I may have an idea, but it's only based on how a close INFJ, now 43 y.o., has described his youth to me. Feelings and social awareness were suddenly overwhelming him by puberty and he didn't like it. He felt, and still does to a degree, "filterless" with respect to instinctively feeling everything that's going on between people when entering a room. He can't block feeling it even if he doesn't care about the people. He just senses or feels or knows everybody's interests, conflicts and emotional games and whether they are relaxed or alert or feel threatened or harbours resentments or would try to bond or put on masks etc. etc. He doesn't actually care about most people, only a select few, (much like the INTJ I suppose) so he often feels like he is getting much too much information for his comfort. Exhaustion from feeling what's going on inside and between others is part of the reason why he needs his alone time when he has been socialising. And why he is very discriminate with whom he wants to socialise with if he can choose. Problematic or 'bad vibe'-people wears him out very quickly. He can get aggressive and resentful on people for simple being present if they feel dominant, needy, manipulative, clueless or arrogant. Even if they are distant or think they keep low profile their very presence amounts to stuffing their bad vibes down his throat. :steam:
Can't say that I'm similar to that myself. When I walk into a room, I don't notice the atmosphere unless it's particularly thick. I also tend to focus mainly on my friends or interests, I don't put as much effort into understanding the feelings of everyone else. And even if I do understand, I tend not to act on them. Bad vibe people don't wear me out, they just tend to annoy me and that's not a good place for me to be in if I want to be social. I tend to avoid them as well, and if I have to hang with them, I largely ignore or I make them look like an ass. For example, my friend, love him to death, loves to be the leader. He likes to place orders and just generally try to show how much of a 'man' he is to me, one day, we were in blockbuster with another friend of mine and he kept agitating me. I wanted to get a movie that we would all like but he kept telling me what I should get, what's good, what's bad. That's fine, I was used to that, but we started to walk up to the counter and he was standing in front of me like he was the pack leader, I had a feeling he did it on purpose and I completely stopped, handed him the movie, and I told him that since he wanted to act like he's the leader of this group, he can be. He can also pay for the damn movie himself. (The more I reveal, the more and more immature i feel lol)
A clue to functional order could be how introversion / extroversion might shift as you grow up, thus as the different functions, dom-I, aux-E, tert-I, begin to get integrated and practised. This INFJ was a quiet, sceptical, thoughtful child, but very popular (more than he actually wanted to be). He wanted to be alone for hours after school before going out to play, for instance, which nobody understood. Not that he cared that nobody understood. Ni-introverted, strongminded child. J-stubborn. (says the P...
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At puberty it looks like Fe kicked in, girls suddenly existed
shock
and he was hardly ever home, but always roaming around with a huge group of distant 'friends', drinking to numb himself from the overwhelming blast of feeling-information, not caring shit about anything which made him a bit of an unwiling 'leader', rapid succession of random GF's whose name he hardly remembered, absolutely minimal contact with his family. Fe-extroverted teenager surfing the crowd rather mindlessly to get a filter on the overwhelming new sensibility.
Puberty for me....I don't know, it was a wild time. I spent a majority of my time alone (To the shock of my parents, I was quite an extroverted child. Overtly confident. Liked being the center of attention) and I spent a majority of my time scorning people and making plans for what I wanted to do (Most of these plans not ever succeeding though..) I also started playing video games a lot, I think it was a means of making me feel somewhat accomplished in at least something, and I also started roleplaying, I wanted to be someone else. I didn't really pay attention to people until I was 16, I learned that their were benefits to being social and not being a dick.
By 18-19 he cut all ties with his previous bad ass group, became obsessed with odd philosophy and French modernist literature and decided to study philosophy at uni which was completely not done in his environment or family. Looks like some Ti waking up and adding a new aspect to his mix.
Pretty marked shifts it seems. I imagine the puberty-extraversion of an INTJ would look different (aux Te goals in school, getting results) as would the teen-years of the INFP (aux Ne-airy and varied interests in all kinds of stuff, intuiting connections in a bigger world to be discovered).
So, Serge, which is it?
Seeing as I'm just turning 18, I can't really comments on tertiary functions but for the most part, I'm trying to find my 'passion.' I don't know why but there feels like there is nothing in my life that I LOVE so much that I can do it day in, and day out. At least, I can't find it. That's what I'm searching for, I know there's something.
I guess I had Te goals in school. Didn't really put effort into my plans though. I did make high marks, its just that I couldn't do it consistently (more to mood problems than anything else)
Question: People with high Fi wouldn't have a problem finding their passion, right? I mean, for the most part, I just feel...kinda apathetic.
Also, I'm a part of the INTJ forum and I go to the chat somewhat often, I'm starting to notice that I don't really like paying attention to really theoretical conversations. I like Quantum Mechanics a little more than the next guy but I don't really like discussing all that much. I notice this also applies to really abstract philosophy (Are we really perceiving reality? My response: Does it really fucking matter if you're a part of my imagination or not? I still have a game to play) I tend to like subjects that revolve around people in some way (Politics, for example, biology, P-chem.)