(reposted and updated from a former blog)
INTJs are often described as "The Mastermind" or "Scientist". I prefer to label myself a Knowledge Collector and Curator.
How INTJ Knowledge Collecting Plays Out:
- Wanting to know ALL THE THINGS.
- Not being able to read enough books, blogs, magazines, Twitter feeds, etc. in a day. I'm constantly adding more to my apps, "to be read" stacks, and wish lists. I have around 100 Pinterest boards (and could easily make more, but I'm trying to simplify...)
- Wanting to know more than surface information. So the Why. How. When. With whom. Where. And then what happened next? are important to us.
- Being curious, if we're being charitable. Nosy, if we're not.
- Living both as a dabbler (knowing a little bit about many things) and as an obsessive (knowing a lot about a few things).
- The ability to talk for a long time to people who have similar interests, even as an introvert. Conversations about things I consider interesting are invigorating, not draining.
- Checking out the books on a friend's shelf more than we observe their clothes or other personal belongings. I notice their music and movie collections and how they're displayed and organized (or not organized).
- Quantifying and comparing without effort. (And yes, I do compare apples and oranges, thank you very much.) Judge, not to be hateful, but because it comes easily. If we're being spiritual, we might call this discernment.
- Loving names and labels. Adoring timelines and infographics. New ways of organizing information are exciting to us.
- Sentimentality. INTJs have a reputation for coldness or lack of emotion but in my experience this is not the entire story. I keep cards and photos and ticket stubs and clothes my babies wore. I keep these things to remember because my memory can be hazy - not because my memory is poor, but because I'm remembering so many details and words and movie quotes and snippets of conversation and factoids that I need real, tangible things to remind me of the things I treasure.
- Requiring a lot of sleep, but that need directly competes with the desire to always know more. Which leads to this happening:
- Having notebooks filled with stories, possible blog posts, half-written essays and lists of things we want to read, watch, or listen to. (And for me, that's not counting all the little slips of paper with lines of dialog, character names, observations, and anything else that demands I write it down.)
Now, knowing what to do with all this information requires wisdom. Which is a different subject, I think. In the short term, all these bits and pieces of information make me someone you probably would choose for your team in a trivia game. On the other hand, I'm not always able to describe the ways these bits of knowledge connect in my mind.
Being a writer grows from that drive, I think. A writer is essentially declaring: here are the things I know, here's how they connect, and here's why they matter. Learning to do that well is the pursuit of a lifetime.
Do you collect information? Do you think personality type contributes to this habit?
