Fi -- Why does it drive you nuts?

[CzeCze]

I've read a number of comments about how Fi drives members batty -- particularly in regards to ENFP ('cause that's my type so you know, I remember these things).

What does that mean?

What is Fi and why does it drive you nuts?

I barely understand how I experience Fi, but I'm VERY CURIOUS as to how it seems to other people.

[SolitaryWalker]

The radical subjective nature of Fi makes thinkers uncomfortable. They want people to be able to explain their decisions to them, or for the very least want them to be consistent enough to be made sense of. Bottom line is, Thinkers need for situations to make sense. Fi is quite divorced from logic and therefore has difficulty doing this.

Fi in ENFP is less problematic for Thinkers than in the INFP, as it is more supported by Te (therefore more logical), yet some people may find the Fi in ENFP more problematic because it is slave to the Extroverted Intuition. This may lead to corrupt values as Fi would be used to support nearly every hunch of the ENFP. Such persons tend to turn radically egocentric.

[Babylon Candle]

Originally Posted by CzeCze

I've read a number of comments about how Fi drives members batty -- particularly in regards to ENFP ('cause that's my type so you know, I remember these things).

What does that mean?

What is Fi and why does it drive you nuts?

I barely understand how I experience Fi, but I'm VERY CURIOUS as to how it seems to other people.

it would be superficial to say that Fi simply mean emotionally charged decisions.
i tend to view it as feeling = value based rather than logic based decision making. the difference between Fe and Fi:

Fe: the values are heavily derived from socialization and cultural norms and what would be a good company line for the whole group.
Fi: the values are less concerned with the group and more with inner harmony (they can deal with the group if you can individually empathize with everyone's own inner harmony)

[Orangey]

Somehow I gather that CzeCze was looking more for personal responses. Could be wrong though...

[CzeCze]

Thanks Orangey (and your sad squat cute avatar) but actually any answer is appreciated.

I'm seriously curious as to how Fi 'expresses' and what people think of it. Especially the ones who say, "it drives them crazy" (Dissonance and Beat...I'm waiting...lolz)

[Orangey]

Originally Posted by CzeCze

Thanks Orangey (and your sad squat cute avatar) but actually any answer is appreciated.

Alrighty then .

[SolitaryWalker]

Originally Posted by CzeCze

Thanks Orangey (and your sad squat cute avatar) but actually any answer is appreciated.

I'm seriously curious as to how Fi 'expresses' and what people think of it. Especially the ones who say, "it drives them crazy" (Dissonance and Beat...I'm waiting...lolz)

Fes tend to find Fi disturbing because they expect for values and motivations of people to derive from the oustside. From clear-cut customs ostensible to all, as Js they want human behavior to be predictable. Fi behavior is difficult for them to understand as it has very little grounding in the external world of values.

[disregard]

When negative... oh... It makes me suspicious and impatient to passionately carry out an impulsive deed for a "cause" which is not valiant at all, but rather a defense against offenses/violations which I perceive to be on their way/have happened.

But Fi itself is not exactly to blame.. the individual is. With experience and emotional maturity, I suppose this will prove to be less of an issue.

[nemo]

Fi is pretty subtle.

It's one of the "perceptual" decision making processes (along with Ti), which means it's good at making decisions in the middle of massive, nonlinear hits of unstructured information (Te and Fe need their info structured to deal with it).

But unlike Ti, it's more personalized; it encourages a personal relationship with the evolving information. But a prerequisite for any personal relationship is prior experience to determine what's acceptable or not.

An *extremely* simple-minded example of how Fi works is cooking. Say you're making sauce. You need to taste your sauce as you're cooking it and add whatever ingredients you need to make it taste "good". There's no way to structure that kind of information spontaneously, and Fi and Ti don't need to.

Even though you might say that you're taking in the information via S, you're making decisions on the fly in terms of what will make the sauce "good" or "bad". You need to personally know the difference between good and bad beforehand via prior experience. And you need to know it in your bones. Ti lacks this personal relationship in deciding what to do with sense-impressions, so, to Ti, the terms "good" and "bad" are meaningless in this context.

But Fi naturally discriminates between "good" and "bad" like that -- in terms of personal experience. It strikes other types as odd because, since it's perceptual, it's nonverbal, receptive, and guided by perceptions it can't quite explain. And on a much larger scale than cooking sauces, it derives its principles from prior experience of being human.

An added benefit of being perceptual (Fi/Ti) as that it doesn't need to take things apart so finely; Fi has the capacity to see things as a whole, apart from the assumptions we've been socialized into accepting. It can then reason wholistically to determine the integrity of our actions. Fe has a stronger emphasis on the prevailing social norms, and thus has a harder time providing this kind of wholistic decision-making.

But a negative is that it's very hard to express the nonlinear/nonverbal machinations of Fi's decision-making process. Combined with the emphasis on what's personally good or bad in terms of fundamental human values, this difficulty to clearly and linearly lay out one's line of reasoning to others can be interpreted as being dogmatic and polar, and their deeply-held human values aren't always self-evident to other people.

On the other hand, the emphasis on personalizing perceptions gives Fi a remarkably strong point of reference. Take a tragic play, for example. The emotional impact and meaning of the play are entirely dependent on whether or not we have a strong inner reference shaped by the experience of being human -- the kind that bypasses all the social constructs and strikes on what is essentially human. This gives people who use Fi an amazing amount of empathy.

I think others are bothered by Fi because it can appear so dogmatically certain about things that strike others as relative -- concepts like "good" and "bad" -- yet it has difficulty expressing its justification.

That's how I understand it anyway.

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I don't tend to have any problems with ExFP's. IxFP's are another story though. When I talk to them it feels like I am navigating a mine field. I never know when I am going to say something that will make them blow up at me. IxFP's have a million strongly felt personal values, and you have no warning as to when you are going to violate one until after you have already done it. The other possible outcome is that you seriously pissed them off, but they never let you know it. Either way you're screwed. With Fe types at least you know where you stand with them, because they tend to wear their heart on their sleeve. With Fi you'll never know until it's too late.