[MBTI General] ES and IN, the first two letters in the MBTI

[Mustafa]

This is almost the only picture available on the internet about the first two letters in the MBTI. I am IN, so it is my consern. And ES seems to be the opposite right? According to the picture description I get the impression they are metaphysical and physical.

Can you enlighten me about the difference between IN and ES? For example. Thanks.

 

[reckful]

As you may know, David Keirsey is probably most famous for his view that splitting Myers' 16 types into NFs, NTs, SJs and SPs creates four groups that each has characteristics in common (and differs from the other three groups) to an extent that significantly exceeds the other possible two-letter groupings. And I think he has a lot of interesting (although not always correct) things to say about each of those groups, but I also think he stresses that particular foursome too much, at the expense of the things that INs and NJs and STs and etc. have in common. And in any case, Keirsey never said there weren't interesting things that could be said about the other combinations — and for what it's worth, Myers' preferred foursome was NT, NF, ST and SF.

As for me, although I agree that I have some significant things in common with my fellow NTs, I've increasingly come around to the view that, if I had to pick a group of four MBTI types to really be my "kindred spirits" group, it would be the INs rather than the NTs, and if you want to read a bit of "reckful on INs," you can find it in the spoiler at the end of this post — which also explains why there's a strong argument to be made that Jung viewed INs and ESs as a very fundamental pair of opposites.

 

[miss fortune]

not posting here to antagonize you... merely have something to say on the topic from the other side

letters aren't everything... for instance, I feel a general kinship in some odd manner with most ExxPs in a way, due to the general manner of expression and tendencies towards a certain type of freedom in a way. there's also an odd kinship with my fellow SPs... a general manner of reacting to things with shorter replies (I'm the least likely to do that out of the whole group it seems) and tendency to find joy and humor anywhere because life is inherently odd and funny. and then there are things that can't be described by the MBTI at all that still tend to bring a sense of similarity and a feeling of familiarity to people... similar perspectives on things or life experiences or things along those lines and in general I've found that those types of things color how a person thinks far more than any personality preferences can do. Life is messy like that... you can't put something so amorphous and flexible and grey and LIVING into little boxes and expect it to fit neatly and interact as someone theoretically thinks that it should... that's where theory and real life don't line up. In a perfect world, social theories would be clean cut, without a million exceptions in the footnotes which end up excluding all but the most extreme cases, but this is a human world and an imperfect world and that's part of what makes life so thrilling... that you CAN'T predict how someone will react, what they will say or think and what will happen next.

 

[Poki]

Despite the fact that I am an IS, I match ES better in that list.

I am comfortable around other SP types very much, as well as NF types. The other types are more hit or miss depending on commonalities.