INTJs, their intelligence and the love affair with Ayn Rand

(This was my response on an INTJ Forum to a fellow INTJs struggle on trying to fit in with the 'mediocre' society and finding salvation in Ayn Rand's writings...)

Personally - I think The Fountain head is a sort of a catharsis pill for INTJs. For a few days, you will go "OH MY GOD!!! At last my philosophies have been articulated to the last word!!! Why can't everybody read Ayn Rand and make life easier?????" The book has given you a justification to 'hate' the 'non-intelligent' ones, who are a "burden on earth". Division, separation, isolation are the words I can think of. 

Slowly, the hate and bitterness itself becomes the problem :-) Read Atlas Shrugged to confirm this statement - because it does seem like Ayn Rand faced it herself :-)

The fact that INTJs are a small minority, successful, usually top of their class does not help in calming our feeling of superiority.

And then you are like: "If I am the best, why am I bitter?" The justification that you are just too smart for others to understand seems logical, but DOES NOT SEEM TO WORK.

At this point, thankfully, the INTJ's passion for truth over logic, comes in handy. You take a U-turn and read works which talk about the things that Ayn Rand had taught you to abhor.

Slowly, you will discover that intelligence need not be trivialized in order to achieve humility(Humility cannot be 'cultivated' anyway). It's of course a gift to be intelligent. More useful than being taller or stronger perhaps. And that's a fact. But it is important to really digest another fact, that to the world, there is no difference between a dumb guy; and a guy who is intelligent but cannot figure out a way to make the world understand. You might know that they need you, but they don't! You can't go "I will prove to you why you need me by giving an explanation that I don't think you would appreciate".. :-)

'Learning the other language' is one beautiful way of putting it. But again, you might end up imposing YOUR language on the others - because you are thinking you are doing them a favour by thinking of great ideas AND taking efforts to explain it to them. Again bringing you back to square one. People won't listen to you because they think you are arrogant, who can successfully "prove" that he is humble. Well, who cares!!

So instead of focussing on how to make people accept your intelligence(because they need you more than you need them), it might be more useful and practical to realize that you need them too. Really need them. Not as a relaxing break, but really need them. Maybe fewer times, But when you DO, the number of times does not matter. Personally, whenever I try going back into my past, to examine the people who have mattered most, I find its not someone who explained a complicated concept to me. It usually someone who was beside me when I was down(despite my intelligence). Someone who loved me unconditionally and the moments that showed it. People who were not afraid to tell me the truth, even if I might have hated them for it, because they simply cared too much. People who did not say "Forget it, he thinks he's too intelligent" the same way I said "Forget it, they are too dumb!". And those FEW moments made ALL the difference. They are independent of the number of times I was there for THEM.

Need another rational explanation? Note that INTJs maybe very successful at some things. But those "measures of success" might not be what really matter. Because those measures were invented by the same 'irrational world' that you are sick of :-) What really matters might be something nobody values. Nobody articulates. Maybe because its hard to put a value on. You might be better off trying to figure out those things, rather than the 'easy' stuff that makes you 'successful'. The irrational idiots make those success things seem big. As an intelligent INTJ, you have to know better :-)