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the tertiary function:overdevelopment

sculpting

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So in Lenorre's book she speaks to the problems that happen when folks overdevelop the tertiary function rather than develop the functions in the natural order.

So to follow the discussion:
1) you have to buy into cognitive functions
2) think they may, mostly come in some sort of specific order, relative to the types

IRL, I tend to use Ne, Te, Fi rather than the conventional Ne, Fi, Te for an enfp. So I guess I overuse Te. There are pluses and minuses here and retrospectively I can see how I have both been helped and hindered by this approach in my life.

It makes me anaytical and driven and gives me some structure, but can also come across as bitchy, dominating, cold and bossy. If I am being logical I also like to be in control. Because it couples with Fi, I can also look moody as I swap between the two. Also the contrast can be irritating and unpredictable to others-am I fluffy puppy or dominant, analyzing puppy?

So my question-rather than spend lots of time "fixing" Fi to make it stronger-the lenorre solution, why not just build Te even more to make it less infantile and problematic? Why cant we just have an extra 16 personality types for us wierdos who overuse our tertiary functions?
 

Asterion

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hahahaha, well, You could make extra types to encompass you, but it serves no important role really. It's easier to just write down which functions you use dominantly, if you really want people to know your type or something. I find that I use Fe a fair bit, it seems to be quite an advantage when it comes to making friends and not looking like a total cold hard robot. I would rather not let Fe dominate my secondary Ti however, I don't consider my Fe all that useful... but then again, it's probably underdeveloped, which would explain why I'm thinking that it gets in my way a little bit to much.
 

zago

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So my question-rather than spend lots of time "fixing" Fi to make it stronger-the lenorre solution, why not just build Te even more to make it less infantile and problematic? Why cant we just have an extra 16 personality types for us wierdos who overuse our tertiary functions?

First, because that would make you overly extroverted and dependent on others. It isn't a matter of developing these functions until they are fully mature. They each play a "role" in your personality - for instance you might call the tertiary function the "escape artist" because that's exactly what the tertiary function tends to do--excuse you from situations you aren't comfortable with. So really, to develop this function to the point of maturity would be to keep it in check.

So, my tertiary function is Si, and the reason I use it is because I feel more comfortable using a function with the same intro/extro-version as my dominant function. When wanting to meet new people at a party, I might get shy and my Si would come up with rationalizations like "I never know what to say to people" or "there is never anyone with the same interests as me." At that point you give up and go do something introverted, like either leave the party or sit there and keep to yourself, getting quite bored, but at least in control of the situation.

According to Thompson, you can forget about trying to develop your inferior function and go with the auxiliary, but she stops cold there, for some reason. She doesn't actually say how to do this, ever. Perhaps there is a more profound aspect of life here, and there simply is no way to successfully do this but to fail countless times with the "tertiary escapist" until you finally give up and just do what you've really wanted to do all along. Which, in my case, would be to approach and talk to people regardless of what they'll think of me, and maybe even ask out a pretty lil woman.

Some people say that you can develop functions with certain exercises, but I don't really believe in that. They'll say that you can develop Ne by "being creative" and solving puzzles and shit... no, I don't think so. While you need to use Ne to do those things, it will still only develop that tiny aspect of Ne and not the whole thing, which is quite vast--so vast that you either have it or you don't, and to try to develop it if you weren't naturally born with it would be a complete waste of time.

So in the end, we all face the same problem in life eventually, and that is the unknown. Life's instruction manual will take you to a certain point, but that simply is not far enough for anyone. Instructions about life are always generalities, but the fact is that we are all unique. You can follow the conventional wisdom until you're at least making the cut, but again--not enough. After this, you need to know yourself and figure out how to make life your own, and since there is only 1 of you, no one is there to tell you how to do this except you. Lenore has used the MBTI system to describe this phenomenon of life, and this important stage of life is translated as "developing your auxiliary function." By its very nature, however, she can't tell anyone how to do this.
 

Asterion

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Maybe hanging around people that use your secondary/tertiary functions dominantly can inspire you to improve that particular function? It is really just going to happen regardless, it doesn't seem like a thing that you can control and structure. What you should probably do instead is to put in effort in the things that you do, and perhaps widen the range of the things that you do as well. If you sit around and do nothing but mathematics for 20 years, your functions may develop, but I doubt they would be very balanced.

Aside: why do I see functions as specific colours:
N-red
S-green
F-yellow
T-blue

I've been able to do this to subjects as well... Physics: blue, Science: green, Society and Environment: yellow/brown, English: yellow, Maths: teal, specialist maths: darker blue, Mathematical studies: lighter blue, Art: red/pink, Phys Ed.: unknown, Biology: yellow/green, Chemistry: yellow, maybe orange
 

zago

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Maybe hanging around people that use your secondary/tertiary functions dominantly can inspire you to improve that particular function? It is really just going to happen regardless, it doesn't seem like a thing that you can control and structure. What you should probably do instead is to put in effort in the things that you do, and perhaps widen the range of the things that you do as well. If you sit around and do nothing but mathematics for 20 years, your functions may develop, but I doubt they would be very balanced.

Hanging around people with your auxiliary function is not a bad idea. I am good friends with an ENTP and he certainly has no trouble approaching strangers and being his goofy self around them, and maybe that could rub off on me. However, I always feel like the sidekick around him, so our friendship isn't one of those truly amazing ones that really resonates.

What I am attempting to do right now is embrace the unknown. As I reflect on my own thoughts, I realize just how often I don't actually know what I am talking about, and that I am often analyzing people as if they are acting from my own value system. More and more these days, I wind up with the conclusion "I don't know."

I am also doing zazen meditation daily now. Basically in this meditation you sit still and turn off your mental dialog. My best guess as to how this would help is that it undermines the memes you've been programmed with. Why would that be important? Because memes equal authority. You become a slave to the word-groups that you use, and the only way to get them out of control is to simply stop believing in them, and the only way I can think of to do this is to turn them off and witness silence.
 

raz

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It's interesting thinking about the possibility of overdeveloping your tertiary function. I'd say as an ISTJ, I've tended to overlook Fi at times because it just didn't line up with the coldness that Te wanted. I've been trying to let myself use Ne lately. It's been more of extraverting, but attempting to "turn off the judgment" and just go with the flow, which leads to me getting slightly more bursts of intuition from Ne. It's smaller things, but I'm liking it.

I found though when I was able to do that, I started making more judgments off of Fi. That scared me at first because it made me feel "touchy-feely." The better part though, came when I started combining my small bursts of intuition from Ne with the judgments from Fi, and I started feeling empathic. That end result made it worth it. I felt like I was thinking about other people, but separating myself from my ExFJ family members in that I was displaying empathy rather than consideration.
 

zago

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I found though when I was able to do that, I started making more judgments off of Fi. That scared me at first because it made me feel "touchy-feely." The better part though, came when I started combining my small bursts of intuition from Ne with the judgments from Fi, and I started feeling empathic. That end result made it worth it. I felt like I was thinking about other people, but separating myself from my ExFJ family members in that I was displaying empathy rather than consideration.

No offense but this all struck me as gibberish. That touchy-feely feeling and the empathy probably came from Si. Fi is a function that tells ISTJs "I can't do this because it would damage my soul." Si-Te is a combination very concerned with morality and inferior Ne tends to be the function that floods you with unwanted, immoral-sounding thoughts. ISTJs introvert further with Fi, convincing themselves that people are debauched, hedonistic, and immoral and should be avoided.

To incorporate Te would mean to organize structured events where the focus is not on debauchery, like cookouts, sporting events, and the likes. The challenge would be to make these events palatable for people who would normally enjoy something a bit more visceral.
 

Haphazard

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Aside: why do I see functions as specific colours:
N-red
S-green
F-yellow
T-blue

I've been able to do this to subjects as well... Physics: blue, Science: green, Society and Environment: yellow/brown, English: yellow, Maths: teal, specialist maths: darker blue, Mathematical studies: lighter blue, Art: red/pink, Phys Ed.: unknown, Biology: yellow/green, Chemistry: yellow, maybe orange

...Synaethesia?
 

raz

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No offense but this all struck me as gibberish. That touchy-feely feeling and the empathy probably came from Si. Fi is a function that tells ISTJs "I can't do this because it would damage my soul." Si-Te is a combination very concerned with morality and inferior Ne tends to be the function that floods you with unwanted, immoral-sounding thoughts. ISTJs introvert further with Fi, convincing themselves that people are debauched, hedonistic, and immoral and should be avoided.

To incorporate Te would mean to organize structured events where the focus is not on debauchery, like cookouts, sporting events, and the likes. The challenge would be to make these events palatable for people who would normally enjoy something a bit more visceral.

That makes sense, but I'm just still not getting the part of Si/Te having those morals. Apparently it's a different set of morals from an SFJ? I'd say I operate more on accepted logical principles than social morals.
 

zago

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That makes sense, but I'm just still not getting the part of Si/Te having those morals. Apparently it's a different set of morals from an SFJ? I'd say I operate more on accepted logical principles than social morals.

Well, I'm no expert here either but I do understand that Si seems to be a function about consistency. It's about having a set of values that can be relied on consistently no matter how situations change. Te is a function aware of social contract, which of course is a way of thinking logically rather than emotionally.
 

JocktheMotie

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That makes sense, but I'm just still not getting the part of Si/Te having those morals. Apparently it's a different set of morals from an SFJ? I'd say I operate more on accepted logical principles than social morals.

MBTI Tutorial said:
Si -- Introverted Sensing. It's based on a desire to do things the way they've always been done... day after day, year after year, century after century. Obviously, people with this function dislike change. They accept things without question, and preserve what's familiar, and often try to align things with their internal idea of what things are supposed to be like, garnered from early experiences. But the plus side is, they have good memories, and are very organized and conscientious people. If you want something done a certain way with no questions asked, they are your best resource.

The morals are built into you via past experiences. Si can be where your "moral compass" and "feeling of right or wrong" is held. It is based on what you expect because of your past experiences rather than an internal arbitrary value system of right and wrong like Fi.
 

raz

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The morals are built into you via past experiences. Si can be where your "moral compass" and "feeling of right or wrong" is held. It is based on what you expect because of your past experiences rather than an internal arbitrary value system of right and wrong like Fi.

And then there are times where I try to purposely go against those Si-morals because I want to do something that goes against their rules, and most likely, it doesn't work out because Si is that strong?
 

JocktheMotie

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And then there are times where I try to purposely go against those Si-morals because I want to do something that goes against their rules, and most likely, it doesn't work out because Si is that strong?

Hmm, explain what you mean by "doesn't work out." I'm only really knowledgeable about how Si manifests itself in INTP behavior as a relief function, not so much about how Fi works with ISTJs, so I'm going to need more information.

I will say however, relief functions typically spring up when the first two are in conflict. It encourages a fight or flight response in the face of a crisis, for example, when your Si-Te axis is unable to find a satisfactory answer to something or is having difficulty.
 

Snow Turtle

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Along that thought of line: The morals derived and gained from past experiences do not change for an Si user which simply isn't true, however there's truth in the whole familarity thing. Fi for an ISTJ can override all other functions. In the same manner that I can rely on Ti and to an extent Fi rather than just Fe.

PS. We're definitely going to clash because I hold functions on an independant usage rather than interconnected. Ie. I don't believe that functions MUST be used in a certain way just because they are teritary or so fourth. Ti has served me well.
 

Costrin

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Si doesn't have morals. It is a perceiving function. It does inform the judging functions though, which do make morals.
 

TaylorS

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My tertiary Ti is overdeveloped because of my Asperger's Syndrome, I had to learn all the little social things as a system for my axillary Fe to function properly, and because I'm male, T is encouraged in guys while F is discouraged.
 

Snow Turtle

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My tertiary Ti is overdeveloped because of my Asperger's Syndrome, I had to learn all the little social things as a system for my axillary Fe to function properly, and because I'm male, T is encouraged in guys while F is discouraged.

*High Five*
Ti based FJs FTW.
 

yenom

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If you are NeTe, that would make you an ENTX. I don't see how you can associate uyourself with ENFP.
 

527468

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To the OP, does it seem like Ne and Te work rather well hand in hand?

Maybe hanging around people that use your secondary/tertiary functions dominantly can inspire you to improve that particular function? It is really just going to happen regardless, it doesn't seem like a thing that you can control and structure. What you should probably do instead is to put in effort in the things that you do, and perhaps widen the range of the things that you do as well. If you sit around and do nothing but mathematics for 20 years, your functions may develop, but I doubt they would be very balanced.

Aside: why do I see functions as specific colours:
N-red
S-green
F-yellow
T-blue

I've been able to do this to subjects as well... Physics: blue, Science: green, Society and Environment: yellow/brown, English: yellow, Maths: teal, specialist maths: darker blue, Mathematical studies: lighter blue, Art: red/pink, Phys Ed.: unknown, Biology: yellow/green, Chemistry: yellow, maybe orange

Weird, I do the same thing! Except it's with genders.

F is female and
T is male.

*High Five*
Ti based FJs FTW.

It's all about the Fi based TJs. FTW!
 
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