[ENTP] ENTP's: Explain how you are different from ENFP please

[entropie]

ENTPs cannot explain themselves as well as ENFPs can.

do you mean explain THEMselves or explain themselves ? I think I know

 

[Lady_X]

i'm sitting here trying to decipher that much longer than i ever have to...why entropie why?

 

[entropie]

I mean that I think onemoretime meant that entps have troubles understanding themselves and moreso explaining or talking about the little they know about themselves. It's not like a lack of confidence would be our problem or a shortcoming in empathy or sensitivity, its the combination of Ne and Ti that doesnt give us a clear answer for ourselves. As an ENFP you'd know how sometimes you have a billion of things on your mind of things you just want to do right now and maybe by the end of the da you end up having done nothing because you couldnt decide and it wasnt so important anyway. Or if you are at a restaurant and cant decide what menu you choose, you picture in your head every tasty menu and see different advantages of every single menu so you just cant decide whether its fish or steak today.

Those are basically examples from the daily life that dont pose any real danger to oneself but when it comes to understanding your very own it is a different thing. A Ne dominant can have multiple perceptions of himself, this can lead you to have a lot of different circle of friends, causer you are adaptable and like a chameleon play your roles or are another self with every friend you hold dearest. Still one day comes the unavoidable point on which you have to deal with yourself, on which you want to know how you are perceived by others, what the impression is you leave behind and by that you want to figure out who you really are. Most entp types and this forum is a good example, will spend years to analyse and reconstruct mbti and to see where they fit in. Some days they feel like an entj, some days its more the benevolent enfj they see in themselves. It is not possible to ever really decide and here is the great Ti and Fi divide.

Eventually a Fi user can settle with what feels like the best decision to him and he can be happy with that. Its not even important to understand here that Fi people have the faculty to decide easier no, I mean Fi people and prolly all F types have because of their intrest in people and due to that because of their mind that thinks like people are, an easier time to ever find out what would make them happy. To an entp it can be like a mathematical equation, the whole mbti thing and the quest for finding one true self. You are always on the constant search of the perfect match, the perfect equation, a type profile that is so versatile, flexible and fail-proof that it can withstand all your mood swings, your sub-personalities, does explain your hunger for Pizza and doesnt only talk about the Richard Feynmans of this world. An entp seeks a logical haven where all his questions are answered an he can achieve the perfect silence in his mind, with no new answer popping up in his head, no unanswered question remaining.

But that is impossible. 1st of all is humanity still a very young race and has a lot to learn if it survives and 2nd of all almost all human decisions of the heart do not follow a logic and therefore dont feel secure. The greatest problem of the entp in that regards is to first of all get to know that his thinking and way to see things is bound to a rational dimension like it exists with machines or atoms. If he cant overcome this he will never understand why there is a constant longing for knowing who he really is.

I have another theory on this which relates to the socionics description of the entp that calls him the seeker. I dont know if it is maybe due to the combination of the entp personality, the one very core element that defines an entp. The constant search for those things that are unheard of. An entp can be the most conservative day-to-day worker, being a reliable stable guy that brings the money home. But at nights when he is listening to his music and playing his computer games, the mind can wander off like on a permanent LSD trip. The thing is that this trip is deeply rooted in reality that means if you happen to see anything on your trip that isnt physically possible your mind will automatically deny its existence. So operating in this logical and physical realm you begin to draw new connections, you begin to feel like you are having a huge insight of fundamental understanding, you can look at only one thing from different perspectives and angles, you feel when doing that like you are able to think like a completly different person. You never have the ability to check if your assumptions are right, cause they are so far-out there is no way to proof. If you one day in your life have that one assumption that could be proofed or tested, you are a made man, but for that you need to have a lot of input from a respective field, it's always depending on the input you have, it's not like knowledge pops into your head from nowhere (Tho you are good to draw a connection, if you know the outline of a fact. I always tended to explain my parents medical facts when I was young, but I made that all up, basically I had only read one 600 pages book about medicine in which I skipped 400 pages so this was no real doctor .

So what onemoretime said basically means that entps suck in talking about what they want for themselves, because they never think about it. Its a weak point a field that lays barren to understand and interprete our own emotions. 95% of my emotions are supressed and I tend to work like a machine until at one point comes the big collapse, when I burn out. Then I tend to restart and to catapult my mind completly out of reality. Its good that my gf is so easily with me and feels like I do. In fact when I first met her I thought she as superintelligent cause she had as a dominant Fi user a way to understand me and to reflect me that felt right for me and that honored me. She described me in my deepest wishes on how I want to be perceived by people and tho I may not be that person already, I plan to become it one day by learning and growing. She gave my heart peace, so it doesnt have to fight with me anymore.

 

[onemoretime]

do you mean explain THEMselves or explain themselves ? I think I know

Heh.

I actually meant that it is often much more difficult for an ENTP to explain her thoughts than it is for an ENFP to explain his. For example, I am an excellent navigator and wayfinder, and yet, I struggle at giving directions, because the process for me is entirely non-verbal.

 

[entropie]

Heh.

I actually meant that it is often much more difficult for an ENTP to explain her thoughts than it is for an ENFP to explain his. For example, I am an excellent navigator and wayfinder, and yet, I struggle at giving directions, because the process for me is entirely non-verbal.

Oh, I didnt even thought of that . but its a point I can 100% agree with. I heard an entp some years ago on this forum saying the same thing about him being an excellent navigator but toally sucking at giving directions and I was like oh my god finally someone who does understand me. It's always so awkward for me if I am asked for directions on the street and iuf my gf drives and I give directions or if we play WoW together and I give directions directions to her, she nearly becomes insane with me .

But you can drive me to a random city and show me a street and then ask me 10 years later to drive there and I'll find it. Like a cat

 

[onemoretime]

This is good, too.

I mean that I think onemoretime meant that entps have troubles understanding themselves and moreso explaining or talking about the little they know about themselves. It's not like a lack of confidence would be our problem or a shortcoming in empathy or sensitivity, its the combination of Ne and Ti that doesnt give us a clear answer for ourselves. As an ENFP you'd know how sometimes you have a billion of things on your mind of things you just want to do right now and maybe by the end of the da you end up having done nothing because you couldnt decide and it wasnt so important anyway. Or if you are at a restaurant and cant decide what menu you choose, you picture in your head every tasty menu and see different advantages of every single menu so you just cant decide whether its fish or steak today.

The combo of Ne and Ti means that we often rely on the ineffable in our decision-making process. Decisions are made because they are the right decisions, but explaining why can take some effort, and a lot of backtracking.

Those are basically examples from the daily life that dont pose any real danger to oneself but when it comes to understanding your very own it is a different thing. A Ne dominant can have multiple perceptions of himself, this can lead you to have a lot of different circle of friends, causer you are adaptable and like a chameleon play your roles or are another self with every friend you hold dearest. Still one day comes the unavoidable point on which you have to deal with yourself, on which you want to know how you are perceived by others, what the impression is you leave behind and by that you want to figure out who you really are. Most entp types and this forum is a good example, will spend years to analyse and reconstruct mbti and to see where they fit in. Some days they feel like an entj, some days its more the benevolent enfj they see in themselves. It is not possible to ever really decide and here is the great Ti and Fi divide.

The trouble is that many ENTPs (including yours truly) looked to external data to validate internal feelings (tert Fe/PoLR Fi), but would not find satisfaction or peace until understanding that internal feeling, experience, and sense of self would never have any external validation whatsoever, and that the subjective experience is validated by virtue of its very existence. In our quest to define ourselves, we tilt after windmills, because Kierkegaard was right - if you define me, you negate me. The centrality of the self is that it is undefinable, or if you want to use Jungian Cognitive Functions, oriented away the Ne preference for exploring and understanding possibilities. Instead, one must simply accept oneself as one is, and embrace this subjectivity. Embracing the subjectivity strengthens one's tendency to subjectively judge the surrounding world, and one's own decisions, while remaining dispassionate (Ti). With this security and strength of secondary function, you can accept that while one's judgment makes logical sense to you, others may not see it that way. This is why ENTPs are often seen as "inventors": one has to share the understanding of one's subjective perception with others using language that they will accept, such as by creating a working model of a principle. This leads to the preference for Fe in the tertiary.

Eventually a Fi user can settle with what feels like the best decision to him and he can be happy with that. Its not even important to understand here that Fi people have the faculty to decide easier no, I mean Fi people and prolly all F types have because of their intrest in people and due to that because of their mind that thinks like people are, an easier time to ever find out what would make them happy. To an entp it can be like a mathematical equation, the whole mbti thing and the quest for finding one true self. You are always on the constant search of the perfect match, the perfect equation, a type profile that is so versatile, flexible and fail-proof that it can withstand all your mood swings, your sub-personalities, does explain your hunger for Pizza and doesnt only talk about the Richard Feynmans of this world. An entp seeks a logical haven where all his questions are answered an he can achieve the perfect silence in his mind, with no new answer popping up in his head, no unanswered question remaining.

This is very true, in the sense that with perfect knowledge, everything will fall into place and life will become effortless. Unfortunately, I believe this is the manifestation of the inferior Si.

But that is impossible. 1st of all is humanity still a very young race and has a lot to learn if it survives and 2nd of all almost all human decisions of the heart do not follow a logic and therefore dont feel secure. The greatest problem of the entp in that regards is to first of all get to know that his thinking and way to see things is bound to a rational dimension like it exists with machines or atoms. If he cant overcome this he will never understand why there is a constant longing for knowing who he really is.

I'd go even beyond this - the goal is to understand that the unifying rationality of the universe is its irrationality, and that any attempts to define things or compare them ultimately break down. Instead, it is our work and our efforts toward a goal that make our lives worthwhile. Instead of worrying about whether the actions of others will make our lives joyful or miserable, we take Voltaire's advice, buckle down, and get to work creating our own Garden of Eden.

I have another theory on this which relates to the socionics description of the entp that calls him the seeker. I dont know if it is maybe due to the combination of the entp personality, the one very core element that defines an entp. The constant search for those things that are unheard of. An entp can be the most conservative day-to-day worker, being a reliable stable guy that brings the money home. But at nights when he is listening to his music and playing his computer games, the mind can wander off like on a permanent LSD trip. The thing is that this trip is deeply rooted in reality that means if you happen to see anything on your trip that isnt physically possible your mind will automatically deny its existence.

I wouldn't so much as say that my mind denies the existence of such things, but instead, recognizes that they have no personal meaning. It's also not so much, in my experience, a search for those things unheard of, but instead thinking about what it is that puzzles me, and what potential solutions to that problem could be. The things that have no personal meaning "don't work."

So operating in this logical and physical realm you begin to draw new connections, you begin to feel like you are having a huge insight of fundamental understanding, you can look at only one thing from different perspectives and angles, you feel when doing that like you are able to think like a completly different person. You never have the ability to check if your assumptions are right, cause they are so far-out there is no way to proof.

Hmm, this isn't my experience, so much. It's more like you consider one set of things, then think about all the other things that could be related to it, and then at some point, things just "click," and you realize that the connection is meaningful in some way. Then, I absolutely do go and check on my assumptions, because I want confirmation that what I've figured out is also meaningful in the outside world. Even if it is not entirely accurate in the outside world, I still hold on to the connection, as demonstrative of some general principle that may be better understood later.

If you one day in your life have that one assumption that could be proofed or tested, you are a made man, but for that you need to have a lot of input from a respective field, it's always depending on the input you have, it's not like knowledge pops into your head from nowhere (Tho you are good to draw a connection, if you know the outline of a fact. I always tended to explain my parents medical facts when I was young, but I made that all up, basically I had only read one 600 pages book about medicine in which I skipped 400 pages so this was no real doctor .

Once again, my experience is different because I don't work in the hard sciences. For me, if the connection is made, I then go do a bunch of fact checking to make sure that the connection is indeed useful for me. It's tedious, but it's a necessary part of my work. I also don't necessarily rely so much on surrounding information (which is a bad habit, to be sure), but instead try to understand a principle based on how it should work, and then noting the contradictions and their reasoning when they arise.

So what onemoretime said basically means that entps suck in talking about what they want for themselves, because they never think about it. Its a weak point a field that lays barren to understand and interprete our own emotions. 95% of my emotions are supressed and I tend to work like a machine until at one point comes the big collapse, when I burn out. Then I tend to restart and to catapult my mind completly out of reality. Its good that my gf is so easily with me and feels like I do. In fact when I first met her I thought she as superintelligent cause she had as a dominant Fi user a way to understand me and to reflect me that felt right for me and that honored me. She described me in my deepest wishes on how I want to be perceived by people and tho I may not be that person already, I plan to become it one day by learning and growing. She gave my heart peace, so it doesnt have to fight with me anymore.

In my experience, I have trouble describing what I want for myself, because I'm more focused on making each day the best it can be, without much deliberation over how it fits into some grand overarching plan. I focus on changing the world for the better, for everyone, because I am who I am, and I will only ever be myself. My desire for the esteem of others had been pathological, an expression of psychological trauma that I've only recently reconciled with. By constantly seeking this approval, I did not permit myself to enjoy others as they are, and for who they are. So now, I don't suppress my emotions much any more, but at the same time, I tend to understand my emotions as simply another way of thinking about things.

 

[Megalomania]

Zach does. Jon Stewart does not. If a person thinks Jon Stewart has less in common with say a George Carlin than Robin Williams then I'd doubt they've heard of any of the three.

Lets take a poll on it!

 

[NegativeZero]

Off Topic

ENxP - Dependable
INxP - Undependable

Nah, I feel like that's untrue. INTPs have inferior Fe and INFPs have Fi (which is typically pretty selfish and controlling, but some do have affable Fi).

 

[Istbkleta]

Very good.

you want to know how you are perceived by others, what the impression is you leave behind and by that you want to figure out who you really are.

This is Fe.

Then I tend to restart and to catapult my mind completly out of reality. Its good that my gf is so easily with me and feels like I do. In fact when I first met her I thought she as superintelligent cause she had as a dominant Fi user a way to understand me and to reflect me that felt right for me and that honored me. She described me in my deepest wishes on how I want to be perceived by people and tho I may not be that person already, I plan to become it one day by learning and growing. She gave my heart peace, so it doesnt have to fight with me anymore.

Fi-Ne would say whatever needs to be said so they are liked. NFs in general are called "seductive" and since early age their main goal is to be liked. As I understand she is describing to you an idealized version of yourself you want to be (but are not). It feels good. It is a lie.
How do you trust her? I can't trust people who try to manipulate me like this. Evoking positive feelings by lying is manipulation in my book. And saying only part of the truth and not all of it is also lying.

I want to know how you reconcile all this, please.

 

[entropie]

Very good.



This is Fe.





Fi-Ne would say whatever needs to be said so they are liked. NFs in general are called "seductive" and since early age their main goal is to be liked. As I understand she is describing to you an idealized version of yourself you want to be (but are not). It feels good. It is a lie.
How do you trust her? I can't trust people who try to manipulate me like this. Evoking positive feelings by lying is manipulation in my book. And saying only part of the truth and not all of it is also lying.

I want to know how you reconcile all this, please.

You basically gave the answer yourself: you said you cant trust people.

Bein able to trust people is far from easy, but the moment you do it, is the moment you start to live your life. And life is like a poker game, sometimes you are the dog and sometimes you are the hydrant.

 

[funkadelik]

And life is like a poker game, sometimes you are the dog and sometimes you are the hydrant.

I think I'd like to try and play German rules poker. It sounds so abstract.