The Only One

[inignot]

Sometimes do you feel like the only one who sees things? You feel like nobody else is even paying attention. For instance, when on the metro, and one of the two escalators is broken, I can't help but to see the people as data packets now traveling in narrow band instead of broadband. Ok.. maybe I'm sharing too much now...

[Warrior413]

I feel like that a lot... but sometimes I'm the only one not noticing something.

[inignot]

What would be a "for instance?"

[SheepDog]

I have two varieties of this. One is that people seem oblivious to the subtle changes around them. Those who see the world in stereotypes don't need to take in more information. I feel like my understanding of even the simplest things in life are constantly being updated with new information. It is very clear to me that this is not true with everybody.

The more common thing that I notice is that I'm always making connections between things that nobody else seems to think about. I like to think about the constructed physical world around me (like your escalator example) and ponder the process of how it was designed, and whether the assumptions of the design still hold true. I think about how people have grown toward an increased interdependence on complex systems and how individual skills are becoming atrophied or not developed. I think about how these engineered structures become engineered events, which abstract the physical world into trivial symbols, deriving us the experience of interacting with the physical world as it truly exists. Reality becomes contrived, and Truth is obfuscated.

I've been told that I read too much into things. I say that people who say that don't read enough into things.

[jimkopelli]

It seems (to me) like a lot of people are really unobservant. They just don't notice things around them, like fliers on the wall or planes in the sky. I hate having to explain why I laugh at things like that when they're just going "duh-huh?"

[Sackanaka]

My two roommates and I were walking down a brick road on the way back to the dorm after lunch one day, when we came to the topic of what we look at.
ESFJ roommate: I look at the lines in the center of each brick.
INTJ roommate: I look at the cracks between the bricks and other things that get my attention, like coins or animals.
INTP me: I look at the whole road, the pattern and how each brick makes it up.
Not sure if that has any strong correlative properties, just thought it was interesting.

[xavierd]

I think its the INTPs ability to see connections between seemingly disparate things. Others who observe your escalator example only see the people and the escalator where an INTPs mind will see the similarity of patterns between that scene and data moving through a network wire.

I have a friend that always teases me when I point things out like this, others just look at me with this kind of glazed over look like, 'What the hell are you talking about?'

[Napoleon]

I was always in to people watching and seeing how everyone behaves.

When i was chatting with my mom and a coworker i noticed the other person looking at the outgrow in my moms hair so i trew that in the conversation :)
I can sit in the back of an auditorium and just watch to all the people and picking the couples out, maybe not that impressive but some people just don't see these things.
I can see who hates who and just because i listed alot to what people have to say i even know why.
I can look at the sky with amazement and at the stillnis of the water of an empty swimming pool.

I always liked being an observer and just not being a part of the normal world.
I am even considering the idea of being a photographer, when i read some jobs for intp's that was the one that stood out for me.
You travel the world and can be your own boss, trying to sell your pictures for money. Dunno about it yet but seems intresting.

[Solo]

I always see things no one else does. it can become annoying when I point out my observations or connections I have made and people tell me I over analyze situations.

I don't see it as analyzing at all. I don't even have to concentrate to see the connections. It just comes naturally to me. I've been told by my peers that I shouldn't spend so much time thinking about things. I would never listen to them because they have know idea what it means to think things through. I don't even know if they ever think.

Now I just keep most of my observations to myself. They just aren't worth telling most people because the connections are lost on them.

[Network Alchemy]

i stay at home living off interest and stare at walls and ceilings and floors and wonder if there is any difference between them except the orientation they are given by gravity and wonder if i should design a house on a gyroscopic chassis that can be used in a wide set of orientations

[synchronous]

I can relate to most of this. I've been told I overanalyse, I think too much, I read too much into things, etc. Sometimes it is true and I'm overusing my favored functions. Sometimes I listen to others when I should be following my own observations. Sometimes I express my observations and despite the accuracy of my perceptions, my words fall on deaf ears and I have to wait for others to 'see the light'. Most often now I just keep my observations to myself or choose to share them with a select few whom I can trust. It's too frustrating to try to explain what I observe.

[MacGuffin]

I often miss things cause I am off in my head thinking about something.

When I am paying attention to my surroundings, I will think of unusual connections.

[SheepDog]

I don't see it as analyzing at all. I don't even have to concentrate to see the connections. It just comes naturally to me.

I know exactly what you mean by this. Connections, patterns, etc. just come to my mind. It's not like having to go through a bunch of logical steps or anything like that.

[athman]

Definitely, it just springs to mind.
Most recent bizarre example... I spent last weekend marking exams for CPA’s (Certified Practising Accountants). All examiners were locked away at a convention centre under controlled access conditions. Next to us was a stamp collecting convention. The entrances were separated by crowd control barriers and security guards. The obvious connection that sprung into my mind, and nagged at me all weekend was...

“If a fight broke out between the accountants and the stamp collectors, who would win?”

[sbw]

athman, that's so funny...

anyway, yeah, this happens to me regularly, I'll notice/invent/whatever a connection or correlation between things, and my friends just look at me like I'm nuts...again...

Scott

[waxwing]

The other night I was talking to a friend while I was working an overnight shift at the group home. I was mid-conversation, talking about intensity: He says, "I like how you vary the intensity of what you do." I got to thinking about whether intensity lies in the variation, then, or if one can experience intensity in a sort of unchanging existence. Anyway, this is not the point. Simulataneously, I was looking over the papers sticking on the refridgerator and came across an explanation of one of the resident's diets: "Food chopped into dime-sized pieces." Immeditely, I blurted out the words I read and somehow saw this striking connection between food being chopped into such pieces and time, intensity, variation, the whole picture. Luckily, my friend is a fellow intp, and so he was able to go with it. The connection seemed to lie in the way I was visualizing the food, the way that some people try to divide and assign meaning to time, perhaps where it is inappropriate. Of course, the reference to "dime-sized" presented a whole new opportunity to think tangentially. Cliched, I know. INTPs thinking about time and space.

I do only share these observations with certain people, but it is almost impossible to hide the fact that I am intensely curious about what I see/hear/touch. I also find that in nearly every situation or scene, I see things and people in relationship. There is never only discord or harmony in a scene, either. I always think in terms of processes. Dissonance ----->resolution------>aftermath and so on.....

Beauty stems from sadness, harmony can only be heard after discord, etc.

-V