With the usual ‘I can’t speak for all INFJs’ disclaimer, I think I can say that we typically find talking about remorse to be an empty thing. It certainly helps to say “I’m sorryâ€- but more than anything else, my opinion of whether someone else feels remorse is formed by other indications. Like the old saying goes ‘sorry is easy to say’, I don’t trust words as much as I trust other indications and I personally find drawn out explanations of remorse can look and feel contrived (to me). Someone saying “I’m sorry I ate your last popsicle without asking†doesn’t mean anywhere near as much to me as that person not doing it in the future- or even better, if they learned to never ‘use up the last of anything without asking first’…..the deeper the ‘roots’ of that lesson spread, the more I believe they actually ‘got’ it. I’ve used a ridiculously innocuous example, but the underlying principle applies. I show it in other ways because I watch for it in other ways, and I just don’t work those details out aloud. I absolutely feel remorse though. I don’t like telling stories about it because that just feels empty. The only way to know I’m telling the truth is to know me and to have experieanced it in action. I suspect this is relatively common for ‘us’ (INFJs), and maybe we take for granted that others go by the same indications (when that isn’t the case).
I can totally understand this - about the future actions showing the remorse. That's why I was making distinctions between apologies for minor gaffes and things which have builded into larger issues, because an apology in a moment doesn't necessarily mean future change. When I speak of remorse over big things, I don't mean a grand speech. I meant a realization that leads to change. Perhaps this is accompanied by an admittance of wrong & an apology, which I do as as significant in making restitution.
Tell me, when someone has hurt you or others, and they not only change, but openly admit it & apologize for it, does it not heal some of the past at all? I think most would say "yes", and that's why I included it as a part of the process I hoped to discover existed.
I was not originally asking for a story, like Mane was, because I don't really think in such specifics (I have a hard time thinking of specific instances for illustrating points myself; hence my reliance on theory). But when he suggested that, I thought it might actually be easier, and I felt I would see the process illustrated with the story. An illustration that is not personal works just as well for me. Popsicles may be silly, but I see the idea clearly.
I apologize if I’ve been harsh, my language gets harsh when I feel like my back is somehow against the wall and I don’t clearly understand why- my single only priority becomes figuring out what the problem is, and I can lose sight of my tone.
It's really not necessary to apologize for tone. I find it much less grating than when someone takes on a syrupy, polite tone which I can see as hiding their real feeling (which inevitably seeps out). Basically, I have been criticized for my raw tone, which I see as proof of being translucent, but then people assign hidden motives to it. That's puzzling to me.... so when given a more raw tone in return, I feel more sure that no motive is hidden.
I do suspect it’s going to take a third person account, though, because I *suspect* it just isn’t INFJ style to give emotive accounts of something like that. It makes me feel kinda slimy and contrived just thinking about it.
Again, I understand, and that's fair enough.
I see where you're getting at. However, I don't believe most INFJs here have done something that should've resulted in a lifetime remorse or something. Most bad things that people do are somewhat fixable.
Perhaps if you share a story of your own they might end up relating.
That's not what I was talking about either… I'm talking very much about the process of making amends, which requires seeing you wronged someone & feeling remorse - but specifically the kind where you LOSE face.
This is said much better than I could have. I identify with so much of what you have expressed here. Again, I'm not sure that the feeling of remorse carries much weight with us (Fi places more emphasis on emotion), so much as the effect of remorse (Fe places more weight on outcome).
I don't see remorse as emotion, nor do I agree that Fi is more about emotion (for example, we don't utilize it to communicate the way Fe types do). I see remorse as rationally identifying what is significant morally & how you have violated it, and yes, perhaps that is more Fi territory. Sometimes, people are moved emotionally when something very significant is violated; that's only a signal though.
No matter what it is, the process takes some time (and verbalizing any of it will take even longer) and so it may initially look like not being open to constructive criticism, when that may not be the case at all. I'm wondering if that's part of what others feel is a lack of taking responsibility for our actions.
Perhaps. It's like peeling the band-aid off vs ripping it off. I guess it can be frustrating to those on the outside who don't see the evidence of this process. That's why I (and Mane) asked for evidence. In a similar vein, Fi feeling is often questioned as existing, because it largely remains unseen. I understand a frustration or hesitance when being asked to "prove" this process. On the other hand, I've learned that it's unfair for me to ask people to take for granted that I feel.
Generally, I think I am a lot harder on myself internally than most other people are on me, but I do not often verbalize it, which I think may lead to a perception that I don't see my faults. There are definitely places in my past relationship that if I had it to do over, I would change. Things that were very much my fault.
Just this simple statement says a lot to me.
except it did happen, in a smaller but still meaningful scale:
thanks. and yes i was, but you take what it can get, and the sense of scale doesn't diminish the fact it is sitting on the right graph.
if you look here:
that bolded parts are the part that i feared they might have an impossible time with, in essence, the act of mentally and meaningfully insulting ourselves in regards to what is meaningful to us.
yet in each one of those "little anecdotes", the INFJ who provided it did just that:
in other words, they have taken the Fe resulting ego structure, and place it aside to see themselves within the Ti>Fe mental world, that larger platform made of many patterns & facts and subjective worlds within it that is trying to reach some internal consistency. it's a world in which your mind will insult you a lot the more you care about anyone, because you never get to consciously deny or decide what you think the causality your actions and choices had within the subjective realms of other. they did that, and you did too - processed the information and took the bitter pills within it like champs. they have chosen to feel shitty about something they did for the sake of someone else (which goes back to the decision world and ideal structure of Fe>Ti). they went back and forth and made the dive.
that doesn't mean that a sense of scale isn't there, the worst the actions get, the more insulting it would be to believe about yourself, the stronger the emotional dissonance would be. however, the reason it inspires faith is that it is a one way stream:
being able to acknowledge the smaller scale actions and resulting insults might not mean or deny whether one can acknowledge the larger ones, but the opposite isn't the case - if one's esteem can't take the smaller insults the reality of their action bestows upon them, it is extremely unlikely to be able to take the heavier ones.
those three showed that they can do that.
which in turns means that at least in some way, they have being able to get to know the experience of this:
tl;dr: i wanted to be proven wrong, and unless i am misreading something, i think i got sufficiently strong evidence that i was. thank you all.
I see what you're saying here…
I think before when I asked "when does Fe save the day"? that's what I was getting at. How does something touch on a Fe value where the person is motivated to take positive action?
Because as I've said, I DO believe obliviousness a culprit at times. For a long time, I was the defender of INFJs in my life who inspired my list. It's when the veil is lifted, including my own veil, that I was shocked to see no remorse. Then appeals to Fe don't work…which further shocks me (because such a method has worked with SFJs & even ENFJs); I wanted to know IF it ever works.
I do see how you make this connection with these stories & that process. Yes, this is a glimmer of hope for the INFJ segment of humanity
(<---- cheekiness, INFJs, cheekiness). I can admit that it is hard for me to see this behavior outside of "saving face". This is why I asked to hear about "losing face". Then I see the remorse as completely devoid of self-interest. And yes, the patterns I have experienced with INFJs gave me the desire to know this kind of specific remorse exists, so as to see that these patterns are not a "truth". I do NOT mean to discount the significance of such experiences & the concessions made to relate them.
I appreciate your input here, because I think you speak something closer to my language (JiNe, no doubt).
Well how lovely that it's not your idea of remorse. Does everyone need to experience feelings in the way that you do? What if I don't view it as a 'failure to be polite' but I actually really did think it was unfair of me to not explain things to the other person, to not initially divulge because of my own crabbiness and pain, and to just leave them hanging?
It's not that this it isn't real remorse. I'm aware of this kind existing in INFJs. I would say it's a strength in an INFJ to have foresight in
preventing conflict. Many of these stories look something closer to that… a kind of damage control.
It's a specific kind of remorse that I wanted to know about. The kind that comes when you've failed to anticipate negative consequences & failed to prevent them or correct them in a timely manner, largely due to some flaw you have. I realize these blindside Ni-dom (and perhaps why this patten is not seen in xSFJs). I've seen the reactions to these blind-sidings in INFJs & found the reactions disturbing.
See, I'm of the opinion that the small things build up; that an unacknowledged minor gaffe can cause a reaction or assumption made by the other. This reaction or assumption then feeds into that persons' view of me, whether consciously or not. Then that person may in the future make a choice or do something based on that initial assumption. Then I react to that. And it goes on and on, and then the entire relationship after all of these cause and effects and such eventually gets to a place where it's a really bad spot... all because it started off on one little gaffe that went unacknowledged.
That's fantastic you try to prevent that downward spiral from beginning in the first place. But as I said, any human being will never be able to always prevent that, or we lapse into bad tendencies again even if in the moment we genuinely felt remorse. Once these things have built up, and negative consequences are made clear to you, then what? The pattern I have seen with INFJs from that point on has been very, very negative. So much so, that I've lost faith in a positive pattern occurring. I would take more blame for my end, that perhaps it's my manner & poor communication, except all of these individuals have the same rep with other people of varying types. In fact, I defended these INFJs as others made the criticisms I now make.
As Mane mentioned, it's the consistency of this pattern in INFJs we know, acknowledged by mutual acquaintances of these people, supported by stories from others about their INFJs, that has become astounding. I don't want this to be reality.
I'm getting more of a sense of this process from comments made in more recent posts. I think I can intellectually accept it exists, but my "benefit of the doubt" has been so drained in reality that it's going to take time to become a true believer.
Now it may be that this is ME, this is how I process and view things, that it has no bearing on your world or how you process. And maybe how you filter things has little to no bearing on my world and how I navigate it - therefore for you to expect me to show the same processing of emotions, or whatnot, is from my perspective you wanting me to be more like you.
I'm not asking to see
the same processing. I was asking to know what the INFJ process
is, to know it even
exists.
I AM (or WAS) asking INFJs to be human, both in being flawed & being moved to feel/express/act on remorse.
--------
I'm not always the most articulate person when it comes to "feeling matters" because it's like I have my own language; and so I aways take some responsibility for miscommunication because of it. I do and have
repeatedly acknowledged my own rawness, and I DO appreciate when others help to translate that into something clearer or easier to swallow (@Mane & [MENTION=5999]PeaceBaby[/MENTION]), granted the main point is not lost. But I don't appreciate when I've laid my intent bare, have become completely translucent with the risk of looking very bad, and people still question my motive & assign me ill intent. I can & do apologize for having a raw manner & rubbing people the wrong way, but not for intentions I do not, did not, and never have had. Then, I feel I am being turned into a strawman, often because that's easier to argue against than what I'm actually saying. I cannot and will not apologize for, explain or defend a viewpoint & intent
I do not have though, anymore than someone can apologize for someone else's wrongs (which is NOT what I ever asked for).
People view this thread as a train wreck, but I don't. Those coming in with their dismissals have missed many points, IMO, points I have gleaned and found very enlightening & useful. I can't regret posting at all, only maybe that I did not adjust enough for the audience, but even then, I tend to feel the lid had to be ripped off if we're ever going to see what's going on underneath the surface. The discomfort is worth it to me. I guess it just depends on whether you like to slowly peel away the band-aid or rip it off. The former is much more excruciating & tedious to me, and I'm always surprised when it's preferred. I'm not as conflict-avoidant as INFPs are supposed to be, perhaps; I always answer that question as "it's a necessary reality of life".
And your avatar makes me patient with you because I have a huge crush on Tyrion, especially book Tyrion. 
