I wonder if (at least part of) Esoteric’s understanding of “sacred cow†is actually just our need for consistency. If someone is behaving like X on Friday, then behaving like Y on Saturday, then on Saturday: we are more likely to say the person is X, whereas ExxPs will say the person is Y. And when the person behaves like W on Sunday: we’re likely to still be fusing X and Y together, where the ExxP will simply see W. Of course it’s going to look to them like we don’t listen well, or that we’re too slow with the uptake of information- we need more than simply the present moment of something being true to believe it. To believe something is ‘true’: we need it to be true today, yesterday, and every day before that, and incorporating past information is actually the ExxP blind spot (as much as incorporating new information can be our blind spot).
I had the same problem with the ENP I dated for several years. He’d tell me I wasn’t listening, and I’d point out to him that- whatever it was he wanted me to believe- it would need to be true for more than one afternoon in order for me to believe it. I can see how that would seem to him like I thought he was doing “something unacceptable in terms of <insert INFJ sacred cow here>â€. I think it’s a drag for them to be tied down to past information, they want the freedom of brand new things being true.
I haven't been responding more to this thread because this stuff evokes such strong emotions from me that I find myself quickly getting overwhelmed. My solution has been to read a page of posts, then go off and process privately before coming back to this thread to respond. Let me begin by commenting on Z Buck McFate's post above. I literally choked up with emotion upon reading this post. Not because I was angry or sad, but because I was so overwhelmed by the Truth (that’s with a capital T) of it.
INFJs and ENFPs are Fantastic Foils
<Sigh.> INFJs and ENFPs are so alike and yet so different. And it is this strange juxtaposition of likeness and differences that attracts these personalities to each other and that causes friction between them.
This isn't surprising when you look at how our respective function hierarchies mirror each other.
ENFP — Ne > Fi > Te > Si
INFJ — Ni > Fe > Ti > Se
Both INFJs and ENFPs genuinely care about people. Both like to look at things from the 35,000 foot perspective. But there are differences, too.
When I used the term “sacred cow†in my original post (Click
here to see the post that started the sh*t storm), it was not my intention to be flip or glib. (Although, I’m not above engaging in such hi-jinks to reduce tension when discussing an emotionally volatile subject.) I was merely trying to communicate a complex concept succinctly and accurately. And, I think it does this very well.
Sacred Cows are things too highly regarded to be open to criticism or curtailment. And from my ENFP side of the table, this phrase very accurately describes what I’ve seen going on with several INFJs in my acquaintance. Sometimes they are overly reluctant to re-examine their opinions or beliefs… to the point of obtuseness and sometimes even self-destructiveness.
Let me inoculate myself against accusations of ENFP hegemony, by saying that I am noting a blind spot in the ways INFJs see that world that can manifest itself in ways little and great, healthy and unhealthy.
INFJs are idiots. But that's OK. ENFPs are idiots, too.
But INFJs certainly have no monopoly on such foibles. Z Buck McFate was dead-on accurate when she spoke of how not incorporating past information into one's understanding in the present is an ENFP blind spot.
“[INFJs] need more than simply the present moment of something being true to believe it. To believe something is ‘true’: we need it to be true today, yesterday, and every day before that, and incorporating past information is actually the ExxP blind spot (as much as incorporating new information can be our blind spot).]†- Z Buck McFate
Ohhhhh Fidelia, Z Buck McFate, and any other INFJs I’ve pissed off on this forum…. Oh, if you only knew how this "blind spot" is simultaneously my greatest strength and my biggest weakness. And, perhaps it is why I’m sometimes in awe of my INFJ friends. They carry in them such a sense of continuity….. yes, that’s the word that perfectly describes it. Continuity.
Esoteric Wench's Struggle with Her Own Flagrant Idiocy
ENFPs sacrifice continuity in the name of new information acquisition. Ergo, INFJs sacrifice acquiring new information in the name of continuity. This is the major friction point between two personalities that otherwise have soooooo much in common.
One of the reasons I have talked so much about INFJs on this forum, is that I have come to believe that studying the strengths and weaknesses of one’s cognitive mirror can be a powerful technique in achieving self-enlightenment. Sometimes I can’t see my own blind spots. But I can see INFJs make the same mistakes I do, except in the opposite direction. This brings my own challenges into focus in a way that undercuts all the white noise that comes from knowing too much about my own life.
Z Buck McFate is very correct that I feel very little need to seek out consistency in what I do, how I think, or who I hang around which sometimes works for me and sometimes against me. Either way, this salient part of my personality is at the very essence of my uniquely ENFP gifts and flaws…. Just like seeking out consistency is part of the essence of what it is to be an INFJ.
So I’ve come to believe that the thing to strive for is BALANCE. I think of the words carved into the Temple of Apollo at the Oracle at Delphi: γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnothi seauton = "know thyself") and μηδὲν ἄγαν (meden agan = "nothing in excess"). Truth and self-actualization lie in the middle path, without excess.
Nowhere are these truths more applicable than finding balance in our inherent tendency to choose one cognitive process over another. Our preferred cognitive preferences box us into a way of seeing the world that we are often unaware. Balance comes from strengthening our weaker preferences and limiting the excesses of our dominant preferences. In terms of Jungian Typology theory, the "middle path" comes from using the most appropriate cognitive process based on the needs of the situation, not just with what we are more comfortable.
.. I just take 12 hours to make a post.. it amounts to the same thing.. we are always thinking and uncovering new angles and never quite satisfied that we have expressed ourselves and articulated things just right.
), that's cool, but in my mind it becomes their job. For the past several years my husband has done most of his own laundry and it doesn't hurt my feelings a bit. What bothers me is when someone pops in, messes up my system, then doesn't do the job dependably thereafter and I have to go in and try to get it sorted all out again. But I'm probably an old crank.
