banalities are based on perspective and expectations. this is just
our somewhat restricted preference within an exaggerated N community. and somewhat polemical because dammit, it's ours! and that has not always been easy to find for many of the N types here. prejudice binds communities. the politics of preference organize status. and many people utilize negative rhetoric to get ahead when it offers an advantage. it's shitty and immature, but it's part of how the game is played. but it's just a game within a particular sphere and not some universal truth. i'm fucking banal as can possibly be to many S types. to men who golf. to middle-aged women who are meeting for bible study. to flight attendants and people who work at banks. to all the chiropractor waiting rooms in the world. to the godhead known as super bowl sunday. etc.
moreover, many istp 5s i know are extremely studious, intellectual, knowledgeable. same with many isjs who memorize dictionaries and encyclopedias of knowledge. many j 1s give off an intellectual vibe as well, including an esfj friend of mine who was one of my favorite people to talk to at school because we both enjoyed deliberating and asking clarifying questions. who truly appreciated and was fucking good at the process of good reasons.
i agree that many people are mistyped on this site.
i also know there is a kind of N game i frequently find myself playing with others. you just want to see if they can catch something and throw it back to you in a way that shows understanding. to plume their and your own inner vision. (in an entirely N space, i would have written "fondling each other's inner vision" because i find it amusing and intuitively quirky, whereas in more public space i'm generally unwilling to push through the cringe and do it anyway). and it's a contest. peacocks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjckjX13Nvk
quoting someone is just using reference to show you're connected to a discourse. the next part is the way you do it, whether you can position yourself skillfully within it (without having the whole fabric of the context bunch up and distort in ways that seem to be lacking artful intentionality). because to take a map in one domain to organize understanding in another domain is the work of analogy. this is what makes N what it is. we use analogy to create space for possibilities that would otherwise not have been seen. it's not just the picture but the resonance the picture might suggest based on the overall oeuvre. it's a superpowered guess machine, an interlocking pattern of guesses, and we can't stop. we rely on context to abstract the essence of things so that we can remember the shape of the patterns that connect the details rather than the exact details themselves. this is good for bridging between conflicting perspectives, disambiguating, revising deep-seated beliefs, and letting go of the "sense" that any particular way of understanding the world is truly foundational. hello (no)n-sense!
Pi is more stuck in this referential way of thinking in general. it can be painfully indirect for others. i know, because i have to read my own posts.
to be honest, i regret the whole "oh yes, this is my S friend" republicanesque label i have judgmentally put on S types in the past. it is different in pretty consistent ways, and i do understand that N is kind of the core of me, something that is most salient to my identity because it's most salient to my experience, my desires, and my potential, but i have missed out on really good interactions as a result of my own small-mindedness. and i have missed out on learning how to relate to other aspects of myself that would have been really good for me (and far more enjoyable than i had assumed at the time). at the same time, to find others who communicate with you so naturally, so effortlessly, kind of feels familial and awesome and like a great privilege worth revering. if you don't, you will never have the energy and momentum to expand yourself and realize that you have the energy to relate more broadly than you thought you did, when you were so focused on what you were not.
also, the N vs S thing is kind of a category of you, but it's really more of a
developmental one than an absolute idea of you one. more of the timing and the way you unfold than an atemporal absolute either/or. we will all lose our N or S virginity eventually. or we will leave a lot of tragically unlived life on the table.