People new to type can puzzle us with their questions and perspectives, and while there may be a book of helpful magic formulas at the type wizard's disposal, there are no pat formulas. Sometimes we look back on our journey and wish we had packed better. Where we start and what we pick up later are important. In contrast, those who discover type via temperament leave with the notion of sixteen whole types, where the temperament themes are bedrock underneath the varied type landscape. And that's decent.
Type exists to start with.
A person is one pattern and there are sixteen whole type patterns. We can invent theories that simplify talking about and getting at a pattern, but in the end there are these patterns and everything else is a reduction or over-generalization. Simply, journeys have beginnings, middles and ends. Sometimes loose ends, but ends none the less. Sometimes missing middles and raw beginnings.