INTJ Creativity

I write fiction and spend quite a bit of time wondering about my rational tendencies vs. my creative side, fearing that my rationality is squashing my creativity. I read that Jane Austen has been identified as an INTJ and that gives me hope.

Does anyone else have this struggle? Or is anyone blissfully creating without this worry? How do you integrate?

I agree with you that the "J" can squash creativity. The other side is the "P", where you are so into your own ideas that you don't care how anyone responds to what you are saying. I believe the INTJ is creative but wants very much to fit in and this lends an edge of conformity that can get in the way of true originality. I think the thing to do is to somehow focus and meditate on your dreams or visions to get in touch with your creative spark, let it all hang out, get your vision out, and only later go back to it to produce an "acceptable" artistic statement.

Interesting points, Jaybernstein. I will have to ponder whether or not a need for conformity is working against me. I've always been comfortable as an individualist (as I imagine many of us are). I've thought that it was more a need for control that blocks access at times. It is possible that I feel the need to control things in order to make sure of conformity. Also, there's that ever-present perfectionism. How do you tell that critic sitting on your shoulder to just shut up?

I have often thought about conformity as it relates to my personality. Not so much in terms of creativity, just whether or not I am too influenced or not influenced enough by others.
It is sort of the same serious/fun loving dichtomy. I feel I either swing one way (completely serious) or the other (party fever) but have a hard time staying in the middle.

#4 perlle

I know what you mean, about the serious/fun dichotomy. Maybe it's a function of intensity.

I have also had the question re the influence of others. It's our nature to see what others don't and we have to learn the confidence to trust that and forge ahead. On the other hand, extreme independence can hurt you: others can have valuable insight if we stop to listen. But how do you know which is which? I guess you have to learn to trust yourself to make that decision, too.

I do - very much so.

In the past fifteen years or so I have often wondered if, as a result of studying math and logic (requirements for a degree in computer science) I have suppressed or erased the ability to be creative outside of the context of writing code.

Trying to come up with something new or fanciful - writing, drawing, what have you - always seems negative somehow, childish, unworthy of spending time on.

I have not tried to write poetry or fiction in many years but if I can get the rational and logical side out of the way for a time I express that creative urge by writing on my website, with varying degrees of success.

Other than needing to come up with creative solutions in software design, most of the rest of my creativity is in my woodworking projects, and most of the projects serve a purpose. I rarely create anything merely for aesthetics, though I want the projects when complete to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

I find that I need something to start with. Thus I can take someone else's first draft or proposal, and really go to town with elaborating and building upon it, where I have difficulty coming up with the original idea in the first place. That's in writing. In crafts, I do pretty well, but when you think about it, most original crafts are elaborations and reorganizations of basic techniques.

"Creativity" has different meanings. I am very clever at coming up with creative solutions to policy, procedure and system problems, thinking outside the box to re-engineer something in a way no one else had thought to do, sometimes by looking at it from the 30,000 foot level and analyzing the basic goals of what we're trying to acheive. So in that sense I'm creative. But I can't write a serious poem or write a line of music or paint a picture to save my life. So in that sense I'm not creative. I feel like I'm a clever "idea man" but not a soulfully artistic person. I always thought "introverted conceptualist" was a good descriptor for my own brand of INTJ-ness.

ISTJ/INTJ: As far as artistic creativity-I have none. None whatsoever. I also have no imagination, as in I can't shadow box in my Krav Maga classes because don't you people realize there is no one standing in front of me?? Some can create, some can imitate, and I imitate well. I taught myself many crafts (quilting, cross-stitching, beading) and some arts (calligraphy, can play the violin), but I will never be able to design my own patterns or write music.

And I'm ok with that. :)

I am so embedded in the role of analytical observer that I find I have a disconnect with the concept of actually creating something in the real physical day to day world.

Although I have creative ideas for novels, and characters form themselves in my mind, and i even get real visceral feelings about how the characters think and understand their world, the actual process of creating feels too worldly, like I would need to step through into another dimension to accomplish it.