Tag: McFly Conviction

The People of Stranger Things

July 13, 2018 / Calise Sellers

{Dunda dun da… Babum babum bababum bumbabumba bababumbaba bumbum} The music starts and red lights appear in darkness, angles slowly revealing flickering words, and my heart grows fluttery. This is my best description of an intro that I refuse to skip unless under duress. Because it gives me a sense of the ride I’m starting on, of a story that feels somehow both intimate and distant, both like childhood and like falling up into the stars.

It’s really funny to me that the only two group-dynamics character spotlights I’ve fully done up to this point have been scary works (Marble Hornets and this), because that makes it seem like a large proportion of the things I watch are scary and Lovecraftian, which isn’t the case. I do think H.P. Lovecraft was a boss, taking his INFP(ip) Great Pumpkin Distraction and turning it into a powerful catalyst: using the sheer terror that an IP feels at the all-consuming size of an endless cosmos, and turning it into a beautiful humility before a world outside of your control, bowing to the eternity that might otherwise have swallowed him whole. That is an epic example of how to properly last-step, imo.

So yes, I do actually really love Lovecraft (and using the word “really,” you’ll find if you stick around for long). But scary stuff… I’m usually “eh” about it at best. So I guess that’s why, when I find a work that truly encapsulates the awe that I believe reality has behind the curtain, while concurrently making me fall in love with characters that are so real and alive you never want to let them go, I just can’t help sharing the emotions that such works evoke in me.

Honestly, as I embark on this journey to convey the individuals I see when I watch Stranger Things, I find myself quite daunted. There are just too many moments I care about, too many facial expressions that evoke more than I could ever say in a post, no matter how ridiculously long this one is sure to be. I’d be terribly embarrassed if anyone could see my YouTube history of late, and how many times I listened to “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash, or interviews with the cast, etc. etc. Because it comforts me, which is an odd thing to feel about a scary show, but it’s true. The *people* of Stranger Things comfort me.

Because, sure, there’s the things everyone talks about—Eggos, walkie talkies, big hair, bikes, and Christmas lights—and I love all those things about Stranger Things, I do. But those things would mean nothing without the people who make those things matter; the characters who make you laugh despite danger and cry because, it doesn’t matter if you never saw the 80s (I can claim 5 months and 5 days in the 80s) or if you don’t have supernatural predators stalking you, long before the journey is over you want these people to be your friends.

Guys, this show is beyond epic. Continue reading

The Four Types of Love

May 4, 2017 / Calise Sellers

“What is love?” is a question that has been asked throughout the ages, by philosophers, poets, and Haddaway–insert obligatory head tip here. While that is a perfectly valid question, and you guys know how heart-eyes we are for proper definitions around here, I think instead today we’ll ask the ever so aLBoP question, “How can we use double-dichotomies and the Four Types of Information to better understand love?” Because dichotomies are sexy, dontcha know? 😉

Conveniently, the Greeks had four main words for love. Now, my intent is to use the Four Types of Information to help us break down love into component parts, to both understand it more fully, define it more accurately, and help us apply these four sides of love to our own lives and relationships in order to see where our relationships are succeeding, and where they might stand to improve. As such, I might have to alter the definitions of the Greek terms somewhat from their originals.

The Four Types of Information are fundamentally equal, whereas it wasn’t the Greeks’ intent to make their four kinds of love equal, so it stands to me to fudge a bit. But hopefully I can still do justice to what Plato, Aristotle, etc. meant by their terms.

ENFP The McFly Conviction – definition

March 24, 2014 / Calise Sellers

“Nobody… calls me …chicken!”
Marty McFly, Back to the Future II

“The McFly Conviction” (aka “The McFury”) is ENFP’s passionate fervor about their own self-meaning, which can become dangerous when they need external validation in order to prove that they matter. When they feel like their value as a person is in question, a sweet ENFP who struggles with an unchecked McFly Conviction will feel down on themselves and like it doesn’t matter how good their intentions are (their First Cognition Step), because others find them insufficient in their actions and decisions (their Fourth and weakest step), and so they feel like they’ll never be worthwhile. But if the ENFP tries to counter this by attempting to *prove* their self-worth to others, they often, intentionally or not, end up trying to assert their self-worth *over* the worth of others, and make others feel unvalued the same way the ENFP has been. If the ENFP stops caring about others’ self-worth entirely, their McFly Conviction taking over all their choices, ENFPs can become uncharacteristically mean and end up negating their entire Type Specialization by constantly undermining the people around them, even seeking others out specifically to undermine their worth.

ENFPs need to remember, there is *no* sidekick type. But part of being a hero is not needing external validation to know that you are worthwhile. Being a hero means standing up for things, not only when you stand alone, but when you look like an idiot to the people who don’t understand. While sidekicks are busy looking over their shoulders, constantly checking for the approval of others, real heroes are busy making something of themselves. While ENFPs are just as capable of that as any other type, they first must let go of *looking* worthwhile, in favor of *becoming* worthwhile.

Examples:
Michael Scott, The Office
Bowler Hat Guy, Meet the Robinsons
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
and so many more…

Click here for an in-depth look at ENFP The Standard Bearer!

Type Specializations: What Makes My Type Special?

February 12, 2014 / Calise Sellers

There’s an age-old outlook, put blatantly by Syndrome of The Incredibles in his Moriarty Fear, that if everyone is special, then *no one* will be. To this longstanding catch-22, I offer the following rebuttal: What if everyone is special in a way that is both utterly unique and utterly essential?

What if, like colors, genders or flavors, Personality Types create a beautiful cornucopia of complexity and balance, where each member contributes to the whole, an equal and necessary component, without which there would be a gaping hole? And what if becoming special is simply a matter of owning who you are and choosing to pursue the very thing *you* love most?

These are Type Specializations.

This topic is one of my very favorite things about personality typing because it’s so wrapped up in what every type *is* and not only what every type specializes in, but what *drives* every type. It’s easy to focus on cursory traits that may or may not come with a certain type – yes, ISTJs are usually fond of rules and yes, ENTPs often like taking risks; yes, INFPs spend a lot of time exploring inside their own heads and yes, ESFJs can often be found being great hosts and hostesses – but why? What is that common thread that laces itself through a personality type? What means the world to *your* personality?

Type Specializations are made up of two components, Scope and Objective. Continue reading