Thalassa
Permabanned
- Joined
- May 3, 2009
- Messages
- 25,183
- MBTI Type
- ISFP
- Enneagram
- 6w7
- Instinctual Variant
- sx
i fully understand and agree, but there's still a lot of gray area in that, because everyone has their own ideas of who's innocent and who's guilty.
i'm not questioning this kind of stuff with every value judgement i make, but it keeps me from being preachy (sometimes) because i know that i could be potentially be wrong about everything.
That's true - who is innocent or guilty can be a matter of perspective.
Caution: Long-Winded Diatribe of How Taoism Appeals to Me for Fi Reasoning (and how this relates to what you just said...).
One of the teachings of Taoism is to look a singular event from varying viewpoints. For example, let's cut down a tree. This is bad for the tree. This is bad for the small animals living in the tree. This is bad for the environmentalist. However, this is good for the logger, the furniture maker and the paper factory...and perhaps even the neighbor who wanted that tree out of the way of his view. Taoism pretty much asks us to look at varying situations in this manner.
That isn't to say that Taoism teaches no good or bad. To the contrary, there are principles of Taoism - oneness with nature and respect for nature; Wu-Wei ...or flowing like water, adapting and sometimes taking action by being inactive, listening to The Way; Love (or Charity or Compassion); Simplicity (or Moderation or Economy); and Modesty (or Humility or simply not putting one's self first and/or above others).
Taoism strikes me as being rather ISFP - it could just be my own interpretation. Fi is in the love/compassion and not trying to overpower others with one's own belief system....actually Taoism is supposed to shared by being it, not by trying to "convert" others or "preach" like some other religions. Se is in the connection of spirituality strongly with nature, and also in the fact that Taoism doesn't teach asceticism...rather, it teaches us to accept that physical needs and pleasures are a part of life to be accepted and enjoyed, not rejected, but simply to be taken in Moderation (or Economy, which I think may be the "reasonable" Te underlying, inferior organization in Taoism though on the surface it simply "flows"); and the Ni is in the perspective shifting, of looking at situations as "good" or "bad" depending on perspective and context and consequence; how could this same issue be viewed differently or be handled differently? Could we simply go AROUND the tree instead of cutting it down? Et al.
The stereotypical ISFP thing about Taoism outside of the functions is the emphasis on Wu-Wei. This is put humorously in both The Tao of Pooh and The Tao of Meow. Pooh is Wu-Wei by appreciating the simple pleasures in life, like friends and breakfast. He also represents Pu: Simplicity, Modesty ...the "uncarved block."
It's put in an even wittier way in The Tao of Meow. This interpretation of the Tao suggests the world would be a much better place if people would simply act like cats and take more naps. If people would just go to sleep instead of always trying to "do good" then REAL goodness might be done, lol.