Personally, I see N type people as the cause of most of the trouble on earth. If you look at all the social revolutions and almost any one that came up with a crazy ass new approach to living life that people believed in and died for, it was probaly an N type person..
I agree that N-types are the most prone to being revolutionaries, but the revolutions that they back/instigate, however, vary greatly. There will be your "MLK" ones and there will also be your "Hitlers", so to speak.
Around my intuitive friends, I fit in well. Around others, not so much, but a well-adjusted person can fit in with either crowd.
Can *fit* in with any crowd, are you sure about that?
A well adjusted person will *deal* with whomever they're surrounded by the best way they can, though they will not necessarily "fit" in with them.
Yes, it is the Intuitives who have caused most harm in the world. However, they have also caused the most 'good' in the world. This is the case because major changes stem from great ideas. Non-Intuitives merely have carried out the task of implementing the ideas.
I agree with this.
I think it's important to interject here that 'exceptional' doesn't always have the same connotations it does in academia, as in 'exceptional performance', meaning 'much better than anything else'.
An exception is something that's different, that stands out for whatever reason. Not necessarily because of being better.
To me, it's a fact that N's do stand out as different. I don't think Chick is claiming that we're better. But being in a statistical minority does make something exceptional.
YES!!!
Exceptional from the norm, from the masses, from *most* people.
Not necessarily better nor worse, just plain different.
I would think that an N with the ability to link things and such would find it easier to adapt to an S society than vice versa... I can go along with the conversations of my S friends completely easily, but they don't have as much patience when I do something like argue that God is merely an idea which is inherently needed by human society to keep people balanced in a manner in which they can interact the best, or some other idea of that sort...
Ns may complain that it's horrible to try and fit in with Ss, but try to think about it flipped and see what you come up with
It's easier to adapt to the society that you grew up in (SJ in my case) than it would be for them to adapt to a society that was the opposite or something (for instance an NTP society)
just a thought there... I think that Ns would have it easier- especially ENxPs- with the whole adapting game. I mean, you pull out the stops and let your full random glory shine and people will stare at you oddly, but if you throw a laugh in with it they'll usually laugh along and cut you some slack, deciding that you're joking and they just didn't get it... Adapting isn't that hard though- slightly stifling, but isn't that what polite society is about anyways?
But *I* am living in, what is essentially *their* world.
I don't impose shit on them, or anybody else, and even if I did, or wanted to, they would fail to *understand* what the hell I was even talking about.
I could play their game if I wanted to, I could care and talk about what they care and talk about, but, alas I don't want to, so I don't.
And being silenced for an E is quite painful.
yeah, but I've always thought that society was a boring place where EVERYONE has to adapt to be able to fit in to the perfect 50s style mold that's placed out there...
I'll admit that my SJ friends have a lot less trouble, but the SPs I know aren't all that fond of having to use the right napkin and avoid making sex jokes in public either
then again, I perhaps went too far and now find adapting to different situations to be a second nature by now
I'm not talking about having to adapt, nor am I talking about having to adopt and partake in social niceties, (which I actually don't
).
I am talking about being essentially different than/from the pack.
I am talking about not being excited nor intrigued by the same, or even similar things.
I am talking about feeling shocked, saddened, alienated by this inherent and apparent difference.
It would just be nice to have some people around who you can be yourself with, to a greater extent. Rather than people around whom you have to lose your sense of self, to get on with. !
Yes!
Check out that other thread I linked to a few posts ago - you'll see there a lot of N's talking about how it feels to be an N, and relating to each other very well. I've never come across a Sensor who understands or has experienced feeling that way. I think that's what Chick's complaint rests on really... the sense of isolation that comes from the 'otherness' that I nevertheless don't think she (or I) would want to give up.
Yes.
In my experience, I/E has more to do with fitting in than N/S does (I realize you're a strong E, CC, I'm just offering my impression).
I didn't fit in with any group in school. I just wanted to be around normal people (read: like me) but I guess I never found them since I didn't connect non-superficially with anyone at all until university. Even now I have a hard time making friends because I don't have much in common with most people I meet.
My ENTP and ENTJ friends, on the other hand, have very active social lives and professional lives, and don't appear to have any difficulties fitting in. So in my experience the theory doesn't hold up, although I can see how it would in theory.
Another MBTI thing that might have more to do with fitting in: having "sex-opposite " T/F...
Great points, I agree that T females, and F males might also feel a greater sense of isolation.
But I want to take this moment to explain something that I may have sloppily forgotten to earlier.
I am not talking about, wanting to find people who are just like me, in that they like what I like and are interested in exactly what I am.
I can get along with any person and feel *connected* to them if they discuss the meaning behind whatever they happen to be interested in, and the way(s) and implications of how what they study/care about affect and are tied in to the larger scheme/frame of things.
Randomnity, being an extravert means I am strongly oriented towards a need for direct interaction with the external world. It does not mean I was born automatically more sociable or better able to get along with people or be normal.
But having this strong need would mean I'd make more of an effort to LEARN to socialize, than an introvert, who can get by easier without the level and amount of direct external interaction that I need.
It doesn't mean I learn to be normal. It doesn't mean I don't feel awkward, or shy, or isolated; in fact it's a thing many introverts fail to realize, how feeling isolated and alone whilst being simultaneously the centre of attention is quite possible and happens all the time.
It does mean that, for some people, particularly perhaps EN's, in order to fulfill the driving psychological need to extravert, which needs people to extravert with or to, one has to adapt oneself in order to do this successfully. This means that sometimes, depending on just how 'exceptional' (in the sense of weird) I am in comparison to the people I'm with, I have to 'present' as something that's increasingly unlike me, therefore losing myself and coming to dislike myself. hence the hollow, loss-of-self and identity issues I mentioned earlier.
Being an EN can entail a lot of hard balancing work between needing to be true to yourself, whilst interacting intensely with a world that doesn't tolerate your real self.
edit - oh, and plus, I was RUTHLESSLY bullied ALL the way through school, despite being a strong extravert. And I might argue that the isolation this brought on me was a hundred times more painful than it would've been for an introvert. And that pain was something I had to get over in my adult life, in order to have the confidence to do what I do now. IOW, it's not all plain sailing. It's just as hard, but the difference being the extravert has the need, therefore makes the effort to do it, and keeps trying, while the introvert simply accepts the isolation and enjoys their alone time. To a greater extent, though not entirely, of course.
Yes.
Being an extroverted N sucks because I have a need to interact and connect with people and the people who live in this world, for the most part, I can't seem to connect to/with.
That's why I spend all this time "talking" to/with you guys!!!
sorry Sub... I should generally shut up... I'm too busy looking on the bright side of having a broken leg and having to adapt with that as well at the moment 
)
