The Mystery Unfolds

I just wanted to say that I resonate with this paragraph quite a bit. I learned too late in life (or I should say, in school) that the most effective way for me to learn/study was to do it "agenda-free". I mean to read in a relaxed open way, like I was reading a story book, early morning in bed or wherever, just as long as I was not reading/studying "studiously" (ie not making detailed notes or struggling to meet a goal, like getting a certain grade in the exam). Similarly, lectured material was best absorbed by listening to the lecturer the same way I listen to stories. Openly and passively. After a while of absorbing this material, I would "get it" in a way that seems like what you describe here. Which meant I would do very well if I gave myself time to be acquainted with the subjects and maintained this passive disposition in the actual learning, and average or even worse if I left things to be absorbed too closely to the exam. A lot of this, I'm seeing in hind-sight. I think at times I was trying too much to be an Ne...relying on ingenuity and procrastinating excessively i.e. engineering chaos/emergencies. On the bright side, I think I developed that Ne function quite a bit in my younger years. However, returning to school later on, I employed the "slow" method, and while much less exhilarating, the results were worlds apart from the earlier days. Though, to be fair, the latter classes were much more focused on subjects that were inherently interesting (from my Fe perspective) than the undergrad classes, which may have contributed to my ability to just absorb things passively...the whole thing being sustained by a genuine interest in the material itself.

This from Auburn :

Hmmm...this "congealing" sounds a bit like "over-arching", except it seems to be about one idea at a time rather than all of reality (or all ideas in the mind...or perhaps reality seen as one big massive idea) per se...Is that an accurate way of understanding Si? Is the main difference between Si and Ni that Si finds "meaning" in a certain cluster of data while Ni does something similar for all data stored in the mind all at once? That to Ni all reality is one big idea it understands all at once, while to Si reality is many ideas neatly packed away like books or topics in a library?

As an aside, and loosely connected to my first paragraph about passive learning: I love libraries.  Not just for the books, but the whole feel of a massive, spacious, quiet (yet busy) library feels very comfortable. I've been think about this, trying to locate my Si, and now I wonder if this is just me trying to relieve my early experiences with school libraries where I read fairy-tales and other children story-books obsessively, so that libraries now represent to me a very relaxed, agenda-free, pleasant experience? I have also dreamt about libraries throughout my life, always pleasant, and books (in the dreams) gave me a delicious satisfying feeling like eating a wholesome hot meal when its very cold and raining outside. I once considered becoming a book-store owner in my town and thought of becoming a librarian as a career for a long while.