[INTP] INTPs and life

[SolitaryWalker]

All my life I've been the lazy slacker.?

IPs tend to be most industrious in tasks that are important to them and deemed worthwhile by the internal standards. Tasks that are imposed upon them and are only deemed worthwhile by external (extroverted judgment) standards hold little appeal to IPs.

I always forget deadlines and am never able to develop habits that require me to do repeated and/or arduous tasks from start to finish. In high school, studying was a rare occurrence..?

Deadlines are arbitrary settings for an IP as they are properties of extroverted judgment. Moreover, since INTPs use Intuition, or an irrational function to deal with the external world, they have difficulty functioning externally in a systematic fashion. For this reason, they are often mercurial and work in large bursts off energy to burn out soon after. Dominant Introverted Judgment is also a significant factor as INTPs are only likely to work hard when the task is deemed important by their inner standards. This is when they will focus intensely, until then, there wont be much of a go. For this reason, they are unlikely to work hard under the conventional extroverted judgment settings.

I spent far more time listening to music and reading wikipedia and science articles than studying shakespear or whatever else was assigned for homework that night. ..?

Very often INTPs have a rebarbative attitude towards assigned tasks, even if the tasks are of much interest to them, like Shakespeare may be. That is because such a practice involves an imposition of an external standard on their inner agenda. This is anathema to the dominant Introverted Judgment of the INTP.

Thank god for my higher than average intelligence (with a touch of somewhat opaque yet still omnipresent narcissism) that got me through school without much active effort on my part. ..?

INTPs can cut through arduous tasks because of their strategic mindset. Strategizing is a property of Thinking to a high degree, Introverted Thinking is the function most in tune with pure element of Thinking itself. INTPs can cut their corners by virtue of this in combination with their highly intuitive outlook on life. (Big picture thinking.) Moreover, INTPs need to collect little information in order to get going on the task as their Thinking faculty preceedes perception or intuition and can begin analyzing with very little information collected--and from that point and on feed off its own discoveries. Logic is not only analytic but also synthetic. (Many discoveries follow as a logical entailment of what we have before discovered by virtue of our analysis.)



Textbook INTP traits, right?

Well I'm in college now and I feel as though I've hit a brick wall. Just barely doing the homework wont cut it anymore. Long hours in the library and late nights is the name of the game if I want to get that engineering degree. Teetering so close to the proverbial "academic edge" is something I have been familiar with in the past (due to a lack of effort.....), but not on such a scale. To top it all off, the social pressures to succeed in college are immense. And man am I feeling it. Worst of all, its got me questioning my intelligence. The one thing I hold dear, the one thing I value more than anything else. It's making me feel kind of worthless...?

You ought to divorce the external standard for self-assessment and replace it with that of your own. You're intelligent or not strictly by virtue of having this quality within your essence, and not by virtue of the external affirmation thereof. Or in other words, you dont need the conventional standard to tell you that you're intelligent in order to know this, as you could see for yourself if that is true.

Another crutch in the INTP personality I'd like to comment about: Relationships.
I also recently read that marriages to INTPs are the LEAST satisfying marriages. This is both humorous and extremely disheartening at the same time. If theres one thing I desire from the world more than anything else its a meaningful and intimate connecting with a special female someone. Someone who I could tell this too instead of posting in on mbticentral (sorry guys). But it seems we cant even obtain what we desire most. Not to mention, that pretentious nature we have about ourselves would have you thinking that INTPs would be good a marriage and long lasting partnerships simply because we've though about it more. Or because we don't usually carry the emotional baggage many other type proliferate....?

INTP is the most Thinking oriented type. We have very basic emotional and interpersonal needs. You do not need a full blown infatuation and highly romanticized love affair that you see in the movies in order to be satisfied with your personal life. You simply need to bond closely with one person who can understand you on a deep level and vice versa. INFs seem to be the most viable type to turn to. Especially the INFP, as they have much in common with the INTP by virtue of the Introverted Judgment common factor in combination with intuition.

You dont even need this, however, that'd be bonus,as the emotional need of the INTP is very low. In order to be sound, you merely need to make sure that you're not isolated. Maintaining company of other Ns, especially INTs will be very helpful. However, if your interpersnonal skills are poor and you are generally uncomfortable in the external world, this will be difficult to accomplish for you at this point.

I recommend cultivation of Extroverted Intuition through solitary activities. You can accomplish this by elevating your reading pace.

eyeQ - Read Faster, Memory Improvement, reading enhancement, improve test scores

And then forcing yourself to read literature which will inspire you to use Intuition more than Thinking as you naturally do. Existentialist writings are highly recommended for this activity.

Nietzsche, Sartre, and Dostoesky. All three of these authors were dominant Introverted Intuition and easily more intuitive than 95% of all people who have lived to this point.

I also recommend reading the works of Dominant Extroverted Intuitive thinkers like Tolstoy, David Hume(more essays than philosophy, I'd grab his last philosophical piece--Dialogues Concerning natural religion and History of Natural religion as there we see a distinct use of sound Extroverted Intuition and of course his 6 volume History of England), Voltaire, and Bertrand Russell (his numerous writings in popular philosophy).

What gives? These functions we posses seem to set us up for failure in every avenue, especially if you're severely afflicted with the INTP disease. It's as though we were born to be an example of what not to be. In order to live well and love well it seems that we have to defeat nearly everything that we are, save only for the intelligence. What but is INTP intelligence if its neutered by a structured life with a rigorous schedule and constant communication. I wouldn't have been able to think this up if I hadn't been alone in my room reading by myself............?

Divorce the conventional standard. The only true path to happiness for an INTP comes throug an emendation of the inner being by virtue of the internal standard.

In order to live well and love well it seems that we have to defeat nearly everything that we are, save only for the intelligence. What but is INTP intelligence if its neutered by a structured life with a rigorous schedule and constant communication. I wouldn't have been able to think this up if I hadn't been alone in my room reading by myself............?

Extroverted Intuition will allow for you to perceive and interact with the external environment swiftly. Communication should hardly be an issue for you after you have cultivated that faculty as we see that the ENPs tend to have the best communication skills of all types. As Extroverted Intuition gives the most liberty to us to interact with the external environment due to its free-spirited and highly abstract nature. You will easily be able to concoct your external life in a way that you satisfy your bare minimum external needs as well as manage to protect the integrity of your inner life.