The INTJ Personality Type, (and those close to it)

by done4good 43 Replies latest jw friends

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  OneEyedJoe

  We all know the limitations of the "test." It's a little like the movie called "Divergent" where you have only so many categories to choose from. I ALWAYS get INTJ. It doesn't matter what version of the test I take. I am willing to accept that I may be an INTJ..IF the test is accurate and IF no new data is presented to the contrary. Much of it applies to me. Since the test is subjective, I have to refuse to be labeled as any type.

  If I am an INTJ, then I wish I wasn't. It's lonely and exhausting.

  You definitely sound like an INTJ. It may be lonely and exhausting, but at least you don't spend all your time being wrong, like most everyone else.

  The test is definitely a sliding scale and doesn't perfectly quantify everything about a person, but it does provide something of a jumping off point that allows you to make some useful generalizations about how people think and interact.
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  Pacopoolio

  INTJs are a minority of the population, but one of the most prevalent parts of Internet forums because we prefer to communicate directly and logically with facts and figures, with forums lend themselves to (as opposed to the more freeform nature of most person to person communication).
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  warehouse

  done4good wrote:

  . . . but the reality is, they do not deal with irrational behavior well. That includes their own irrational behavior, that they themselves are sometimes are susceptible to.

  . . .

  We do not have a built in mechanism for coping with this other than our analytical skills, which are inadequate to understand this irrational behavior.

  I've often thought about this as well. I can remember when I was a child, a lot of times just wanting to remove emotions from myself altogether because they were so distracting and I viewed them as exhausting and a complete waste of time. As I grew older, I realized that most people fell into two general categories, those disposed to dealing with emotions or with logic. And the problem of dealing with others irrational behavior, as well as my own, became more and more something that I wanted to solve, at least to provide a personal way of coping. I've come to the following conclusions, that I've found work well for me:

  External Irrational behavior:

  This one was easy, and as I'm sure most NT types will agree, ignorance is bliss. As an introvert, it's easy for me to ignore people, to keep completely silent when nonsense is happening. If a person is extremely insistent on my participation, I will oblige in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to; logical dissection, sarcasm, raucous laughter, beratement, contrarianism and so forth.

  The key idea being that external irrational behavior is like a fire. It needs fuel to consume, and if I provide no additional fuel, I can be patient and wait for it to burn out. If I can somehow remove the fuel, it will be extinguished. If I can give it too much fuel all at once, I might just let it explode and watch with certain satisfaction as it burns everyone and everything around it.

  Internal Irrational behavior:

  Dealing with my own nonsense has not been such a strategic progression. I wrote one time in my journal that I felt like my emotions were leaking out of me, in ways I couldn’t predict or control. I thought at one time that, not unlike when I was younger, if I were to just embrace my emotions they would somehow leave me, as if they would get bored with me or something. But the same emotions would come back. And my reaction to them was still unpredictable, even if I was settled on the acceptance of them.

  My personal solution? I collect my irrational emotions. I save them. I can’t relish in them by becoming overly happy/angry/sad etc., yet I can’t shave them off because they just come back thicker. So I store them, sometimes labeled neatly, sometimes generalized haphazardly, depending on their volume and/or frequency. I transform them into works of art, or sharpen them into weapons of destruction. I might distill them into harmlessly repetitive actions, or focus them to produce epic, irreplicable feats of physical or mental precision.
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Interesting observations by all. When I was "in", there were plenty around me that were JWs and heard the same talks but they weren't "all in" like I was. They had no real spiritual goals and lived rather "normal" lives despite believing we were living in "the last days of the last days." It seemed irrational to me. If you're "in", you should be "all in" like I was. Being a single weird bethelite was rational based on my JW training.

  As time passed with me "all in", there was more and more evidence of TTATT that were driving me crazy deep inside. Once I finally grabbed TTATT by the balls, I was all about figuring out how to change my course. Getting out, getting a degree, and getting a lot of other nonJW stuff was rational based on getting rid of that JW training. Meanwhile, those kids I grew up with are still "in", living "normal" lives with mortgages, second marriages, some kids 'in', some 'out'. Still no spiritual goals, just coasting along with a JW.org pin on the surface... like they were 40 years ago.

  Coming here and typing like a nutjob could be based on my INTJness, or maybe it's just because I'm a smarta$s.
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  EdenOne

  INTP here, tested 3 times over the course of 2 years ... nearly identical results everytime.

  Eden
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  John_Mann

  INTP here. I'm fascinated with MBTI, and I'll explain the INTJ type a little bit:

  I= Introversion. The best and most interesting people you know, dwells inside your head.

  Ni= Introverted Intuition. Dominant function in INTJ's. It's a subconscious function, gives you a sense of focus and probability in an abstract way. "This shit WILL happen".

  Te= Extroverted Thinking. Secondary function, it's a conscious function, gives you the ability to invent things related to your environment.

  Fi= Introverted Feeling. Conscious function, gives you the sense of a strong internal conviction based on very personal values.

  Se= Extroverted Sensing. The shadow function in INTJ's. It's a subconscious function, is repressed by the Ni, and enables you to catch instant concrete details from the environment.

  J= Judging. Narrow your decisions to small options and drives you to act upon the environment.

  Ni, Fi and J makes an INTJ a very very focused person, a person who cannot procrastinate, it's a person who needs to action. Sometimes INTJ's can be very paranoid.

  A good example of a fictional INTJ is the Ozymandias from Watchmen. Dr. Manhatan is an INTP.

  Batman is an INTJ too. Spider-man is an INTP.

  Issac Newton was an INTJ. Eistein is the quintessential INTP.

  This world is the best place for ESFJ's and ESFP's. They are the vast majority of people.

  INTJ's and INFJ's are the rarest, followed by INTP's. The 3 together made aprox. 5% of the world population.

  INTJ's are super strategists and INTP's deeper analysts.
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  FlyingHighNow

  I am not an INTJ.

  For those who took the test years ago, find more than one test version and take the tests again. Your type can change. I never was an INTJ, but my personality type has changed from ENFP to INFP and back to ENFP. And there was a time when I tested as something else. I have tested ENFP more often though. I know both INFPs and ENFPs who are ex jws.
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  Razziel

  The types aren't black and white. When you take the test, you get a numerical score for each type that measures how strongly you are of that type. When your type changes, its often because you were borderline between two types to begin with.
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  FlyingHighNow

  Also, the type change can have to do with whether you are depressed when you take the test.
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  MrFreeze

  I'm an ISTJ so close.