so put down that broom, and build yourself an outhouse.
I wish my introduction to this topic had not been so scatological, as a close relative [but not that close!] described how people were getting poop enemas, the poop coming from immediate family members, to repopulate their innards after a particularly brutal run, pardon the pun, of antibiotics, or to combat other, seemingly less related, autoimmune disorders.
And it seems to answer a question that we have often wondered about: why weren’t kids dropping like flies from peanut allergies when we were kids? And is it really true that autism rates, for example, are increasing, or are we just seeing increases in numbers of people seeking and finding medical attention and more and more knowledgable medical personnel, giving better diagnoses?
So back to the inimitable Russ Roberts, who seems to be on a roll, finding yet another book we would all like to pretend to have read, An Epidemic of Absence, in which the author discusses how researchers went from looking for things that had been added to our environment to looking for things that had been removed, to help explain modern epidemiological findings.
Unfortunately, after it is over, you will discover everything really was your mother’s fault, and it is too late to do anything about it.
Oh, and all those jokes about the farmer’s daughter? It turns out you will wish that apocryphal slut had been your mother:
Velasquez-Manoff on Autoimmune Disease, Parasites, and Complexity
Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Moises Velasquez-Manoff, author of An Epidemic of Absence, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book–a discussion of why allergies and autoimmune diseases have been on the rise in the developed world for the last half-century. Velasquez-Manoff explores a recent hypothesis in the epidemiological literature theorizing the increase is a response to the overly hygienic environment in rich countries and the absence of various microbes and parasites. Velasquez-Manoff also considers whether reintroducing parasites into our bodies can have therapeutic effects, a possibility currently under examination through FDA trials. The conversation continues a theme of EconTalk–the challenge of understanding causation in a complex world.
So do have an ashful Ash Wednesday, there just might be something to it!
Spooky coincidence, that you are on to a health topic, while I just stumbled onto this elsewhere:
McKinley Morganfield brings me out of my INFJ shell every time. Thanks Xty. Been in a funk, mostly weather related. Found DP’s post about the worst winter in Milwaukee and Moline in 60 years to be affirmation of my experience. Grew up 20 miles from Moline and have spent my entire life not much more than 100 miles from either.
Also, being away from the internet last week really got my introverted juices flowing. I did feel compelled to say a bit now though, just to add something because I take away a lot from here.
I will be back later, if and when I get the wife’s car unstuck from our lane (lane = much bigger than a mere driveway for you city folk). 5 in. snow on top of ice.
we got 6-7 inches of snow somehow even though the official total was 4.1… but i have it figured out. at 4″ a snow emergency is called, and they have to plow all the streets. but i believe that the city was broke before the winter from hell even started! so i’m fine with the optimism. taxes are still relatively low in my city and county.
i am going to retake that Myers Briggs test. all i remember for sure now is that i’m an IN. but i thought initially that my wife was an FJ, and i was a TJ, but now i’m not even sure of that. and DN thinks i’m not even a J. oh well, poor record keeping, and even worse memories. hope retaking it doesn’t introduce any bias.
i picked up some steaks to grill out. EO’s advice. it is supposed to be warmer now! is it too much to ask to be above freezing? we actually go off Daylight Savings Time this weekend.
no time for the book review yet, but i’m not that worried either… i’m probably going to live a long time since i went to Tijuana all the time when i was in my 20’s.
oops. just realized i’m going to hell. 😀
woofers to 11, tweeters to 7.
lol @ DP… If you were a “J” you would have better records! But you are definitely a ‘P’, (like me, take it as it comes, do stuff at the last minute, ‘no plan, no problem’.)
https://www.personalitypage.com/INFP.html
–
–
Xty=INFJ. Raising and schooling the kids might have caused the mis-test. https://www.personalitypage.com/INFJ.html
Both introverts who ‘think inside their own head’. And both use Intuition and Feeling, but the order, and type of N and F are both reverese from INFJ and INFP.
An INFP is primarily an introverted feeler (Fi), with extroverted intuition Ne being secondary.
An INFJ is primary intuition (Ni) with extroverted feeling (Fe) being second.
INFJ 1st Ni 2nd Fe
INFP 1st Fi 2nd Ne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuTtRjqnXJo
I took two different type tests online this morning. ISTJ on one, INTJ on the other. This seems about par for the course. Generally I’ve probably tested INTJ about 2 times out of 3 overall. As I read the descriptions for both I can see parts of both, but the INTJ stuff always hits closer to home for me. I read it and say “Yes! That’s it!”
INTJ has traits that excite me. ISTJ has traits that bore me.
What I’d like to do is find a bunch more tests, and take them all, and find the differences between them. And look at the data. My own, and what sort of stats the tests themselves are based on. Why did they select the questions that they did?
Seems like something an INTJ would want to do. Then I’d get all this information, and then do absolutely nothing with it, except let it collect dust somewhere. That would be me.
Then I’d revisit it like 10 years later, right out of the blue. Because it’s really been percolating in my head the whole time. Just running in the background. And I’ll be thinking the whole thing is flawed, and that if I took the time I could probably come up with something better…though I probably won’t because I have other more interesting problems to solve.
Seems like my life is littered with projects that are about 95% complete. Because actually finishing up something is not the least bit interesting. My eye begins to wander toward other new projects that are much earlier in the process and far more interesting.
Love this morning’s vid- “ain’t nothin’ but a good time”. Mr Lovett came up a bit in my world for having written this. My family certainly doesn’t understand how I can be content with no outside distractions. I used to drive my kids crazy by driving with no radio, cd, or tape playing.
I don’t know to what extent growing up when I did and where I did manifests this, or was I always predisposed to be this way. Actually, I think as I matured and learned to be comfortable within I embraced it as a predilection. I may not have always been this way because I remember wishing Dad would get radios for our tractors like my uncles had, but I guess I learned to endure those long hours of silence and thus got set upon this path.
I wonder too if living within gives you the mental agility to have a more interesting time in dreamland. My wife says she never dreams, I do quite often and usually enjoy and marvel at the experience. Colors, contortions, and concubines abound.
I’ll relate a tamer but amusing episode from a few years back. I used to raise a lot of sheep. There were always coyotes around but we had a guard dog as protection. Whenever the coyotes would howl at night, sometimes quite close by, that dog would howl in unison. Unfortunately, the dog had to be put down one day. That night I dreamed that the coyotes were howling, and with no return howl from the dog, I feared they would be emboldened to approach. So of course I would have to howl myself to keep them at bay- which I was doing as my wife poked me awake. Immediately we heard the bathroom door open and someone going down the stairs who would have had to have heard me. Turned out to be daughter’s 15 y.o. friend. To this day we wonder what she thought was happening in our bedroom.
EO- must be the I and J interaction because I’m the same way with projects.
I can just see the conversation.
Honey! (sharp elbow) Honey! You are howling again. Go back to sleep. 🙄
too funny
Same ‘problem’ here growing up, no tractor radio for years unlike uncles/cousins tractors that all had them. back and forth from morning til night,… dust, plenty of thinking time, diesel exhaust, and no radio. (just remembered with the breeze would be going the same direction and speed as the tractor when disking/cultivating… one way would be fresh air, the other way would be a big cloud of dust that went right along.
EO, between those two (INTJ/ISTJ) your plan to resolve sounds 100% INTJ.
“S” people prefer to “do” stuff, build stuff, “See” it with their eyes, they like action movies where “N”s are more into the story of the movie.
My wife (an E S F J) will repeat an entire conversation verbatim when telling me a story, e.g. something that happened at her work.
“and then she said . . . and then I said . . . . . and then she said . . . . . .and then I said . . . . and then she said . . . exactly as it happened!! (it’s maddening). The whole time, my “N” (ENTP) is trying to listen (or not) and figure out “What’s the point? Summarize, for crying out loud!! lol
But her Si clearly saw and heard that conversation, and her J is going to replay it all back to me in exact order. There’s nothing i can do to stop it!!! (At least not prevent it anyway, i have learned a few tricks if i can catch it before it reaches critical mass)
I swear, the best thing we ever did to improve the “live and let live” factor here was to read up on each other’s types. After reading mine (ENTP) she was like “ohhhh, so THAT’S what’s wrong with you!! Now I know why you’re such a mess, and never finish projects” etc etc.. (an NT thing)
(no idea how that pic might paste in)
And now to go have a fun day doing who knows what… I wish you guys all lived in Florida so I wouldn’t be afraid to complain about it being 40 degrees and windy… cause it really is cold for here, but yeah… i watch your weather and can’t even imagine..
DN- try to imagine this- like EO, I have worn flannel lined jeans all winter. And unlike you, I have a love of thick, warm, comfortable socks. I scored a major coup at the Eddie Bauer outlet store in Destin, Fl, scarfing (not the winter kind) up a couple of pairs 70% off of $12.99. They look like the same ones they list online at $25/pr.
Also try to imagine cabin fever. I’m sitting here on a bright sunshine 20F. day and the sun makes me restless, but what is there to do? First choice is taking the camera out, but bright sun and snow makes for very poor light/contrast control.
So maybe I’ll set off to edit and rework some photos, perhaps post some here if I’m satisfied w/ results.
i took the test at humanmetrics.com
i’m I 78, N 50 T 1 J 78, so strongly introvert, moderate intuitive over sensing, pretty even on thinking vs feeling, and strongly judging over perceiving.
i wonder if my style of writing threw you off on the judging vs perceiving part DN?
Dude, just saw where you guys are supposed to be getting some warm air this weekend. My folks are still in north Mo., and even Mom who is the eternal optimist, has had enough of this winter.
DP- to the J/P… I think you’re testing J because you have had to develop J habits even though you’re not a J personality.
For example, my Mom (again) is an ENFP. She is very much a “P”, so much in fact that she always has to make lists of important things to do otherwise she will forget them entirely. So she has all these lists and stuff and does them in order, which is very J like. then on the MBTI test she mis-tested J. which was obvious when validating preference by preference, and through the type descriptions.
In fact, that’s the most common mis-test, people testing J when they are P. Attributing it to Ps having to develop J habits to fit into this ‘control freak’ world is just my theory as to why. But i’m sticking with DP=INFP, and for now believe that testing otherwise (toward T and J) reflects required lifestyle habits that were necessary for life in the rat race.
Anybody please give me the “Hey DN, enough of the MBTI stuff already!!” if i’m being a nuisance.
My Brother-in-law (Instructor Pilot for U.S. Customs) has been going to all the official schools, so I’ve been working with him on it for months and gotten into it more than some types might like to hear about. But with this winter, I’ve read more, and watched every movie ever made, and this stuff, . . so ?
I have looked and looked for a good movie reviewer that has my taste… so I can just watch their old reviews that they liked. So far no luck. I do trend more with the Audience than the critics on rottontomatoes.com but that’s about it.
i will look into this stuff some more. the INTJ description though does seem to describe me quite well. remember that i’m right at the middle between T and F. i had a difficult childhood – both parents and a brother suffer from mental illness. home life was extremely rigid – my brothers and i, even our friends all called my Dad “Adolf”. i also hate, no i despise the “rat race”. so maybe i am not testing true like you said.
i am more interested at the moment in my other recent epiphany. i truly am able to feel others emotions, even at a distance, like over the internet. i did not realize that this is relatively common, and that there was so much information available on the web. Xty’s link to the Orloff website opened up Pandora’s box for me. if you guys read up a little on what is termed intuitive empathy, you will better understand my behavior at the other place. some of you probably will be skeptical, and i am fine with that! you won’t be able to change my mind though, so don’t waste any time trying! 🙂
glad to have you guys to talk to. i am better at talking through the written word being an INTJ don’t ya know? so thank you all for your contribution here. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I have to confess that for some reason much of this does not stick in my brain – but I wanted to add that I am certainly fitting the bill, and lately, feeling a bit gloomy, have had the incorrect feeling that I am never left alone, and that there is something external preventing me from thinking clearly or getting things done. But I am pretty sure it is internal and that I just go a little numb sometimes when life either piles up, or in this case, only appears to pile up. I think everything just got easier, and yet I have this feeling of impending doom … I am more and more convinced that this mindset is a product to a large extent of hormonal changes, in both men and women, it just isn’t studied properly for men, even though they call it menopause … I know it passes, and also in this case the deep cold, combined with the slippery outside world that hampers my movements at the moment so much, has taken a toll. Also the long caring for mum I think has had a lingering effect.
So feeling somewhat turned inward indeed, true to type.
Much sympathy and empathy to living with mental illness. And that is not a good nickname for your dad to have had … did you live with corporal punishment as well?
I just took it again. The result is pretty similar to what I remember from before. But a) I am in a weird mood, and b) there is no doubt the answers to some questions are the result of learned behaviours.
Oh, and the rule of thumb in our house about critics, although going to the movies turned into a youth thing and now they are too broke too, was if the movie was panned by the critics it might be worth seeing, but if they liked it, stay away.
I was going to take the test again but I found another description of INFJ first that convinced me I was indeed that type. Thus I would counsel reading descriptions from more than one source to be more incisive than multiple test taking, which perhaps renders varying results due to the vagaries of daily mood changes.
DN- do you know any INFJ’s? Seems we are the rarest- 1% of population- breed of cat in the entire jungle.
DP- what am I thinking/feeling right now?
I’m just happy I unloaded another tranche of silver (all my 1921 Morgans in this case) YESTERDAY. Better to be lucky than good.
How often do you look up a word and see “from the Polish”? I find that rather refreshing, having a good slug of that good Polska blood, as a gift from Mom.
I agree about the refreshing etymology. Score one for Poland!
Xty – in today’s world my dad would have been arrested repeatedly, and eventually would have lost custody of his kids. we went to school with all of the marks and bruises, sometimes way worse. neighbors certainly saw and heard. but even more so than today, back then everybody chose to look the other way. you know the bullshit mantra that it is best not to get involved. the one person that could have stopped it was my mother. it’s a long story – maybe a book.
also, Xty what you are feeling is global. it is (mostly) not your internal angst. the world right now is upside down. man (western culture mostly) is not on the right path. we have been tricked.
but the fear mongers are giving it their last go. be patient, and try to get someplace quiet so that you can sort things out! i believe that the worst is over. pay attention, especially to positive changes! talk to your kids a lot!
Dude – i can’t do that, at least not yet. i mostly only can pick up extreme emotions, and also can tell when someone is not being honest. i am really sensitive to hate, fear, and deception. that said, i will guess and say that you are feeling more hopeful because of the improving weather!
this is a good article. i think this reporter probably has it right. i always suspected that the “shadow” government was involved with BitCon also…
http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html
“winds of change, so mean and strange” not an uplifting thought, but sure is good music
DP- half right re: weather, my long johns may not be required on my walks any more as today I came home no hat, no gloves, unzipped and dripping.
Dude, ya think this song is about smoking weed?
so what’s the other half then?
hey, i learned two new words just now while searching for the back story of this song. doggerel and Cuica.
The other half- empathy. Hey, I’m the INFJ “Protector”. Strange of you to bring up your father, when just Tues I came into an ongoing conversation, don’t know how it started, but when I got there I heard this: “people later told me 15 years after the fact that they thought something was going on but they didn’t say anything. Beat up time after time and 3 times bad enough to be hospitalized.” I know the father and the son who spoke these words but only from later after the son was grown. It really confounds and confuses me, it just seems so unthinkable.
I’m here to report that my lunch spot has Capital Maibock on tap, so all else being equal, life is good.
Sorry to lean against the consensus like that…
If you recall- one item checked off of the bucket list. When I found uncle’s grave a lump immediately formed in my throat and I said “oh you poor baby”. For a 21 y.o. boy is still a baby in the eye(s) of a 65 y.o. man.
I think “ceteris paribus” was the phrase I was looking for.
Old man and the boy’s watch.
Steve Earle is an acquired taste for some, but this is a great Civil War song.
my reply is this but reduced to three words, and in Latin…
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/humor/life/
That sort of trip is good for the soul, Dude. Makes one think big thoughts.
Shame on me for talking gibberish about beer.
I once tracked down a great, great grandmother’s gravestone. Just a flat stone that the earth had about half reclaimed. I got on my knees and dug it back out again with my bare fingers.
If not now, when? If not me, who?
Her name was Margaretha.
Yes horde is a fitting Polish word, since they were invaded by the Mongol Horde three times and by the Turks as well. (Thank you James Michener) Explains why I have encountered so many Polish people with black hair, especially my m.i.l.’s family. She is the only one with 100% pure blood, my kids’ other grandparents are all a mix. So when you tote up the percentages, my kids are more Polish than anything else, even though I consider myself Swedish- my son actually likes kischka.
I’m on my phone right now, and don’t know how to do anything, but if I were home I’d be linking up “who stole the kischka”.
Or a recipe for pierogi. Or both.
i’m pretty sure i have Roman blood in me. it has to do with where some ancestors were in southern Germany, some place names, and some of my food tastes. you can pay for a test now – i think it is 200 dollars and they can track your ancestry genetically. if i weren’t paranoid, i would pay it. but i can’t really trust anybody these days with my blueprints. and God forbid if i ever got cloned. i’d have to kill myself!
have you heard of the Black Irish dude? i think no matter where you are, somebody was there first. this border thingy is really quite modern. at least hard borders are.
EO – you have to go to that link. actually the entire website is pretty good.
Black Irish, yes- hmmm…….maybe someone should do a study on Irish horses to see what phenotypical traits they might match up with in other populations.
You know of course that the Polish Arabian horse is respected and revered worldwide. It got there the same way the black hair did.
Personally though, I prefer a White Russian to a Black Irish.
i just want to go out and buy a horse now. even though i realized half way through it was a commercial, i watched the whole thing. it’s the new Ford. runs great on only grass and water. i could have used one a few times this winter too.
what you find on y.t.under “piwo”- beer, in Polish- hey it’s the weekend
i thought Piwo was Polish for Pabst. speaking of the letter “p”…
here’s me, and my brother peckerweed.
fuck you youtube.
eins, zwei, dreimal…
Yeah Dude, my sister, and a close friend of my Wife, (and Xty) are INFJs that I know the best. And you are INFJ(?), yes it’s a pretty rare type.
I’m getting pretty good (if I do say so myself) at typing people.
The other night i’m sitting at a bar having dinner in an Italian place. the female bartender was about 30. So we are visiting while I order and wait for food and I start thinking… hmmm, what is she? I start at the 4th dichotomy (J? or P?) she was wandering from task to task, just sitting things down ‘however’.. not “dress right dress” more “aware” than “focused”… so P. then (T? or F?) Ts usually talk about things or abstract stuff, “F”s usually talk about people. If what they are saying needs to be followed or understood, usually T. if what they say has an emotional effect, usually F.. she was F all the way, telling me about how former employees were having a get together and how good it was to see them etc…
so far X X F P
Next N or S?. She was in shape but soft(N) and her movements and expressions kind of flowed(N). She wasn’t S-yappy and many other things also told me she was an N.
(E/I?)- Just watching her I put her at 90% thinking outside her head, getting mental energy from external. (you can see people who are operating within themselves and those who are just flowing with their environment, it helps me to try and assign a 1-100 number. 1 Totally inside/introvert 100 totally outside/extrovert, I give her a 90)
ENFP I suspected. Watching her interact with the other people, and how she would try and bring peoples conversations together and avoid any depth of conversation, she was a stone-cold ENFP.
It’s a privately owned restaurant/bar, so she is in the perfect job for now. (she would hate a franchise place where they told her exactly how she had to do things) But she will grow tired of the standing and physical labor nature of the job and leave, unless she needs the job to make a family situation click.
Is she working to save money to open her own place?… as part of some plan? An ENFP? No way. It’s to feed her kid(s), help her parents, help out the owner… or to augment her husband or something. (although, if asked, she might have a “story” about a plan that she tells people, but that’s all it is).
Whatever that spicy chilli-like soup was, it was really good, the lasagna too. Should have just ordered one or the other.