Someone should make a 'Common INTP Issues' thread - so may as well take the lead.
Also, your mileage may vary, but these are issues relevant to me which I see as reflective of the INTP personality.
I must preface with a caveat: I am eccentric, to say the least, and certainly not neurotypical, so some of these issues may just be personal to me.
Failure To Take Charge and Lethargy
We are bold, independent, and audacious thinkers, but this doesn't come through in our actions. We have a tendency to be passive, or at least indifferent in the external world. Because we get so much out of expressing ourselves within our head, we under value outward expression. We feel almost a sense of aversion to acting in the external world, as we feel incompetent when it comes to the more concrete aspects of life. Often we are very pacifist and non-assertive, not out of temperament, but because we feel it is too much work to take a stand, and so can sometimes let ourselves be pushed around. We lack confidence in exerting ourselves outwardly which leads to avoidance. Why bother actually doing things when you can just imagine how to them. Simply the thought is energizing enough; we create it in our own heads. I had for literally months thought of making a "Common INTP Issues" thread, even coming up with what I'd list, but only now actually am putting fingers to keyboard.
Introverted Aggression
Because we repress assertiveness and aggression in the outside world, when we feel like we are wronged or victimized, rather than challenging or communicating it, we instead mentally attack. We can stew and concoct the most devastating vitriol about our enemies and feel as though we are ripping into them, yet we don't actually do anything. We just play and replay the situation in our heads, getting more and more indignant. I can have quite aggressive thoughts and am a 'hothead', yet never been in a fight, and tend to turn the other cheek. Often we are too forgiving, as we tend to let things slide, until a threshold is crossed, after which we have short bursts of internal vitriol and usually let thing go afterwards. This is a manifestation of the first issue, we create and act in our own mental landscapes, our internal 'reality virtual machine', and even though it may feel significant to us, the obvious issue is that what we do in our heads does not effect action in the real world. While externally we usually come across as very laid back, easy going, 'Type B' personalities, inside we are not tranquil. For example, as I'm typing this thread, in the room next to me, my ENFP younger brother has around 4 other ENFPs just being loud and "ENFPIng" at each other, it's annoying the hell out of me, but rather than just saying "could you please keep it down", I just let myself be annoyed without doing anything.
Productive Procrastination
When INTPs actually get really focused and driven on something, it's usually a form of procrastination, we come up with our own personal projects when we have actual obligation projects to do, usually it's some tangential but still a semi-related off shoot. An example from back when I was in high school, I had a physics worksheet for homework, mechanically doing the equations was too boring, so I spent hours writing a program to compute the answers. I had a great fully working program, but still came to class empty handed the next day. It's because most of our actual obligations we find boring, so when we need to do work, we do our own work, and simply being 'busy' is close enough, we expend a lot of energy, get burned out, and often fail to finish the actual boring "pen to paper" part of projects. I'm sure virtually all INTP college students reading this thread will know exactly what I'm talking about.
I've got some other issues that I feel are common, and will reply with paragraphs for them.... when I can be bothered
Overly Academic/Technical Communication
Contrarianism/Polemic argumentation
Perceived as emotionally shallow - Low emotional expresiveness and blunted affect
Embracing inferior Fe through projecting a 'troll persona'
Overly objective self expression; poverty of expressing subjective experience
Being avoidant socially
Negativism/pessimism - having a overly bleak and cold worldview
Also, your mileage may vary, but these are issues relevant to me which I see as reflective of the INTP personality.
I must preface with a caveat: I am eccentric, to say the least, and certainly not neurotypical, so some of these issues may just be personal to me.
Failure To Take Charge and Lethargy
We are bold, independent, and audacious thinkers, but this doesn't come through in our actions. We have a tendency to be passive, or at least indifferent in the external world. Because we get so much out of expressing ourselves within our head, we under value outward expression. We feel almost a sense of aversion to acting in the external world, as we feel incompetent when it comes to the more concrete aspects of life. Often we are very pacifist and non-assertive, not out of temperament, but because we feel it is too much work to take a stand, and so can sometimes let ourselves be pushed around. We lack confidence in exerting ourselves outwardly which leads to avoidance. Why bother actually doing things when you can just imagine how to them. Simply the thought is energizing enough; we create it in our own heads. I had for literally months thought of making a "Common INTP Issues" thread, even coming up with what I'd list, but only now actually am putting fingers to keyboard.
Introverted Aggression
Because we repress assertiveness and aggression in the outside world, when we feel like we are wronged or victimized, rather than challenging or communicating it, we instead mentally attack. We can stew and concoct the most devastating vitriol about our enemies and feel as though we are ripping into them, yet we don't actually do anything. We just play and replay the situation in our heads, getting more and more indignant. I can have quite aggressive thoughts and am a 'hothead', yet never been in a fight, and tend to turn the other cheek. Often we are too forgiving, as we tend to let things slide, until a threshold is crossed, after which we have short bursts of internal vitriol and usually let thing go afterwards. This is a manifestation of the first issue, we create and act in our own mental landscapes, our internal 'reality virtual machine', and even though it may feel significant to us, the obvious issue is that what we do in our heads does not effect action in the real world. While externally we usually come across as very laid back, easy going, 'Type B' personalities, inside we are not tranquil. For example, as I'm typing this thread, in the room next to me, my ENFP younger brother has around 4 other ENFPs just being loud and "ENFPIng" at each other, it's annoying the hell out of me, but rather than just saying "could you please keep it down", I just let myself be annoyed without doing anything.
Productive Procrastination
When INTPs actually get really focused and driven on something, it's usually a form of procrastination, we come up with our own personal projects when we have actual obligation projects to do, usually it's some tangential but still a semi-related off shoot. An example from back when I was in high school, I had a physics worksheet for homework, mechanically doing the equations was too boring, so I spent hours writing a program to compute the answers. I had a great fully working program, but still came to class empty handed the next day. It's because most of our actual obligations we find boring, so when we need to do work, we do our own work, and simply being 'busy' is close enough, we expend a lot of energy, get burned out, and often fail to finish the actual boring "pen to paper" part of projects. I'm sure virtually all INTP college students reading this thread will know exactly what I'm talking about.
I've got some other issues that I feel are common, and will reply with paragraphs for them.... when I can be bothered
Overly Academic/Technical Communication
Contrarianism/Polemic argumentation
Perceived as emotionally shallow - Low emotional expresiveness and blunted affect
Embracing inferior Fe through projecting a 'troll persona'
Overly objective self expression; poverty of expressing subjective experience
Being avoidant socially
Negativism/pessimism - having a overly bleak and cold worldview
