I never anticipate how Real Life ™ will interrupt my capacity to have something to say.

Maybe it’s because I’m focused on MBTI right now, but I wonder if keeping busy with physical and social activities somewhat thwarts my propensity for Introverted Thinking, instead keeping my other functions more active, the Extraverted ones (Intuition and Feeling) which are pointed at people, and Sensing, which has way more to do with actually doing things.

It’s when I sit in an office with nothing to expend my energy on and nothing better to think about when I dream up all the things I write in here.

Maybe it’s the change in the tenor of my life, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m hanging out with more S and J types than I’m used to. Maybe it’s the fact that being polite in social company requires me to extravert, rather than introvert, my Sensing capabilities. I find myself taking action, cooking breakfast and clearing plates–things that I’m not often inclined to do for myself.

On the other hand, I could not sustain this way of being forever. I can put my deep need for solitude on hold for a weekend, but I cannot put it on hold indefinitely. At some point I would need to pull back and recharge.

So while I have nothing to say about the stuff that I would normally write about (the stuff that my Extraverted Intuition likes to pick up from the internet), I do have stuff generated by my Introverted Thinking and Extraverted Feeling and Sensing in general.

(Interesting how I didn’t count it because my Extraverted Intuition wasn’t as involved as it normally is.)

I still write, but my writing is much more in tune with my actual experiences, rather than what I’m seeing in the world. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the seed at the beginning of “write what you know.”

Perhaps this is a cue for me to reexamine what fuels my writing.

Warning: this is a completely self-indulgent, ninja-level MBTI post.

On the introverted sensing of the INTP:

This stored knowledge is the fuel for the pedantic stereotypes and discursive form of argument (moving goalposts if Ti simply lacks the knowledge) that online debates have become known for. It’s largely impossible for an INTP to ignore their sense data, and they are bound to it in experiential form, over capturing reality as it seems in the present. If the foundation of their argument is based on sound perception data, they are unwaveringly accurate in their evaluations.

Given that Si is rooted in recollection, the INTP habitually refers to and maintains records from the past. These might take the shape of objects, or souvenirs which remind them of general moods at the time. INTP’s might be collectors and even hoarders, as there is no object separate from its value in terms of past significance.

In short: we have a hard time letting go.

For quite some time now I’ve been ruminating on the parallels between my external life and my internal life. The problems that I have in my external life seem to be mirrored, almost exactly, by the problems in my internal life.

To be less abstract about it, take the bit I bolded above. I have long held onto memorabilia from the past, like ticket stubs and other bits and bobs. More inconveniently, I also hang onto papers and notebooks from old courses; there are materials from high school – or possibly even earlier – from my old educational archives. Mostly-Grown Me has figured out how to let go of these physical embodiments of stuff I’ve learned — I’ve purged most of my paper ephemera from grad school. Young Me nearly had panic attacks at the thought of throwing away a paper that had information that I needed to know on it. (Even if that information was readily available elsewhere.)

Sometimes that instinct extends to places that it really shouldn’t go, like taking out the trash. There is no useful information in a bag of trash — and yet.

I also feel like this extends internally somewhat (and no, this isn’t totally the domain of sensing) to my tendency to hold onto ideas, or relationships, or feelings, or memories, or associations long past their due date. Cleaning mental house is sometimes as difficult as cleaning out an old desk. (Although morning journaling has helped with this immensely.)

But now I’m going to take this past the mind and into the body. For a few years, I struggled with Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth, which was really Whole Body Bacterial Overgrowth. My body was literally hanging on to bacteria that it obviously didn’t need. (This was aided and abetted by some high powered immune-suppressing drugs.) It took years, plus some natropathic assistance, for my body to relearn how to properly purge unnecessary bacteria. And though the worst of it is over, I’m still learning how to live a “clean” life.

But I’ve always thought it was kind of funny how I had hoarding problems in my living space and hoarding problems in my physical body.

Learning how to let go and clean things out has been instrumental in my upswing in wellbeing over the past few years.

There are probably some lingering clinging emotions that I should deal with, but like any INTP I like to pretend they don’t exist. (Which is probably why they are a problem in the first place!)

No conclusions here, I just found a new conceptual model of the INTP and wanted to flesh out some thoughts I’ve had.