I'd be interested to know anyone else's take on this, because it's something I'm curious about.
Is there a difference in the way Ns use their imagination?
I'm thinking about this because lying and deception of one kind or another are common to all our experiences of N behavior, I think. And you would think it takes imagination to deceive others.
And yet, I know that in the case of the particular N in my life, imagination (in the positive sense) is practically a dirty word.
I don't recall being told stories as a child, or anyone playing make-believe games with me. Not until I got together with other kids, anyway. And of course, I had my head stuck in a book as soon as I realized what libraries were, even though there were practically no books in the house. I got told off for that, for being a 'daydreamer'. I had an imaginary friend (I'm told, with some scorn) but figure I must have had it scolded out of me pretty early on because I don't remember a thing about it. The ability to dream and imagine has always been something important to me, something that I think has been behind a lot of the greatest human achievements. Perhaps I'm biased, being a writer, but I've always seen that positive side of it.
The N had no books when she was a child, no comics. Never showed any interest in them. Never picked up a book until well into old age, and then they had to be 'realistic' novels, preferably set in war and poverty sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Nothing but derision for anything that involves actual fantasy, or indeed anything further back in history or in other cultures.
I ponder this, and I wonder about the regard for 'truth' of someone who's so good at twisting it, and I think I have some kind of a theory on it. Because isn't imagination the basic way in which we put ourselves in someone else's shoes? It may not apply to all Ns, or not in the same way, but I wonder if such a total distaste for the creative side of imagination is a symptom of a basic inability to see any worldview other than your own. They really don't see themselves as lying, so their view is 'real' (no matter how manufactured) and everything else is make-believe. Maybe even other people themselves aren't real to the N. Ugh. Spooky thought.
(A telling thing is that this particular N also 'can't' read autobiographies, as opposed to biographies, but is incapable of saying why. I'm guessing that attempting to read 'I...I...' about events they didn't experience completely confuses the N. mind.)
Thoughts on this, anyone?
