INFJ Pondering

My family really enjoys weather-watching. We love to watch storms approaching on radar. Many, many times, we watch a huge storm comes straight towards us on radar but then it splits north and south and our village slides through the tiny gap between. Either that or the storm dies before it reaches us. It might be the geology of the land or influence of the lakes or something that causes storms to avoid us.

EJ and I didn’t think yesterday’s storm was as severe as predicted. When we sat on the front porch as the storm passed over us, the sky was mostly a featureless gray color. Only occasionally did we see a distinct cloud or two float by. We had a little bit of wind, a little bit of rain, and a few lightning bolts lace across the sky. EJ said that if we had paid for this storm, he’d want his money returned.

However, nearby towns were not so fortunate. The town where EJ works, which is just ten miles away, was hit particularly hard. Last night, I read comments on Facebook that the town looked like a war zone with trees and power lines down everywhere. A local news article said that there were 60 mile an hour winds, torrential rain, and a lot of lightning. The city manager said this is the biggest storm to ever hit the city. “The big problem we have right now is with social media, everyone’s aware of the damage and everyone’s out driving around town,” he said last night. “What I’ve witnessed tonight is fire trucks, emergency response vehicles and our electric vehicles stuck in traffic jams trying to get to the areas that need to work.”

Today we had a quiet, relaxing day, filled with study and interesting discussions. One of our discussions occurred while we were sitting at the kitchen table. Our cat Kee-Kee came up to me and gently pawed at me to indicate that he wanted some loving attention. “With the way the cats interact with you,” EJ mused, “You’d have been considered a witch in previous centuries.”

That started a conversation about how INFJ Personality types would have been perceived in the past. INFJs tend to love animals, nature and gardening. We are introverts. We think differently and more profoundly than others. “We are natural nurturers; patient, devoted and protective. We tend to be observers and listeners, we deeply understand people, we are concerned for people’s feelings, and we try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. For this reason, wounded people often come to us for love, acceptance, and advice. We are more skilled than most at accurately discerning what is happening in a given situation and we have uncanny insight into people and situations so we are often seen as mystical seers.”

So imagine a gentle “odd” woman in the 1600’s who thinks differently than others. She is an introvert who loves privacy so she has a little cottage at the edge of a forest away from others. She has a garden in which she raises herbs and she also goes into the forest to search for medicinal plants.

Since INFJs are natural nurturers, protectors, and Empaths who can’t bear to see anything suffering, I imagine she’d bring home injured wildlife to heal and she’d adopt stray cats and dogs, who’d respond to her gentle love. Villagers would also come to her for herbs and advice and find her insights perceptive and uncanny. That fits the old description of a witch. I’m sure that when times got difficult and people were looking for someone to use as a scapegoat, they’d accuse the INFJ of being a witch. I wonder how many were burned at the stake because they were who they were?

EJ said that in other periods of time, INFJs would have been perceived differently. I think it’s interesting to look at history through different eyes. I began searching to Internet to look up “famous INFJs.” I found several lists. Here is a shorter list from INFJ Anonymous. There are longer lists out there.

Non-Fictional INFJs: