The INFJ mindset is one of "I don't screw up." Any mistakes we make are minor; we can repair the damage and everything's good again. But if we're faced with a mistake that we can't recover from, we're as good as screwed. So instead of recovering from a big mistake, we do everything we can to forget it. If we don't think about it, we've done no wrong. If we
can't forget it, we're screwed.
I'll use the example of Simon Baker's character Patrick Jane from
The Mentalist. Jane is a clearcut INFJ. He always seems to know what he's doing, although it's hard for anyone to read his motives. Everyone thinks he's "weird," yet he readily connects with people as he needs to. He often uses unconventional methods that baffle even his closest associates, yet somehow he manages to get the right results. He gets feelings about people and things that turn out to be spot-on, despite the theories taken by his Ti cohorts.
In
The Mentalist's backstory, Jane's wife and daughter were murdered in cold blood in their own home. Jane perceives his mistake as not being there to protect them. Driven by his sense of justice toward their killer, he uses his insights to help the FBI in murder investigations. As long as the subject of his family doesn't come up, he's cheery and insightful. But watch what happens when the topic enters his thoughts; his demeanor changes. When his FBI comrades mention his family, he becomes sullen and serious. When he's with brokenhearted friends and loved ones of the victims, you can tell he's fighting the urge to cry. One episode even ends with him actually bursting into tears.
(On a side-note, Simon Baker is also a kickass actor.)
(On another side-note: You know you're INFJ when you're watching this show, and you know exactly what Patrick Jane is going to do next. Because it's exactly what you would do.)
You didn't disagree with me. You argued my own point back to me.
You really are a bad "ass" INFJ.
INFJs may not have identical morals, but even twisted ones do have the same moral fabric. They also have the same natural aversion to--and inability to cope with--stupid and fruitless mistakes, especially ones with devastating lifelong consequences for all involved.
Case and point: Adolf Hitler.
Before serving in World War I, Hitler was a pretty upright INFJ. Quiet, expressive, complex, had a talent for art (some of his cartoons are in the German archives). While in the service, he suffered a head injury. Witnesses reported him being suddenly becoming irritable and behaving strangely during and after recovery. Textbook evidence of brain trauma.
Recently scientists discovered that brains cells DO, in fact, reproduce, allowing damaged regions of the brain to repair themselves over time. My theory is that Hitler's brain recovered enough to give him his sense of morality back midway through WWII...
after executing countless innocents and establishing himself as the most evil man in human history.
Allied forces found him in a bunker with two dead whores and a bullet in his brain. He saw the damage he caused, knew he couldn't fix what he did, tried to drown it in self-indulgence, realized he couldn't forget, and finally tried to escape by killing himself.