An INTP Medium Article
As an INTP, I have a lot of ideas.
As a first sentence (or even complete article), I could be happy to just stop there ‘cause that’s satisfying and self-congratulatory enough for an INTP.
I’ve typed it out and read it back to myself 300 times and decided it’s succinct and straight to the point; and I’m sure other INTP’s will love reading it too, because we love reading anything that legitimizes and validates our lack of follow-through while at the same time praises our creativity and novelty.
But the full version of that first sentence is “As an INTP, I have a lot of ideas, but almost no motivation to appropriately research, prepare, plan, follow through, or otherwise materialize and/or complete most of my ideas.
I have a bevy of half-started Medium articles just sitting in my queue for some time I decide I’m really gonna hunker down, finish and publish them. After all, I thought they were good enough ideas to open up my computer at the time and start to write them down, so of course I’ll eventually find the equal compulsion to finish them, right?
One of the toughest parts of being an INTP is mustering the drive or courage to finish anything. In my head, my half started articles (which will almost certainly never get finished) are enough for me. They’re real. They’re written (partly). I can look at the words and read them again and smile and maybe add another sentence (or more like, rewrite a sentence), read it 20 more times, get bored, and move on. Case in point, here’s a smattering of article concepts I have waiting to be finished:
- A Nigerian Prince named Trickle-Down Economics
I’m not an economist, politician, historian, lawyer, or any other type who’d have any credibility in illustrating the parallels between notorious phishing scam emails and the concept of trickle-down economics or even capitalism, in general, but I opened Medium to start it with just the title (and nothing else). - Simplifying the MVP
This is a “work article” about the software development concept of the Minimal Viable Product. Sits somewhere between actually trying to verbalize a problem’s potential solution and snark about tech entrepreneurs. - A cis man’s perspective on gender roles
As a white, heterosexual male who is open-minded enough to think that all humans should have the same rights and equal treatment under the law, I wanted to put those thoughts out there to offer my public support and what I believe to be thoughtful observations about the Gender Discrimination Machine. - The Reality of Heaven
Although, I’m an atheist, I think more about the concepts of my Catholic upbringing more now than I ever did when I was convincing myself I believe in them. This is mostly centered somewhere around a quip about how the housing market is in Heaven.
The issue, as you may have noticed with the array of subjects represented above is that, generally, I have no business (nor solid depth of knowledge) in the fields of study I typically find myself thinking about or solving problems for. I start with the “I wonder” moment, write it down, and then realize that because I know nothing real about the topic, writing an article about it will require at least an hour or so of regimented research and organization, and at most a Ph.D. and some real field experience.
On projects that I feel super jazzed about, I may actually begin researching, taking notes, constructing an outline, drawing on a whiteboard, but then I hit a wall when researching turns into a 2 1/2 day black-out of various educational rabbit holes of curiosity that had almost nothing to do with the original topic.
Even this article now. I’m mostly writing this as a stream-of-conscious diary entry and I realize I have no real moral of the story, or take-away that I or readers are supposed to learn, reflect, and improve with. Is it enough to just verbalize and see the words so that we (of the INTP citizenry) can realize someone else feels all these same difficulties? I don’t know, but it does feel like another uncompleted* project. Maybe a story doesn’t need to have a beginning, middle, and end. Gives me an idea for another project…🤔
I think what’s important for me right now (and for those of you who are still with me at this point), is to let myself call this article complete. Let ourselves finish a sentence before we cut ourselves off to change the subject. Some ideas can just be ideas, but understand which ones should be acted upon and feel good about doing so. Feel happy and proud and confident to make a contribution to the world, one idea at a t—
*After initially typing “incomplete” and then adding a “d” to it, and seeing the red squiggle of a misspelling, I changed it to “uncompleted”, which made the squiggle go away. While I appreciate my choosing of the correct word for a situation, I just had to stop myself from looking up “incomplete vs uncompleted” and chasing that white rabbit. (I’ll probably still look it up later)
