So the assignment was to introduce myself

If pressed, I simply state that my brother is an only child. I suppose that makes me virtual. I would think so. Perhaps. But then, maybe, just implicit.

My being the virtual brother of an only child is to be able to slip out from under the shackle of fear and unfulfilled expectation. To be able to conquer the panic of the unknown. To be capable of transforming the future into the present. To relish the safety of reclusiveness. Then, at some point, to be able to look back and to be able to realistically deny that that accomplishment-conquered-fear was anything of significance. For me, to be able to minimize any legitimacy of worth. 

During a turbulent time in my life when the admission of who I am to even myself was in the pangs of emergence, I found an adapted version of the Myers Briggs personality assessment tool. No matter how I tweaked my responses to that bank of questions, the instrument identified the same conclusion over and over. An "INFJ" personality. As in introverted, intuitive, feeling, judger. Apparently, in this assessment tool, this is referred to as "The Mystic Writer."

I suppose that a Myers Briggs personality assessment is just a one-off from a horoscope and borders on psycho-babble. But even worse, it elicits the near inevitability of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope I have enough sense to keep things in both context and perspective. Alas, the assessment tool did resonate with me. And justified for me at least, why I simply cannot help but write as a method of both healing and fulfillment.

Apparently, to an INFJer, the written word is sacred because through it, we can understand and express the mysteries of life. [Oh, if that were even remotely possible or true for me.] When it comes to affairs of the heart, the INFJer prefers to express him/herself with the pen: poetry, journal writing, and tender notes left on the bathroom mirror. [As if there actually was someone there to read them.] When not writing, we supposedly have the gift of listening - to comfort and aid those who come to us for advice and guidance. I presume my blog The Refectory Manager, is my manifestation of that. So many of those stories were/are pointed to one specific individual or another. I suppose that is why there was such resonance with a young man in Kansas who Googled a very specific phrase and then Google pointed, as its first hit, to a story in my blog, The Refectory Manager. 

The realization of being a Mystic Writer frightened me. The description of INFJ included powerful words of warning. It will be lonely. A Mystic Writer is found in only 2% of the population. We are intensely introverted, our soul-mate relationships, if they ever can exist, become pathological fueled by some highly developed sense of imagination in obsession with a one-best and only-friend experience. That, so painfully describes the angst in my life from my earliest memories.

The Mystic Writer is the most reclusive of the Meaning-Seeker love types. As such, it is a burden that is both difficult to bear and provides the blessed relief of being able to be virtual.

To me, the written word is sacred because through it, I try to understand and express the mysteries of soul-mate experience. As Thomas Moore in Soul Mates [page 124] expresses it, Conversation is the sex act of the soul, and as such it is supremely conducive to the cultivation of intimacy. 

My only brother and I have never had those conversations. 

I have never left a note on a mirror.

Reality tells me I have no brother.

The Refectory Manager