What happens when introverted iNtuition is your dominant function?
Dominant introverted intuition
INFJ, INTJ, INTP, and INFP are the four types that can all have dominant introverted iNtuition in flow.
The introverted iNtuitive type has an anxiety that for other types can be hard to understand. The introverted iNtuitive type can’t handle not knowing or not understanding something. When introverted intuition is your dominant function, your core priority is to know and gain insight into things.
But the introverted iNtuitive feels that the answers can’t be found in the surface world – we can’t simply observe our way to truth, we must look deeper within. Often, the introverted intuitive believes that if only they can think long enough about something, they will get truth and insight.
Introverted iNtuition can be an anxiety in the sense that it will feel a heightened doubt and suspicion, a philosophical uncertainty, that can block the type from making any decision on any matter in life until they have found “answers.”. The Introverted iNtuitive type can appear avoidant because of this very part of them. Rather than make decisions or just do something, they must cautiously study and research a matter thoroughly.
Existential Intelligence
A dead giveaway of the introverted iNtuitive subtype is the many mental models they surround themselves with. Life to the introverted intuitive can appear to be the question of the answers you have formulated to help you cope with existential problems and matters of life.
Existential intelligence gives life wisdom, or the wisdom of a philosopher. The introverted iNtuitive type can appear truly eccentric or “mad” as they can appear lost in a world of their own design, riddles, conspiracies, and hidden truths that no other person can see. Often, the question is how they reached the conclusions they had at all. Are they insane, are they crazy, or are they on to something the rest of us just can’t see?
Plato exemplifies the struggles of the introverted intuitive when he writes the cave allegory. A man discovers a greater world hidden outside the cave where he and his friends all reside. But when he shares this discovery with the others, the others brand him crazy, insane. Socrates, another same age philosopher was forced to drink poison because his theories could potentially subvert or confuse the youth.
One person who embodies the values of existential intelligence is INTP-Ni subtype Albert Einstein. He lived a practical life at the post office, but his mind was always somewhere else: in the world of physics. Slowly, he developed his theories on relativity, time and space. Theories we still apply today and that have helped us make great advancements in physics and science.
Introverted iNtuition (Ni) at it’s best and worst
In flow it’s like this strong assertive belief about how the world is, it’s this feeling that you have discovered a great truth. It’s a sensation that can carry you away, an energy that makes you feel you know and understand the world. It’s something you feel you must share, a discovery you must tell others about, and something you know will help others understand life better. It’s information about life, a particular field, area, or environment. You feel you have the truth.
In stress, it’s like a crippling existential doubt. It feels as if life has no point, at least not one you can understand. Nothing appears to make sense. Everything is a lie or a falsehood. You feel ignorant and stupid, and because of it, you feel you have no right to participate in the world.
When it’s a bearable stress, it’s a reminder that you can’t know everything. That there are still things to discover. That you need to think things through a little longer and you need to widen your horizon. Perhaps there’s something you’ve missed, can you go over your maths again? At the same time, this can make you become obsessive and isolated, or it can make you read in patterns that aren’t there.
At it’s worst, it’s like a blind certainty in which you read in and add facts that will support the conspiracy you have gotten attached to. You keep looking for information that will confirm the theories you have, rather than work on your theory and test it through objective experiments and testing. It may be that you’re not able to handle uncertainty or the thought of being wrong, or that you have gotten too attached to your own worldview. It may be time to take a step back. So what if you’re wrong? That’s also a discovery. Be careful not to fall into a loop just because you crave control and certainty. Invite chances to learn and gain new insight.
Flow is the goal: energy in new opportunities to learn, testing, experimentation, study, and the pursuit of truth should come first. When Introverted intuition is the dominant function, it will emanate most of your life, and you will not settle until you’ve found a great truth.
