Dear Fe User,

[PeaceBaby]

(Sorry Fe users; I know this post will likely sound hokey to you. )

When my emotions, my inspiration, are the strongest, I find that I have very little originality or spark. It's as if I cannot find any good way to express what I need to express, the inner light is too intense to resolve into an image for others to see - it is noise without form - even to me.

This sentence is the key; to turn this into a visualization, Fi is the clay - it's learning to take one's hands and other tools to shape it, work it, turn it to a work of art.

So let's more deeply imagine Fi as the clay, Te as the wheel, Ni (or Si) as the hands. When you have hands and a wheel first - the tools - then are presented with the clay, you have established already some context with which to work the clay. Yet if presented first with clay, a great chunk of it, but no tools, what must one do to turn this mass into something that has a recognizable form? One must look around, see what's available to work with, develop proficiency to even start getting that mass of Fi shaped into something visually appealing to the world.

So the step beyond all that is to realize that Fi is not only a source material, the clay, but it is one of the tools too.

You say that "the inner light is too intense to resolve into an image for others to see" - what I am trying to say is if that inner light is Fi, one must find the way to reveal it to the world, not through working it to become what you think it should become, but transcending that, letting it both shape and be shaped. Letting it both be the light and what is revealed by the light.

Struggling to put that into words, but will work more on this.

 

[Poki]

So let's more deeply imagine Fi as the clay, Te as the wheel, Ni (or Si) as the hands. When you have hands and a wheel first - the tools - then are presented with the clay, you have established already some context with which to work the clay. Yet if presented first with clay, a great chunk of it, but no tools, what must one do to turn this mass into something that has a recognizable form? One must look around, see what's available to work with, develop proficiency to even start getting that mass of Fi shaped into something visually appealing to the world.

So the step beyond all that is to realize that Fi is not only a source material, the clay, but it is one of the tools too.

You say that "the inner light is too intense to resolve into an image for others to see" - what I am trying to say is if that inner light is Fi, one must find the way to reveal it to the world, not through working it to become what you think it should become, but transcending that, letting it both shape and be shaped. Letting it both be the light and what is revealed by the light.

Struggling to put that into words, but will work more on this.

Learn to express your Fi in a manner that is acceptable and appealing to the world. In other words, live it, dont try so hard to understand it.

I am woman, see me shine....sorry, introverted thinking judgement function took over. *takes ass kicking from people trying to help, apologizes to PB* *bows out*

PS...And yes its much more then shining.

 

[uumlau]

So as long as the perspective doesnt relate to how you feel you will be able to bend it willy-nilly. But what if the perspective affects how you feel? If INTJs speak Ni, then doesnt Fi come out in an Ni manner, and isnt being true to Fi mean you become stubborn to Ni as well? So U, can you infact be as open with Ni as you say you are?

Ni isn't the twisting or bending itself. Rather, Ni keeps track of the whole thing, as an entity.

Try this on for size. I'll use quantum mechanics because it's an objective topic and we can keep track of the transformations more easily than with a subjective topic.

With Ni (sort of, this is an analogy), it is possible to keep track that light is both particles and waves, that it travels all possible paths, but that they cancel out and only particular paths are observed. In a particular instance, the particle model is more apt, especially if boundary conditions are set up to emphasize it. Similarly, the wave model is more apt for other cases. But the full reality is the full particle-wave-quantum-electrodynamic function that accounts for everything. Explaining that full reality (analogous to one's own full Fi reality) is doable in very special cases, but is usually going to get lost. Various observers have their own boundary conditions. They see particular paths, but not others. They see just particles, or just waves. I can try to make those that see the waves see the particles, or vice versa, but it is a difficult task. Even upon unequivocally demonstrating that it is both particle and wave, they'll be stuck asking how it all can possibly be true? Isn't it self contradictory, they'll ask. I say it isn't, that it is what it is, and it is real, but even then, it's kind of hard for those others to believe me.

Now that is all an objective matter, where I can point with authority to the collective knowledge of physicists everywhere and minds greater than mine. How do I do the same with Fi, which is extremely subjective?

This is what I mean by the "resonance." If I know they can see just the particle, and not the wave, I can explain most everything by just talking about particles. I know it isn't completely true, but I can give them more truth than they had before, and - who knows? - maybe they'll run up against the limits of the model them selves and become open to understanding the "wave truth", too, and perhaps eventually the "full truth."

Is my mind twisting and bending and altering how I feel? Yes and no. It is definitely capable of it, and it is a tool I use both for self control and to achieve understanding. But it can also be abused. INTJs typically use Ni and shove their feelings off to one side, pretending that they don't feel them, that they're really logical and not at all subject to emotion. Eventually, this blows up, because this is using Ni to hide the truth rather than find it. As long is Ni is open to the truth, it's all good.

Each perspective is "true", but they can tend to contradict each other. The translation "between" the perspectives, at least within my own mind, is by going back to the core truth as I understand it, change the lighting a bit, and cast a "true" shadow on a different wall. The core, the truth, the Fi, stays constant. I evoke different aspects which can be explored in a concise way.

Also a part of all of this is finding a "true Fi" within oneself. One of the hardest Fi lessons is that we really don't know what we want. It's why I chose, "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," as the example song. We seek and acquire and do things that we think we want, but in the end we aren't satisfied. It isn't just a petulant dissatisfaction, though, but an underlying human need to really understand. It's also expressed by this piece of music:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbArUJBRRJ0"]The Unanswered Question - Charles Ives[/YOUTUBE]

So, what Ni lets me do, is partly answer the "Fi question", within a small, specific instance, and share that. I can share any particular instance, but not the "whole thing." If I share enough instances, others can start interpolating what I see for themselves, but I can't share it as a whole. The reason I bring this up is that "being true to Fi" can be very misleading to oneself - that the instantaneous feeling of the moment is real, and meaningful, but it isn't "true" as I would describe "true," but rather one of the "instances" which is part of a larger truth. Regarding the instance as a truth is a mistake.

I should point out that this is a very different thing than Fi with Si, and PB, Oro and other NFPs are far more adept at describing and understanding Fi in the Si context. This is why while my Fi descriptions do resonate with them, there will always be something "slightly off" as far as they are concerned, because that Si context will be very different than my Ni context in particular cases. I believe this is because while we might see the same Fi truths, we map them differently within ourselves.

 

[Poki]

Ni isn't the twisting or bending itself. Rather, Ni keeps track of the whole thing, as an entity.

Try this on for size. I'll use quantum mechanics because it's an objective topic and we can keep track of the transformations more easily than with a subjective topic.

With Ni (sort of, this is an analogy), it is possible to keep track that light is both particles and waves, that it travels all possible paths, but that they cancel out and only particular paths are observed. In a particular instance, the particle model is more apt, especially if boundary conditions are set up to emphasize it. Similarly, the wave model is more apt for other cases. But the full reality is the full particle-wave-quantum-electrodynamic function that accounts for everything. Explaining that full reality (analogous to one's own full Fi reality) is doable in very special cases, but is usually going to get lost. Various observers have their own boundary conditions. They see particular paths, but not others. They see just particles, or just waves. I can try to make those that see the waves see the particles, or vice versa, but it is a difficult task. Even upon unequivocally demonstrating that it is both particle and wave, they'll be stuck asking how it all can possibly be true? Isn't it self contradictory, they'll ask. I say it isn't, that it is what it is, and it is real, but even then, it's kind of hard for those others to believe me.

Now that is all an objective matter, where I can point with authority to the collective knowledge of physicists everywhere and minds greater than mine. How do I do the same with Fi, which is extremely subjective?

This is what I mean by the "resonance." If I know they can see just the particle, and not the wave, I can explain most everything by just talking about particles. I know it isn't completely true, but I can give them more truth than they had before, and - who knows? - maybe they'll run up against the limits of the model them selves and become open to understanding the "wave truth", too, and perhaps eventually the "full truth."

Is my mind twisting and bending and altering how I feel? Yes and no. It is definitely capable of it, and it is a tool I use both for self control and to achieve understanding. But it can also be abused. INTJs typically use Ni and shove their feelings off to one side, pretending that they don't feel them, that they're really logical and not at all subject to emotion. Eventually, this blows up, because this is using Ni to hide the truth rather than find it. As long is Ni is open to the truth, it's all good.

Each perspective is "true", but they can tend to contradict each other. The translation "between" the perspectives, at least within my own mind, is by going back to the core truth as I understand it, change the lighting a bit, and cast a "true" shadow on a different wall. The core, the truth, the Fi, stays constant. I evoke different aspects which can be explored in a concise way.

Also a part of all of this is finding a "true Fi" within oneself. One of the hardest Fi lessons is that we really don't know what we want. It's why I chose, "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," as the example song. We seek and acquire and do things that we think we want, but in the end we aren't satisfied. It isn't just a petulant dissatisfaction, though, but an underlying human need to really understand. It's also expressed by this piece of music:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbArUJBRRJ0"]The Unanswered Question - Charles Ives[/YOUTUBE]

So, what Ni lets me do, is partly answer the "Fi question", within a small, specific instance, and share that. I can share any particular instance, but not the "whole thing." If I share enough instances, others can start interpolating what I see for themselves, but I can't share it as a whole. The reason I bring this up is that "being true to Fi" can be very misleading to oneself - that the instantaneous feeling of the moment is real, and meaningful, but it isn't "true" as I would describe "true," but rather one of the "instances" which is part of a larger truth. Regarding the instance as a truth is a mistake.

I should point out that this is a very different thing than Fi with Si, and PB, Oro and other NFPs are far more adept at describing and understanding Fi in the Si context. This is why while my Fi descriptions do resonate with them, there will always be something "slightly off" as far as they are concerned, because that Si context will be very different than my Ni context in particular cases. I believe this is because while we might see the same Fi truths, we map them differently within ourselves.

Woohoo, what I do with Ti. Thanks, your Ni combined with your explanation of the bigger pictured allowed me to be able to partly understand what I do with Ti.

So what if you have two particle models that are different subjectively and you are trying to mold one into a wave so you can apply things in the fashion you did above? What do you end up with?

 

[Kalach]

I know you did it to see if I'd zone it on that (the value judgement rather than the more objective content) and, no, I don't expect you to be sorry.

Technically, no, I didn't do it to catch attention, I did it to insult. I do regard trying on all the hats and, if only ever so briefly, claiming them all as one's own, to be retarded. What's retarded about it? Nothing, if one is an extroverted perciever. One doesn't begin to know if one doesn't have a suggest and a do, right? But as an introverted perceiver, it's wasteful and significantly without merit, most especially when I have already begun to track a truth, though only through my own perception.

I expect you to realize though that it comes more from your subjective Fi than your objective Te, which is relevant to the conversation we've been having, n'est-ce pas?

I do realize it comes from subjective Fi. Subjective Fi tags my own efforts within myself with concern and investment. And you do realise that my own efforts include seeking out truths, right? So when ENFPs wander in and do their adorable Te and be all manly and competent, well that'd be fine if there wasn't so much misdirection included in it too, that no one acknowledges as not Te, which actively blocks further investigation of what it really is and how it came to be. Quite a lot of ego invested in being a thinker, you FPs. Personally I found it liberating to realise I wasn't that much of a thinker.

I expect you realise you're staking out your territory as much as I am.

 

[Thalassa]

Technically, no, I didn't do it to catch attention, I did it to insult.

And here I thought INTJs were so clever and strategic, trying to intellectually test people, when in truth they do just want to insult others.

I am disappoint.

 

[Kalach]

It is strategic. Just like what Poki's going on about above. Anything different from what I feel is right is retarded, so you shouldn't even try it.


And I assume we should not generalise from one INTJ's Fi to Fi in general. That would be like calling it a judgment function.





EDIT: Interesting re the thread topic... a while back I found that some INFJ Ti talk sounded like values talk, and automatically therefore "felt" that to some degree it should be easy to compartmentalize and dismiss. Well, technically not dismiss, just register as personal and not widely applicable. But Fe doesn't do values like that.

Or does it?

 

[Thalassa]

Also I care more about how people treat other people, then I do about politics. Politics is just 2 or more people trying to reach a middle ground on a external topic that affects things in a round about way.

Politics is about how people treat other people, and it affects people's lives immeasurably. As of yet no one has found a more effective way to manage large groups of people, which must be done, if you look backwards to the past and forward to the future instead of just living in the current moment. This is certainly more the domain of Fe and Te, neither function is probably especially important to you though, being the ISTP that I'm guessing you are. However, Fi also plays a role in determining underlying ethical issues that need to be maneuvered on a large scale by either Te or Fe (or at least what Fi feels should play a role).

Thanks, that helps me shift things around. So what causes butthurt?

Butthurt is most commonly caused by deranged parental figures, cute boys with big egos, and watching any act of humanity that could be theoretically symbolized as setting fire to a kitten.

 

[uumlau]

This sentence is the key; to turn this into a visualization, Fi is the clay - it's learning to take one's hands and other tools to shape it, work it, turn it to a work of art.

So let's more deeply imagine Fi as the clay, Te as the wheel, Ni (or Si) as the hands. When you have hands and a wheel first - the tools - then are presented with the clay, you have established already some context with which to work the clay. Yet if presented first with clay, a great chunk of it, but no tools, what must one do to turn this mass into something that has a recognizable form? One must look around, see what's available to work with, develop proficiency to even start getting that mass of Fi shaped into something visually appealing to the world.

So the step beyond all that is to realize that Fi is not only a source material, the clay, but it is one of the tools too.

You say that "the inner light is too intense to resolve into an image for others to see" - what I am trying to say is if that inner light is Fi, one must find the way to reveal it to the world, not through working it to become what you think it should become, but transcending that, letting it both shape and be shaped. Letting it both be the light and what is revealed by the light.

Struggling to put that into words, but will work more on this.

I think we're calling different things "Fi". Using my metaphor from the "Unanswered Question" post I used to reply to Poki, I think of the Fi as the "everything." [Though technically, the real Fi is how I process and evaluate that core "everything."] And sometimes, at really meaningful parts of my life, it's all on fire, it's all changing, it isn't what it used to be, and it isn't what it will be, yet. With practice, I probably could do something with it, but these times of my life are far too rare and fleeting for me to gain such practice - and as meaningful as they are to me, I don't want to go through them that often. In any event, my "real Fi" the judging function, just isn't done processing, yet. I don't know it (or myself) well enough yet. I can let it shape itself, but since it isn't done reshaping itself, that which was "true" a moment ago doesn't seem "true" a few moments later.

I was mentioning that "too intense" case to make it clear that things can be "from the heart" but not quite "art." A heartfelt wail or shout for joy does evoke the proper response, but lacks the refinement/precision to describe what is really behind it all.

It is when I am between these intense times in my life, when I come to really know and understand myself (as I am at that time), that it "just flows," and I can just let things shape themselves, as you put it.

 

[Poki]

Technically, no, I didn't do it to catch attention, I did it to insult. I do regard trying on all the hats and, if only ever so briefly, claiming them all as one's own, to be retarded. What's retarded about it? Nothing, if one is an extroverted perciever. One doesn't begin to know if one doesn't have a suggest and a do, right? But as an introverted perceiver, it's wasteful and significantly without merit, most especially when I have already begun to track a truth, though only through my own perception.

As an IP I can get between whats a suggestion and what is playing Do you use your perception to track the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? Sometimes one person is focused so much on a sole truth that they miss all the other things they do to reach the truth.

Politics is about how people treat other people, and it affects people's lives immeasurably. As of yet no one has found a more effective way to manage large groups of people, which must be done, if you look backwards to the past and forward to the future instead of just living in the current moment. This is certainly more the domain of Fe and Te, neither function is probably especially important to you though, being the ISTP that I'm guessing you are. However, Fi also plays a role in determining underlying ethical issues that need to be maneuvered on a large scale by either Te or Fe (or at least what Fi feels should play a role).



Butthurt is most commonly caused by deranged parental figures, cute boys with big egos, and watching any act of humanity that could be theoretically symbolized as setting fire to a kitten.

Yes, its about forcing through legislation how people treat other people. What good does that do? Create people who are forced to do things, but really dont want to. Neither function is particularly important to me, Fe is my inferior and I tend to live in the realm of a person, instead of people. I spend so much time in this realm I dont know anything about politics, and the little bit I do expose myself to reveals 2 things. The first is that everything is a cluster f--k. The second is that I dont really care to debate. I like to argue with what I see that doesnt match up. That means that I will argue against and with both sides as I believe partially in both sides, while everyone else decides to take sides.

I agree there is no better way yet to manage such a large group of people. Some people do their part to add a little to the whole, and some people do there part to help fully to a few people.

edit: I actually prefer to be at walmart the day after thanksgiving in the middle of the crowd trying to help the poor people who get run over and smashed then even taking a step into politics.

 

[Poki]

I think we're calling different things "Fi". Using my metaphor from the "Unanswered Question" post I used to reply to Poki, I think of the Fi as the "everything." [Though technically, the real Fi is how I process and evaluate that core "everything."] And sometimes, at really meaningful parts of my life, it's all on fire, it's all changing, it isn't what it used to be, and it isn't what it will be, yet. With practice, I probably could do something with it, but these times of my life are far too rare and fleeting for me to gain such practice - and as meaningful as they are to me, I don't want to go through them that often. In any event, my "real Fi" the judging function, just isn't done processing, yet. I don't know it (or myself) well enough yet. I can let it shape itself, but since it isn't done reshaping itself, that which was "true" a moment ago doesn't seem "true" a few moments later.

I was mentioning that "too intense" case to make it clear that things can be "from the heart" but not quite "art." A heartfelt wail or shout for joy does evoke the proper response, but lacks the refinement/precision to describe what is really behind it all.

It is when I am between these intense times in my life, when I come to really know and understand myself (as I am at that time), that it "just flows," and I can just let things shape themselves, as you put it.

Excuses, introverts are full of them


edit: only people who want to be helped can be helped.

 

[proteanmix]

What is this thread about now, I've lost track.

 

[Kalach]

Do you use your perception to track the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god?

Probably not. Truth is secondary. Meaning of truth is primary.

Investment in that meaning is... variable. Sometimes the investment is in truth, sometimes the investment is in Being Right. In any case investment is probably ludicrously obvious to people other than me since it's probably quite clear when and where I mark particular beliefs as "significant".

Nonetheless, meaning of truth is, while entertaining, not that worthy when the truth in question isn't true.



Let us flop this around a bit and see what happens. Were I an INFJ would I say that feeling isn't the primary concern, meaning of feeling is? And what would I say about truth with respect to meaning? Perhaps that the meaning of feeling isn't true when the feeling isn't real?

(EDIT: I wrote "real", I meant more like "extroverted real": out there among the people.)


Pffft, I don't know. There's true and there's true. One is a matching of statements to the world and the other is consistency and rank with respect to other categorised beliefs.

What is the role of introverted truth for extroverted feeling?

 

[sculpting]

What is the role of introverted truth for extroverted feeling?

One could propose models for linking of the two judging functions and note symmetries between Te/Fi and Fe/Ti. If there is a truth-it should a symmetric truth and be quite notable in the Je ausx and terts..

However MUST the two functions be linked? In a Te dom-must Fi be something they use to ground Te...especially when under 20 for instance? Same for an Fe dom? Could it be that the internal ground is the perceiving function when younger-Si or Ni, and only as they mature, do they begin to utilize the inf judging function in a concerted manner?

 

[Poki]

One could propose models for linking of the two judging functions and note symmetries between Te/Fi and Fe/Ti. If there is a truth-it should a symmetric truth and be quite notable in the Je ausx and terts..

However MUST the two functions be linked? In a Te dom-must Fi be something they use to ground Te...especially when under 20 for instance? Same for an Fe dom? Could it be that the internal ground is the perceiving function when younger-Si or Ni, and only as they mature, do they begin to utilize the inf judging function in a concerted manner?

the fact that it "grounds" is not the link. Something along the lines of. Pi/Pe - is like the blind(Pi) guiding the dumb(Pe) and the dumb(Pe) protecting the blind(Pi). Anyways, thank god I am a Ti and can avoid that We got our own set of problems just as bad

 

[Poki]

What is this thread about now, I've lost track.

Its moved internal, you have to view it from a world view standpoint to witness the functions now. See things for what they are, not what they say, without losing focus on what is said, or you may miss what they are.

 

[Kalach]

So an INTJ (moi) is inclined to say truth is less important than meaning of truth, and can get away with that because truth in this case is not much more than matching statements to the external world. An EXTJ may beg to differ--well, not beg, more like roar or honk--on how superficial Te really is, of course. It isn't a trivial task to create arguments based on what's really out there. But moving right along...

And an INTJ (moi) might assert that introverted feeling is present to keep one interested. Without some investment in this or that proposition, sure, intuition can keep going, producing connections and uncovering... stuff, but why bother. It's a double-edged sword, naturally. One has either the interest in maintaining one's integrety via protecting oneself from assault or one has the interest in maintaining one's integrity via actually being right--matching one's beliefs to the world. Perhaps it's a triple-edged sword: one's beliefs tend to be difficult to explain and often counterintuitive to normal folk. Fi in a good role is present as perhaps a straddling of the two "integrity" roles: being right about the world merged with protecting one's sense of well-being to make a sense that the world contains people too.

So... an INFJ (someone else).

An INFJ might say that feeling isn't going to be that meaningful unless it is at least felt out there among the people. If it is out there, then it's worth thinking about. And if it is thought about, one is trying to see behind it, into whatever is its real content.

And in the task of discovering real content one is aided by a bedrock of some of the things one knows are true. Certainly there is a recognisable order to the feeling environment, but determining actual content is something else, and we might change our understanding of the appropriacy of that order, and even perhaps act to alter that order, after we've spent some time focused on seeing behind the structure to see what's... true? Ti in a good role perhaps straddles two "integrity" roles: being engaged with the world and effecting peace merging with protecting one's sense of true and false to create a sense that the world contains impersonal standards too. (Wut?)


That last paragraph is speculative, made just by switching terms and attempting to create suitable sentences. The big deal is I was struck by the seeming discovery that perhaps Fe people default to finding feeling meaningless if that feeling isn't displayed among people. Just trying to work out what that means.

 

[Ingenue]

It's a bit of an addendum adding to this thread, but...

(and I'm bringing the conversation back to the original topic)

I would describe an Fe-user not as emotionally shallow as others on this forum imply, but emotionally narrow.

But Fe is so much more seductive. Personally I like.

 

[Fidelia]

As in a narrower range of emotional states? If that's what you're saying, I think I would agree. I was discussing with a Fe dom the other day about how we both tended to prefer people who seemed emotionally moderate - not too much at the end of either spectrum.

 

[Esoteric Wench]

Whoa. It's taken me about a week to sort through this entire thread. I had shamefully missed this sub-forum until I came across this thread... And what an interesting thread it is. And, I have now added this sub-forum to my regular skulking activities so watch out TypologyCentral!


What I've Learned about Fe from my Te

Lessons to be Learned from Te. I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months thinking about the limits of my Tertiary Te which runs very strong in me. In fact, I have always taken personal pride in my ability to wield my Tertiary Te with more finesse than the average Tertiary Te user. I'm still working out the details in my head, but it definitely seems that there are tremendously powerful analogies between the "limits" of Te and the "limits" of Fe.

I've come to appreciate that in order for my Te to do what it does best which is get things organized and done in a logical, often sequential manner, it sacrifices the subtlety and nuance that Ti is so good at perceiving. I've also learned that Ti often feels hostile to the blunt, seemingly one-dimensional assessments that Te makes in the name of <insert the task trying to be accomplished here>. And it does seem that you could make the same assessment about Fe versus Fi if you just reread the above sentence and substitute Fe for Te and Fi for Ti.

Suggestions for Fe Users

How Fe Might Better Communicate with Fi. I've incorporated my new understanding of the limits of my Te into my presentational style by trying to be more careful to not share my Te observations so bluntly. Now I work hard to make sure I allow for the murky subtleties of Ti by saying things like, "Well, there is no pat answer, but I think in this situation..." and have found this works very well in bypassing Ti's hostility to Te.

I share my story of realizing the limits of Te because I think it might shed some light on what might be a more Fi-friendly approach for Fe-users. Fe seems very one-dimensional to Fi. And, perhaps Fe, much like Te, sacrifices shades of gray in the name of black and white pronouncements that serve it's agenda which in Fe's case is creating smooth interpersonal relations in a straightforward manner.

Your thoughts/feedback are appreciate.