This is how I experience Ni, and how I observed it in Ni users I know.
Listening is hard
I will often stop listening because the subject made me think about something else (something more interesting), then this new idea will lead me to another one, then another… In a few seconds, I’ll be far away in my head and will sometimes say things that’ll look totally random. I can also get enthusiastic and jump to a new subject, middle-sentence, because I got a new (better) idea to talk about (which can be annoying to other people). And having to pay attention to uninteresting things is intellectually painful because I have to make the effort to not drift away in my mind.
Thinking about everything, all the time
Our thought process is not straightforward unless we’re working on it to be that way (with Te’s help, for example, to get something done). We’re not thinking about a few things: we’re thinking about everything at once. Picture a black hole: no idea can escape; we think them all. It might seem to other people that we only have good ideas, or that we can’t have many ideas, because we’ll express only the best of them. We can’t trust an idea unless we’re sure we can’t think a better one.
Paralysis
How do you know you made the best choice? How can you be sure your idea is the best? You can’t. You don’t know. This can get us stuck. Sometimes, we miss opportunities by hesitating too long. We have to rely on our other functions to move, to do something. And we have to trust ourselves.
Hello, intensity, my old friend.
Ni is deep. Sometimes, a bit heavy. It makes us drawn to intellectual things, art with a great meaning, talking about what moves people (love, their interests, hard things they experienced, things that changed them…), books on various topics… I often won’t think someone is my friend if we don’t share something special. If you’re just a body to spend time with and have fun, that’s nice, but I won’t be your friend unless I’m sure I deeply know you.
Turn it off, please!
Ni is all about wisdom, blah blah… I wish I could turn my brain off sometimes. I try to, mostly through my inferior Se: eating, drinking, singing (I sing so much)… I’ll watch stupid movies to give myself a break and laugh about silly things. I often avoid so-called intelligent movies because most of them fail to both amaze me and amuse me. And I’ll almost never miss a chance at watching something creative or weird.
Creativity
Ni needs to find the best ideas, or the best plans. The way to get to that is through creativity. Sometimes, the perfect way to go is an old, overused one, and it’s ok. I won’t try something for the sake of it being new if there is a less fun but more intelligent way. Most Ni-people I know are into arts or writing, or both. Personal arts and writing projects give Ni all the freedom it needs to fully bloom and it feels so nice.
Dedication and precision for the right things
If something is not interesting, I can’t go on for a long time unless I think it’s worth the effort. I also noticed, from me and also from Ni-aux users, that for a thing to be considered as done, it doesn’t have to be flawlessly done if it’s not important (chores, meaningless work…) but some other things won’t be remotely okay to us unless they are perfectly done.
Humor
I’ve been told by many people I should think about pursuing a career as a stand-up comic, but many people also don’t get my jokes at all. My INTJ friends told me that they often get taken seriously when joking, and that people can’t tell when they’re being sarcastic (so they just look like they are pretty mean or especially stupid). Both of them amaze me with how they can push the smallest thing into the most epic long-lasting joke, making fun links between things. (And watch up for self-depreciating humor from INTJs. We love that.)
Strange memory
I absorb information all the time. Ni collects knowledge and, later, fishes out what is useful. Sometimes, I don’t even know how I know something. I just do - because I read about it years ago or because I made links from another bit of knowledge. I’m also the kind of person to forget whole days or conversations if they were not meaningful. I often refer to my memory as impressionist. I have many blurry memories from which I keep the overall feeling and no detail.
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