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- Why Thinkers Secretly Seek Drama
You're wrong
Oh God, I feel gross!
I think I actually need to take a shower now.
I might have felt like I had just crawled through the dirt in a tough mudder race—but sadly, that wasn't it.
That would've been fun.
Instead, I had an argument with an idiot on Discord for the past 30 minutes. It didn't get us anywhere. It was a complete waste of time. Just two block heads bonking into each other on a merry-go-round to nowhere.
None of my arguments stuck. Not one single reply I got made a nick of sense. Talking to a brick wall would've been more constructive.
It was frustrating, even madding. Why the hell did I do this?
Well—because I saw someone write something stupid on the internet. What a fucking surprise.
It was about the Objective Personality System. Someone didn't understand the importance of typing with two independent operators.
I had to set that guy straight.
He—and everyone else reading that—had to know how wrong he was. People need to learn. Otherwise, they waste their precious time with useless bullshit like MBTI.
But no one learned anything that day. Two idiots just ended up angry.
I didn't realise it at the time, but all of this wasn't the real reason I was arguing. Something else was going on inside me, underneath the surface of my awareness.
Irrational thinkers
Thinkers like me have the nasty tendency to argue and disagree compulsively. Often, we don't even realises we’re doing it. We think we have a good reason for why we’re arguing.
I'm right.
I know the truth.
That idiot is wrong.
I'm just trying to help.
We rationalise our reasons for arguing, but we don't realise that rationalising is the farthest away from being rational.
Truth is, we don't actually know why we’re arguing. We conceal that truth from others, and from ourselves, by claiming it's for the greater good—in some form or another. But it's not.
It doesn't help.
It doesn't solve anything.
It creates nothing but drama.
It's annoying—and even the thinker inciting the drama feels gross afterwards.
I have a masculine thinking function as my lead, and I created more drama in the past than I'd like to admit—sometimes I still do.
But winning arguments isn't as important as your thinker mind makes it up to be. As soon as you realise that, there's a way out of the drama.
It depends
Of course, not all thinking is bad.
There are real problems requiring you to painstakingly figure out what works and what doesn't, what's true and what isn't. Those need to be solved. People want them to be solved.
I work as a data engineer for the New Zealand statistics agency. If I create a new process for data analysis that represents a real improvement on an old one, my fellow data analyst are happy and grateful for that. But you can safely assume that creating something better involves having some arguments along the way.
In the end, whether your thinking activities are helpful or infuriating, depends on your internal state. Yes, the quality of your thinking depends highly on your emotions.
It depends on the Why behind the argument.
If you debate from a calm, resolved place, a state of non-need, it can be beneficial for yourself and the people around you.
However, if your arguing is rooted in negativity and frustration, if you're in a state of need, if you're fucked off, it will be nothing but destructive for your relationships.
Your emotions are a signal to be taken seriously. You need to acknowledge them and own them.
You ignore them at your own peril.
But there are better and worse, constructive and destructive, ways to deal with them.
Underneath the surface
Compulsive arguing is a way to cope with your emotions. But why?
Because it allows you to feel them. It's an unconscious mechanism that brings the emotions to the surface.
When you argue with someone needlessly, you annoy them, you make them mad—you make yourself mad. That's the reason why you're arguing: to make yourself and others angry because something happened that created the need for you to feel angry.
This need can only be ignored for so long.
Eventually, it hijacks the thinking function that is your saviour to create the drama that you crave—even if you don't consciously know it.
Broadly speaking, this plays out in two flavours: Te and Ti.
The Te version is more active and oriented towards others. If their Fi is in a bad state, someone with saviour Te criticises and picks at other people to let them know what they're doing wrong—according to them.
That criticism is disguised as “helpful” feedback, while it is rooted in inner frustration. There's some personal need that was neglected, and they're letting that frustration out at the other person.
My Ti version of that is more passive, but immovable. It comes out as blind disagreement, nitpicking, or needing to one up the other person.
I don't feel the connection I desire, and unconsciously I'm thinking that proving I'm better or smarter will get me what I want. But, of course, it never does.
Please stop
So—how do you stop doing that?
First, emotional awareness is key: be mindful of your inner state and consciously know how you're feeling.
As I wrote earlier, your feelings are an indication of a serious need. Please take care of them. Take care of yourself. You may feel a loss of connection, or be lonely. Or you may be deviating too far from your moral compass.
Second, be aware of your default tendencies. Understand your patterns and know what's coming next. Once you do—and it will take a few rounds on the not-so-merry-go-round—you can find more constructive and mature ways to fulfil the needs you have.
If you want to stop feeling lonely, making yourself feel superior is not the way to get there.
If you want to start living in alignment with your personal values, picking at others is not the way to get there.
But connecting and meeting your emotional needs is a skill that needs to be cultivated. It may sound simple in principle, but it's not easy and it's not a quick fix.
No risk, no reward
According to social psychologist Brené Brown, a key factor in your emotional life is the ability to be vulnerable.
But being vulnerable is a nuanced act that's often misunderstood. It's different from dumping your trauma on innocent bystanders.
Showing vulnerability is an act of courage. It always involves risk.
If there's no uncertainty about the outcome, if you're trying to stack the deck in your favour because you want pity, you're not being vulnerable.
Ultimately, vulnerability is a gift you give someone you care about. It's about opening up and expressing your feelings, what you're insecure about, or maybe even ashamed of. You allow someone to see you more fully. Blame and accusations have no place there.
It's scary and uncomfortable, but there's no way around it if you want to have deep, healthy relationships.
Thinkers need to learn that there can be more positivity on the other side of a difficult conversation—if you know how to do it right.