonar exampling of pining—-being highly intelligent allows me to catch the ping in mid-air as you send it out——and decide whether to ping it back or even when to ping it back to you.

Point 3: It Can Feel Like Others Are Being Lazy

People don’t strike me as dumb….exactly. As a teacher—-I hate the context of dumb. I prefer not knowing or not thinking about it deeper or hard enough. So we take Dumb off of the table and we’re left with Absence of Knowledge and Lack of Effort.

If you have a cellphone and access to the internet—-I think you have access to nearly all of the world’s knowledge. (I often point out to people online—-who ask what a word means or who someone is—-that they’re on the internet. Look it up. When I’m reading, chatting, interacting—-I highlight what you wrote or said that I’m unfamiliar with—-get the info, return to the conversation—-informed. It never occurs to me to ask you something that I can spot look up. I think that’s intellectually lazy.)

Point 4: It Can Make Reality Seem Incredibly Simple and Overwhelming At The Same Time

To the point of the below office politics I can see the whole web and be manipulating, ready to manipulate and actively controlling several strands, which seems like a 1000lb weight of effort to you. But imagine this, I’ve been lifting 1lb weights for 40 years, since I was a child. Do you think a 1lb weight feels like anything to me? The very act of practicing with a 1lb weight, until it was common means I don’t feel the weight, at all.

Observing the entirety of the web, the strands, manipulating and such—-a 1lb weight to me.

Now, if you think all of this manipulation and thinking and plotting and planning is overwhelming—-that’s to you, to your intelligence type and level. (I tried to say that as non-snarkily as possible.)

Point 5: It’s Easier To Manipulate, Shockingly So—-People, Places, Things

“Point 6: You Learn to Share Only a Percentage of Your Thoughts, Ideas; Share Selectively

While I am honest with people because I’m independent, not servile, clear. I’m often lysing. I’m often lying in not the quality but the quantity of what i share of myself. You’ll flip through these blogs and articles and links to books and TV shows and think—-”Wow, that’s a lot.”

Not really. There’s things I think that I have yet to write about or codify. In discussion with people I have learned to give either political answers—-which if you disassembled them you’d find were really non-answers about what I think about Tom, Harry and Judy. Or I given sort of banal, circular, non-judgmental answers to suit the listener’s capacity not so much my complete opinion.

“No, I don’t care for what Judy did in the meeting.”

(That cum burping viperous virago cunt in cheap shoes is at her cutesy Lolita fuck me little girl games with the boss again.)<That’s what I really think of her. (And the boss too. lol)

“No, I don’t care for what Judy did in the meeting.”

Now, you might think oh, we all do that. But I’ve perfected my professional face——and I’m having lunch with Judy in 20 minutes. Being intelligent teaches you to think, yes, but being highly intelligence teaches you that everyone can’t handle your thoughts so edit, edit, edit, edit, edit. rarely does anyone directly connected to a person or a situation get a clear picture of my thoughts about anything because I’m also sort of holding up a web of connections—-seeing those—-and seeing future consequences, ramifications and potential profits off of plucking each strand too much or too little.

See, we all think that about Judy. But I’m looking at the strands of what if I said it—-what if Kyle said it to her. What if i said it to you? Now what do you think about my saying that? About her? Suspecting I might think other things about you? What happens if you tell her? Now, i have to fess up to it—-stab her with it, or clan up the knife stab. That thought, my own, perhaps even objectively true has reverberations to it—-that’s what high intelligence allows you (me) to do—-foresee the reverberations of….everything. My intelligence has gotten higher since I was a child because I keep exercising that muscle—-foreseeing reverberations along a single strand—-incorporating what I know of you, Judy, the boss, the company, the stock price of the company, when our boss’s boss visits, the FedEx guys crush on Judy, Judy’s husband, my parking space, the donut guy, Judy picking up my lunch (and potentially spotting in it now) and on and on.

Going back to Judy and the boss and his boss and how they see me, I choose and cultivate for them to see me—-yes, manipulation—-I need to control my commentary because I might need to gently are with you because I need your help/friendship/fealty in 3 months time for that thing you don’t know is coming up. So I need you to feel agreement with me so that it’s easier to get agreement form you in 3 months time BUT I can’t alienate you with too harsh of a comment and I can’t trash Judy because of her, you, the boss, the boss’s boss.

So I give a neutral comment with a dash of color but not deep animosity commitment. I deflect it to not Judy but how Judy did something in the meeting so even if this Who Shot John comes back to me, I have room to spin it.

Whizzing

It feels like you’re all, the majority of you (until I met other highly intelligent people—-I’ve known about a dozen so far) are all doing something purposefully, sluggishly, lazily. But with time and maturity, I’ve come to understand it’s difference and quality of thinking/questions, etc..

It’s the difference between someone whizzing on the highway, like in The Matrix, on a motorcycle, between cars and trucks at a high speed. Whizzing, whizzing, whizzing.

And I’m watching that, from a remote controlled helicopter ten thousand feet up—-that’s live feeding to a satellite 100,000 feet above the helicopter.

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

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Can a genius spot other geniuses? by Kyle Phoenix

 

Yes but I would add that the caveat to my ability is that I not only teach but have focused on learning how to teach people and therefore gone much deeper into cognitive strategies (what people are actually learning by example of outcome) and the neurobiology of learning.

Two examples:

First Example:

Wandering around on Facebook doing marketing work, I’m a member of several “writer groups”. Sometimes, maybe 1 out of 10 posts are interesting, garner interesting thoughts, ideas. Most are amateurs lamenting that when you place the pen to the paper or finger to the keyboard, you then have to make an effort to make a mark/letter—-very basic ideas-questions.

Occasionally though someone will ask something or illustrate something brilliant. it’s generally done very softly, almost casually with a short reference to something else, a good bibliography to a writer that might not fall into the 100+ contemporary schlock writers. They generally catch my eye. Sometimes in writing sample—-it’s thoughtful, deeper, pushing towards…something. rarely is it someone going on and on, lamenting about their writing or worldbuilding or some such—-it’s generally someone not so much struggling—-as progressing. Good writers progress, bad writers lament and sigh and whine. In sometimes a very short forum/post I can see someone doing something interesting, pushing a boundary. Like I said it’s rarely to see in action online.

Second Example:

Several years ago I was working at Wal-Mart—-I was in Charlotte to help with my terminal mother—-but ironically folk don’t die as fast as their imminent death is seen—-so I rush down in August—-lock, stock and barrel——and along comes February—-still alive. I have cleaned the 3 bedroom close form top to bottom—-I’m starting to crawl around with nail clippers to do the grass; the highlight of my day is whether to walk 8 country blocks to the Lion King supermarket or to expand my walking sojourns (I didn’t buy a car because who thought I would be there that long.) to find other stores, life, people, something—-I find that there’s a Walmart where the bus that literally stops 50 feet form the front door will take me to for ninety cents. At first I was going to work for a pawn shop at a mini mall—-I would stop there to buy DVDs to take to my mother in the hospital but Walmart offered more in terms of benefits. I wander in apply and they literally snap me up like lobster meat at a wedding reception—-like the local plasma joint where I regularly donate plasma—-I am a unicorn—-educated, responsible, able to do all of their wonderful Computer Based trainings.

I land at Customer Service, the front desk because I can pass so many of the If/And trainings about returns, exchanges and I really didn’t want to be a cashier on anything but spot days—-for an hour or so (I know it’s odd but I enjoy being a cashier——I have since high school. If I could make $100k doing it—-I’d be there in a snap! lol)

So I’m whizzing through customers with a variety of items and issues—-there are 3 Basic Rules for a Return Exchange so for me it’s not that difficult of a job and it gives me something to do other than writer, shop and go to the hospital.

A young woman, about 19, 20 brings to me an item, an issue and next to her is her son—-maybe 3–4 years old. I explain the rule for whatever the issue is, what I can do and the little boy asks me a question about the computer console—-I probably had to look up something against her receipt.

It’s a deeply intuitive question—-like is the price different today than it was the day she bought the item?

A jump for an adult to make from my silent finger machinations but a LEAP for a child.

I answer his Yes and explain that it’s from another store so I have to cross reference it.

Are all of the stores connected? Do all of the stores have different prices?

Yes, little boy they do. Yes, they are.

Are the prices shifting on sort of a wave—-a predetermined sequence?

Ok, the first couple of questions and more importantly his enunciation of words, his direct pronunciation of words, his ability to visualize what I am doing—-what MY questions are and how I’m using the computer system proof him as exceptional.

Why Exceptional?

One, I rarely change the level of my intellectual language towards children, especially if they show an ability to understand me. I might simplify—-I’m talking about the red ball moving from this space to that—-but I don’t lean down and do the whole goo goo gah gah bullshit and talk slower or pitch my voice higher. I talk to children the same way I talk to animals, adults, inanimate objects. So the fact that he’s tossing back not only cogent questions but clearly understanding me, not parroting words back at me catches my teacher “ear”—-measurement eye.

Is there genus? No, not the way people casually mean it but you have to give space—-as I do in discussions with adults—-that most people know learning of higher concepts from TV and movies. So they take a false/fictionalized projection and layering it onto reality——assuming that their projection is right because of the layering.

Subpoint:

All them Facebook writer posters also needing validation for writing and a lot of the pat answers being to write more—-are true to a point. You also need Deliberate Practice to enhance, challenge and guide over and over for thousands of hours to become even the schlock writers they worship. No one wants to hear that. They just want Anne Rice to be a “genius” because her book has been written well enough, better than they can write—-so she must be a genius—-as when the curtain is parted and she’s standing there with her book——millions of people applaud it.

What this does is one, put some folk into a special category of ability which explains their creation/output and two, it sort of determines that you, when you find what they’re doing hard to duplicate—-are not a “genius—-you weren’t born that “special” way so when you quit—-like a couple of months in—-are at no fault.

Rather than the truth—-the people you see as geniuses have stood still on a stage for you—-the curtain was pulled back and you saw them and screamed “Genius!”

The curtain closes and that person goes back to thousands upon thousands of hours of practicing all of the micro actions, with help from teachers and mentors and schools and ever increasing challenges and outline by people with greater ability——then the curtain parts again and you see them standing there with another creation and you scream “Genius!”

What this does its it allows you to let yourself off the hook for not being good at something rather than going backstage and seeing all the things they do for that unveiling.

So that little boy in Walmart—-I pulled him and his mother out of line and gave her directed advice about how to raise and educate him—-how to fan the spark in a true flame that I spotted in him——generally in poverty children of capability POTENTIAL—-just potential—-like a supermodel who is 14 years old—-she COULD be pretty with the right training, make up, clothes, exposure, modeling agency—-that little boy COULD be very intellectually gifted IF she:

• encouraged and didn’t discourage his questioning of the world
• his intense verbiage and communication—-he’s picked up on the world MORE words than normal for his caste. Generally, it’s about 1000 words in totality, a child in poverty is regularly exposed to—-go ahead listen to some. But a child in Middle Class or higher—-gaining MORE words—- is exposed to 25,000, and 10x more—-up to 250,000 in wealth. (You just learned the difference between public school, parochial school and private school.) What they are learning ultimately are more words to describe reality and their internalized feelings, intellectualizations, etc. Those additional words are coming from books and teachers and such, that are saying things like “Okay, yes, that is a tree but now here are different kinds of trees by season, by region, by species, etc.—-now where you had the base identifier of “tree” you now progressively have say 100+ different kinds of trees—-by name AND you have information about seasons, weather, colors, surrounding fauna—-another 5000+ ideas that attach to the idea of “trees”.”

The little boy in Walmart sort of presented knowing multiple kinds of trees—-an associative connection and that there were seasons that affect the trees in his reality—-summer, Christmas, his birthday—-spotty——but he’s picking up some stuff.

In many ways what I was hearing/seeing in him is a form of the fertility of his mindscape. Yes, going around I hear the depth, growth, deadness and potentiality of everyone’s mindscape——because I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours listening to people, comparing them, assessing them, reading about the mind, about the neuro-biology of humans, etc.—-I’m not just in this for shits and giggles.

I sometimes take students with me onto the NYC subways and I point out to them the gradation of education of potentiality I see and hear in people. Some of my bolder students will go up to the target and ask them specific question—-my teacher says you completed high school, got your associates degree; that you got a four year degree and that both of your parents have degrees; that you have a masters; that you’re currently in school; that you dropped out. I’m never wrong.

Think of it like frequencies—-I’m listening to—-and other teachers are listening to the frequencies given off by children and adults. I can hear in that little boy potentiality—-his frequency is burst much higher than most children his age.

Talking to his mother—-she had a high school level education—-that level of education, without further education, dimming (Yes, in that short time I could hear her frequency.) So, say she was a solid A to B student by the end of 12th grade. She hasn’t done rigorous course work so she’s slid down to a 10th grade level, maybe a B- student, if we stuck her into a testing situation right now—-(I taught GED classes to adults for years and what the real challenge was was evaluating where the adult was at, inserting appropriate materials and enhancing—-sort of looking for where they had “atrophied to”—-what they knew, were good at, had picked up——all different “levels”.)

But I could tell the little boy’s mother wasn’t busting no intellectual moves—-she was regularly only watching TV, movies, playing on the internet—-not even reading books regularly—-which would help sustain her intellect, but not increase it greatly as she might not challenge herself with more and more complex books. Zane is one level, with dozens of books—-Toni Morrison is another level, with a dozen books too.

(I once gave a young mother the Morrison books I had on me—-we were on the 2 train and she was sitting with her baby, trying to get through Sula, frustrated. I told her to keep on pushing and here’s some more when you’re done with that—-go get the others. That’s what teachers do.)

Mothers, Children, Fathers and Grandparents

The young mother at Walmart had probably been slightly derailed by having a child so young. Some of his high propensity/potentiality might have to do with having her as such a close parent when her educational infusion was so intense——high school—-so while she might slowly dim—-there’s a point-place where it’s like her mental sunlight is over-focused in his direction—-maybe not intentionally completely but enough——to get some buds sprouting. The education of children, pointedly in poverty happens in two dimensions—-if the maternal father—-my mother’s father——encourages his daughters to educate past 14 and then mothers directly sharing that education with their children. Which is what my great-grandfather did with my grandmother and her sister, and then my grandmother did with my mother—-the last of four children and the first to go seriously to college. Imagine how gratified I was to be able to track my own prodigiousness when I started learning the social classism and psychology of education.

I also told the mother at Walmart to:

• not be frightened of her child’s burgeoning intellect—-it is useful, winning in life, not a threat to her. I told her this because something parents don’t know how to discuss is smart children will bust you in your bullshit. It’s one of the reasons why poverty self-perpetuates—-adults, who might be wrong—-tell their thinking children to shut-up, to not question, to not investigate——and all of the world and advancement is about thinking, questioning, investigating.
• Provide him with as much stimulus as she could in books and games and coloring books now and more importantly when he got into school keep adding stuff—-from the Walmart book aisle——BUT do it TWO grades beyond where he was at—-force him to advance, to operate at a higher level.
• I was teaching her a rough formation of Deliberate Practice.

The elements of deliberate practice:

1. Deliberate practice is structured and methodical
2. Deliberate practice is challenging and uncomfortable
3. Deliberate practice requires rest and recovery time
4. Deliberate practice involves constant feedback and measurement
5. Deliberate practice is most effective with the help of a coach or some kind of teacher
6. Deliberate practice requires intrinsic motivation
7. Deliberate practice takes time and can be a lifelong process
8. Deliberate practice requires intense focus
9. Deliberate practice leverages the spacing effect (the spacing effect refers to how we are better able to recall information and concepts if we learn them in multiple sessions with increasingly large intervals between them.)

Or, concerted cultivation:

• Concerted cultivation is a style of parenting. The expression is attributed to Annette Lareau. This parenting style or parenting practice is marked by a parent's attempts to foster their child's talents by incorporating organized activities in their children's lives.
• Concerted cultivation is a middle class style of parenting that involves deliberate cultivation of a child's development. In contrast, the accomplishment of natural growth is a style of parenting more common among working class and poor families.

What I was trying to convey to her—— at her level of understanding—-from the incredibly odd man at Walmart Customer Service—-(I explained some of my resume, teaching background)——was the above—-little things she could do that he would latch onto until most importantly, he was in school, in an environment where other teachers would notice him and encourage his development. Luckily there was another teacher in line who came over and helped me talk to the mother——so she wasn’t freaked out—-because from her perspective, we just told her her child was a mutant and could one day be an X-Men….. but we needed her to get insight into him——and in some ways stop ignoring his prattle—-something was potentially happening there.

In sum then, genius is concerted cultivation—-the environment the child grows up in supporting them, married to Deliberate Practice.

Mozart

His father was a music composer. He and his sister were taught music from toddler age then pressed to perform all around Europe. The bread and butter of the family was dependent upon their performances. He supposedly composed his first serious piece at 4. But consider this—-your child is good at something you’re very good at—-before you let them show it to the world, would you help them make corrections, clean it up a bit, help translate what they mean?

And music was all these kids did all day—-there was no TV—-and it was also a way to not only get audience cheering/feedback/fame but also their father’s loving, devoted attention.

Simple. Now you know how geniuses are developed and created.

All of that to say yes, real knows real—-I could spot that little boy (and others on the subway and online)—-I could see their sparks because I’ve studied looking for sparks and nurturing that to fires. Is it based upon my own prodigiousness? I would say that what I’ve personally done is dissected my family of origin, their education and its’ effect because I’ve studied and taught the effects of education. In the examining of myself, my college educated parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents in comparison to my lesser educated cousins, aunts and uncle—-I can see distinctive differences in the handful of us, including several college educated cousins based upon that education.

I can even see, now that I reflect on it, though two cousins went into education—-one with my help and an older one as her second career—-that their education-prodigiousness was to the goal of work/career. Mine has been to an edification end AND my career. I like understanding things, ideas, myself, education, students, teaching, learning, how people learn, how to teach. One of my strengths is Ideation (from the Gallups Assessment.) I get off on learning/knowing things. To that end having been marked as prodigious since about that boys age in Walmart—-smart, genius etc. for decades form teachers, peers, social workers, therapists, parents, frailly, coworkers, lovers, professors—-I know I’m smart.

I recently had a conversation with a coworker—-we were doing something completely unrelated to the discussion we were having about my having attended Long Island University as a teen=—-as part of an extension program from high school—-a soap opera club where me and my best friend Sean were filming a student soap opera (I’d written the 200 page screenplay.) The advanced program went on for 2 years teaching us all about lights, cameras, filming—-we did great projects and met Spike Lee and his partner Monty Ross—-it was a great experience. (and yes, I heard the professors/teachers discussing myself and another young guy as the “best” in the class with the most potential.)

My coworker a few days ago looks at me, like she’s discovering something and says—-”You are smart.”

I laughed because we’d talked about this before—-I told her that the a beautiful woman and a smart man KNOW they’re beautiful and smart, it’s unnecessary to tell them. In fact, I have a beautiful friend—-she’s startlingly beautiful,, and knows it but doesn't live in that vanity—however she dismisses people—-men and women—-when they tell her that. She knows. She’s 50 and has known since she could understand language and deference and privilege.

I’m the same way about smarts. So what I think of my own genius is that really it’s YOU in the audience masturbating to the curtains popping open and you think you’re seeing fireworks spontaneously come out of my butt. Curtains close and I go back to logging another hour or reading, thinking, writing, over 50,000+ hours now, into the Genius Machine of Kyle.

What I was trying to convey to that young mother, sort of a seed within a seed implanted into her to implant into him, is for her to normalize his abilities as they develop. To encourage and foster them, concerted cultivation, but not squash them or masturbate to them.

Being smart, testing really, really, really high since I was a child, I know how useless the term genius is—-unless you’re getting that Macarthur Fellowship! lol What is more important is learning and doing the work that interests you, that feeds you, that allows you to travel and explore with other smart, wise, useful, good people.

So yeah, I spotted another genius—-and right in front of everyone I slipped him (hopefully) the secret seed, inception, of how to be free of such a bullshit term.

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

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How do you feel when you are misunderstood, as an INTJ? by Kyle Phoenix

 

• 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.

1. He wanted to be a business owner. he’d even printed up business cards. But hadn’t done any of the work.
2. 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.
3. 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