Hi everyone!  Blog interest, emails, etc. has *jumped* up lately, and I wanted to thank you all for coming to read these things I’ve poured so much of my love into 🙂  And thanks to everyone who has sent me emails 😀 it’s been great to hear from you!!!  Apologies if I haven’t gotten back to you yet!  I swear I will reply to everyone… but I’m a little backed up and I want to give everyone the attention they deserve… plus, you know, I still have a blog to write 😉  And laundry to catch up on…

But I really do enjoy hearing from you and replying to you, so don’t let any of that scare you away 🙂  Being correctly typed can make a world of difference in your life and I’d be happy to help… if you’re patient 😉

Emails have also shown me areas of information I could stand to cover better.  For example, I had an awesome girl whom I typed as a Sensor ask me why I typed her that way, and how to tell the difference between Sensors and iNtuitives, especially because she didn’t feel good at the types of things Sensors are “supposed” to be good at.  Here is some of my response (made generally applicable through the use of handy-dandy brackets), because I think these are common concerns.  I said:

“Well, to start with, Sensors don’t have to be athletic and iNtuitives can be (though I’m not lol) and Sensors can really enjoy school and learning etc. and some iNtuitives don’t.  I really believe that any type can get good at any skill, they don’t have to be limited to a certain branch of interests…

“Like I said last email, Sensors think in puzzle pieces, where everything has a spot and snaps into place.  iNtuitives think more in a web or word-cloud [I meant word-net], where one thought connects to lots of others through little strands of patterns.  They’re both equal, but they look different when you know what to look for.  So when Sensors talk, they focus on a single puzzle piece, be it a situation or information of whatever kind, that’s whatever they’re dealing with at that moment, and figure out where that piece fits.  They don’t have to look at all the pieces at once because they can look at pieces in isolation, without them being attached to all the other pieces.  An S will pick up one ‘piece’ of information, and just evaluate that piece by itself to figure out where it goes.  An N can’t pick up one part of their information ‘web’ without everything attached to it coming too; they have to orient all the strands at the same time because otherwise they have no reference point and their web totally falls apart.

“Was that a really weird analogy?  So, when [a Sensor talks, they] hold up individual ‘puzzle pieces’ of topics or information, and discuss basically, ‘I have this piece.  It has this picture and is this shape.  Hmm… I think it goes here; do you agree?’ and [the Sensor puts] it in [their] mind where [they] think it fits in the puzzle 😀  Then [they] move on to the next piece.  As long as a piece is working where [they] put it, and the picture looks like the puzzle box, [they] don’t have to worry about what all the other pieces are doing; [they] can take the puzzle one piece at a time.  [They] can focus on the puzzle piece right in front of [them] (i.e. the piece of information or whatever [they’re] doing at the moment) and as long as that piece was put in the right place, it’ll line up with later pieces.”

I focused in this email on the Sensor side of it, because that was who I was talking to so the other side wasn’t especially relevant, but I’d like to elaborate on the iNtuitive version now.  When an iNtuitive talks, they don’t stay in one place or on one thought.  Everything is connected and one string leads to a million others.  Now, this could easily be confused with the randomness of Perceivers, trying to explore a million different options.  SPs can certainly be random. 😉  No, I’m talking about forays into the conceptual where every thought connects to every other, looking over the whole at once.  iNtuitives will constantly be looking for how one thought applies to another and how everything fits into place based on how it connects to everything else.

Now, iNtuitives’ method widely gets viewed as more superior, which ends up causing arrogant iNtuitives and recursively arrogant Sensors, and makes everyone feel defensive of the way they operate.  Like I just said, the two methods are equal, but different.  Healthy, developed Sensors bring such meaning to looking at the puzzle-piece right in front of them, and I’m always in awe at the enlightenment that Sensors can pull from the world at their fingertips.  Likewise, as iNtuitives appreciate and admire Sensors for their abilities and thought processes, they can better value their own abilities.

So when trying to type someone as N or S, or when trying to understand how an N or S thinks, remember:

Sensors will talk in ‘puzzle pieces’—one piece at a time, everything has a place where it snaps in, so there is no need to look at every piece at once.  Emphasis is centered on correct placement of each piece, rather than on how it connects to other pieces.

iNtuitives will talk in ‘webs’ or ‘word-nets’—each piece of information connects to all the others and *has* to be viewed in context or things are missed.

Both are necessary and neither N nor S can afford to roll their eyes at the other, pretending that either context or in-the-moment-ness are invalid or irrelevant.

*We need both.*