Illustrating the Functions

[Tamske]

:
Also... Ne:

What's so Ne about this? It seems a quite ordinary way of working to me...

 

[EJCC]

^Well, he's got this big scary-looking thing hitched up, and he's hanging outside the window, with the paint hanging off the ladder! I just saw the picture and imagined that guy putting the contraption together, before he put it outside. But maybe it's not as weird as I thought it was... I dunno.

 

[Requeim]

^Well, he's got this big scary-looking thing hitched up, and he's hanging outside the window, with the paint hanging off the ladder! I just saw the picture and imagined that guy putting the contraption together, before he put it outside. But maybe it's not as weird as I thought it was... I dunno.

it was a joke, in case you couldn't tell

 

[EJCC]

...really?




...

 

[Kaveri]

I'll try...

Fi:

Fe:

Ni:

Si:

Ti:

 

[Requeim]

...really?




...

My ESTJ sister would have missed it as well

but i see you have katamari in your profile, so it's totally okay

 

[Tamske]

Huh?
I didn't mean it as a joke...
Probably this Ne-dom expects Ne to be something causing you to hang upside-down from the roof painting before you realise you could use something as ordinary as a ladder.
The image you used is something I've seen a few times in real life... Painters do use hooks to hang their paint on the ladder, you know.

This isn't an image, but a story... Enjoy!


Rick wasn’t happy. At all. He was waiting for his turn at the psychiatrist. It was the third session already and he didn’t see any improvement.
He was nineteen years old, only nineteen years, studying economics, well on his way to become a banker. And then burn-out had hit him. He always thought shrinks were for wussies and burn-out was just a pretext for getting some free time… now he knew better. Burn-out was real, very real.
The shrink wasn’t helping, either. He wanted to get up and about, to get rid of all those doubts and continue his life again. The shrink, however, seemed to want to turn him into some philosopher hermit.
It was his turn.
“Hello Rick,” said the psychiatrist. “Sit down.”
He did.
“Do you want to try something new?” He pointed to a small, brown bottle. “This medicine makes it easier to get into your own mind. It has been tested already, but it’s still experimental.”
“What if it fails?”
“If it fails, you’ll probably sleep for a few hours and further nothing. If it succeeds, you’ll have some dream you’ve got to tell me afterwards.”
He hesitated. Digging into his memories was always quite a challenge for him. And the shrink always wanted him to find some problem there… At least, if he took the medicine, he would be spared another useless frustrating talking session.
“I’ll take it.”
He drank a dose. Immediately, he felt sleepy. He closed his eyes…

Rick fell face-down through some window.
“Sleeping,” a voice said.
“He’s here – inside – medicine worked,” another voice said.
“Bring him to me,” a third voice. The last one sounded the most powerful – he was the boss, without doubt.
Rick got up. There were two persons, rather looking like him. The first was quite small, like a teenager. He was dressed in boy scout uniform, wore a cap and had very alert eyes. The second one was taller. All sorts of antennae, radar and lenses were mounted on his head.
“Who are you?” Rick asked. The teenager sprang to his feet, tipped his cap and said:
“I’m the extraverted sensing function. You can call me Serick, everyone does.”
“I’m Nerick,” the other said. He touched his crazy hat.
“Forgive me for not taking it off. I don’t see anything without it,” he said.
“You’d see reality,” Serick corrected him, “instead of those abstract ideas and links you’re always seeing.”
“True,” Nerick said. “But that’s your task. I’m the extraverted intuition function. I look at ideas and links, Serick observes concrete details. There is no need for two extraverted sensors in your head.”
“Stop that talking and bring him here,” the bossy voice interrupted. It came from a speaker in the wall. “That medicine won’t work forever and he needs to solve his problem.”
Rick nodded. The boss had his priorities in order. Solve the problem and get out again – that was exactly what he wanted to do.
“Come with me,” Nerick said. Rick looked behind him at the window. Above it a sign read “Extravert Perceiving Window”. It was pitch dark outside.
“How come it’s dark?”
“You’re introspecting,” Nerick answered, as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. “No information incoming from your senses now. We’re jobless.”

The extravert perceiving functions took hem through a door. The next room looked like an office. The walls were bare save some charts and a clock. There was a big desk in de middle of the room. Behind the desk sat another person looking like himself. He was the tallest and most confident of those functions, at least of the ones he’s met. He looked quite intimidating, and Rick hoped he could be more like him. A sign on his desk read: “C.E.O. Terick”.
“Sit down,” Terick said to him.
At that moment, another door opened. A toddler, again looking like himself, dashed in.
“Greet him!” the toddler yelled.
“I don’t need you, Ferick,” the boss said. The child went away, head down. Terick waved towards Serick and Nerick. “Get back to your window, you two. He will stop this introspecting nonsense in no time.”
“Hooray!” Serick shouted.
“We’ll be ready, Rick,” Nerick said. “Good luck!” He waved, but his voice sounded sad.

“This is your problem,” Terick said, pointing to an overflowing in-box. “The system is bogged down by doubts and irrelevant questions. Look.”
He took the first few.
“Why do I feel unhappy?”
“Do I really want to become a banker?”
“Do I still want to become a banker?”
“What’s the matter with me?”
“See?” Terick said. “You need to find which functions are making you doubt yourself and shut them down. Only then you’ll become the efficient and succesful person you want to be.”
Rick nodded. He liked the style of this Terick - short, to the point, doing what needed to be done without all sorts of fuss. He got up and wanted to shake hands with the C.E.O. of his mind – but Terick didn’t pay attention to him any more. He was trying to work his way through all those questions.
“No wonder I’m suffering from burn-out,” Rick thought. He turned around. There were three doors in the room. The one on his right led to the window of Serick and Nerick. The door in front of him was the one where that little child came through. The one on his left had stayed shut.

He went to the middle one. The door led to a small, rather dark room. There was no furniture in it – only a brick floor and brick walls. A single lightbulb was the only light source.
There were three persons . A pale-looking version of himself, with some piercings and tattoos, was comforting the small child. A teenager, sitting on the ground, was writing in a notebook. He supported his head with his left arm. They all looked weary and sad.
“Look, he’s here,” the tattood pale one said. The child brightened up and tottered towards Rick, arms outstretched.
He wasn’t good with children. Feeling awkward, he kneeled down.
“Hello Rick,” the toddler said. Rick tried to smile.
“Hello,” he said. “You’re Ferick, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and that’s Firick and Tirick.” He pointed towards the tattoed one first and then to the teenager with the notebook. Tirick checked off a mark and stood up.
“Now: explain to him and convince of our cause,” he said. The child ran towards Tirick.
“You shouldn’t have told him that,” he said.
“Why not?” Tirick asked, puzzled. Firick, who had gotten up too, shook his head and greeted Rick.
“I’m your introverted feeling function,” he said. “I take some of your decisions. We all do, Terick and Tirick and Ferick and I – but we do it differently. I use your personal values. Look.”
He showed his tattoos. They were words like “sincerity”, “reliability”, “friendship” and “love”. Reading them, Rick felt at once good and somewhat sick. Was this not precisely the sort of person the shrink wanted him to be?
He knew what to do. He’d try to find out everything and report to Terick. He was quite happy to have that one as his C.E.O. and not that emotional Firick guy.
“Tirick uses internal consistency. He can be tactless, but he’s a good guy,” Firick said. Tirick – at the urge of little Ferick – shook hands with Rick.
“And this is our Ferick,” Firick said, messing up the hair of the boy. Rick winced. He hated that as a child – being petted and prodded by everyone. They all wanted him to be cute, while he wanted to be taken seriously. But Ferick seemed to like it.
“He’s your public relations manager,” Tirick said, laughing a bit. “I’m a bit like a lawyer or a mathematician – checking whether things fit together or not. Firick is your ethical commission.”
“Nice comparisons,” Firick said. “Where did you get them?”
“Nirick, of course,” Tirick answered.
“And Terick?” Rick asked. “What does he use for his decisions?”
“Efficiency,” Firick said sadly. “Nothing wrong with that, but…”
“That’s where it went wrong,” Tirick interrupted. “Somehow he decided – you decided – that you would be better off without us three. He stuffed us out of sight in this chamber. We don’t get questions any more to decide upon. We’ve been shut out. We don’t see the perceiving functions. No data to process, no problems to solve. He’s become a tyrant. He thinks he can do all the decisions alone.”
“We hate being shut out,” Firick said. Tirick showed him the notebook. The same sort of useless doubts were written on it.
“That’s why we try to flood his in-box,” Tirick said. “We wanted him to understand he can’t do it alone. Firick is really good at it – finding precisely the sort of questions Terick can’t get away with.”
“But it failed,” Firick continued, his voice trembling. “He’s become a worse tyrant than ever. We’re really enemies now. You’ve got to choose a side. Either you side with Terick, shutting us out completely and making slaves of the perceiving functions…”
“And become like him?” Rick asked, sounding more hopeful than he wanted.
“Yes – a workaholic boss unable to communicate with other people,” Firick said.
“A successful manager,” Rick said, but he was doubting now, probably because of that Firick guy.
“I don’t think you’ll be successful,” Tirick said. “Without your public relations man you’ll scare off people.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Tirick,” Ferick said happily.
“Before you decide, you should meet the perceiving functions,” Firick said. “They’ve got lots of information.”
“I’ve met Nerick and Serick,” Rick said. “They want me to get outside as soon as possible.” But that Nerick guy had seemed so sad… why was that?
He went towards the door.
“Promise you’ll go to the perceivers first?” Ferick asked.
“Promise,” he said. He was moved by that cute Ferick – and hated him because of it. Those three made him really unsure of himself.

“Mr. Terick?” Rick called.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Terick said. “As soon as you know something, I know too. I’m the manager of your mind, remember. Now you’ve got to choose. Either you’ll be like me or you’ll be like Firick.”
“I’d want to meet those other perceivers first,” Rick said timidly.
“Sure,” Terick answered. “But choose quickly – there is work to do.”
“He is a tyrant indeed,” Rick thought. But was that bad? At least this way, things got done.
He entered the last room.

The last room was filled with archives. A man with glasses was putting things away. Some of the archives were brand new and in use, others had gathered a layer of dust. In a corner, a few boxes were filled with scrolls. There was a painting, too, and a crystal ball. A child, a bit older than young Ferick, worked on the painting. Rick suppressed a snicker – he didn’t know there’d be some mystic artist inside him.
“Hello,” he called. The man with the glasses looked up and turned towards him.
“Who are you?” Rick asked.
“I’m Sirick. I manage your memory, together with Nirick over there.”
The artist – Nirick – laid down his brush and greeted Rick, too.
“We store data and retrieve it,” Sirick said. “Whenever you use your experience, we’re at work. I work with literal data, facts and details. Nirick makes connections and guesses possibilities for the future.”
“Doesn’t this remind you of something?” Nirick said. “Serick and Nerick. We are their introverted counterparts. They work with newly incoming data, we use the stored facts.”
Rick nodded. He understood the connection at same moment when Nirick made it.
“What do you think about the problems between the judging functions?” he asked.
“They started almost one year ago,” Sirick answered. “You decided that becoming a succesful and rich banker was the one goal to follow.” He rummaged in the archive. Rick remembered. It had been a very conscious decision indeed, but he never imagined such consequences. Sirick nodded.
“You stuffed feelings and consistency out of your conscious, focussing on the things that needed to be done. For a while everything went well. Six months ago the first signs of burn-out showed: sleepless nights, headaches… You tried to follow the usual course in the hope it would go away.”
“Was that wrong?” Rick asked.
“It could have worked,” Nirick answered. “Most of the time such a decision works just fine.”
“Instead your problems grew worse. The enmity between Terick and the other judgers became a full war. You went to the psychiatrist.”
“You should tell about the memory problems too,” Nirick interrupted.
“Right – you were sixteen at the time and had problems with studying.” Sirick walked towards the earlier, dusty archives and beckoned.
“There is only so much place in my mind,” Sirick read from a piece of paper. “I can’t be interested in football, astronomy and economy at the same time. When my school results suffer from my hobbies, I have to choose.”
“About that time, your use of our extraverted colleagues became more and more limited. You were only interested in the useful stuff,” Nirick said, consulting a graph. “Both Nerick and Serick have become weaker.”
“All those dusty archives…” Rick began.
“They are memories you don’t use any more,” Sirick said matter-of-factly.
“Can’t you empty them and use them for new, relevant information?” Rick asked.
“That’s what Terick wants from us. But your memory doesn’t work that way,” Sirick answered. “This is permanent. If there is new information to remember, we build new archives.”
“The more you store and retrieve, the bigger your memory becomes,” Nirick said, smiling. “And we become stronger too. Your memory will work faster.”
Rick nodded. He’s learnt a lot… but he still didn’t know which path to choose.
“Who do you support?” he asked. “Do you prefer Terick? Or would you prefer the others?”
There was a deadly silence. Sirick and Nirick looked at each other.
“We don’t know,” Nirick said slowly. “We aren’t judgers. We can’t discern between useful and not like Terick, or between love and hate like Firick.”
Rick looked around in the archives. Suddenly, he wanted – he didn’t know why, but –
“Sirick, can you open one of those very old archives for me?” he asked.
“Sure!” Sirick said, becoming more lively than before. He practically ran towards the back of the room. Nirick followed, laughing.
The taste of chocolate cake. Four candles. Being proud because he could count them. Afraid of Uncle William with his big black moustache.
Rick turned around. The medicine was wearing off, he felt it, before long he’d be thrown outside again.
“Thanks a lot, Sirick and Nirick!” he called. “I will use you a lot more.”
He barged through the door.

Back in Tericks room, he saw that his choice was already been carried out. Firick, Tirick and Ferick had overpowered Terick. They locked him up in the bare room. He hugged all three of them.
“Thank you a lot,” he said. “I’ve never felt this good before. I’ve even never felt this much before.”
“We’ll take good care of you,” Firick promised, tears in eyes.
He went to the window room. Serick and Nerick were playing pictionary.
“It’s abstract again, isn’t it?” Serick asked in an exasperated tone, just as Rick entered the room. Both functions jumped to their feet, scattered pencil and paper around.
“I’m going outside in a jiffy,” Rick said. “Be prepared, I’ll be using you guys a lot more. I didn’t realise what I was missing!”
“We’re ready,” Serick said, his eyes darting across the room. His smile was on the verge of breaking out of his face. Nerick adjusted some knobs on his antennae and peered through the window. It was still dark outside, but he was ready to capture the first sensory impression that came through.
It was obvious that those guys loved their work.

He felt the chair at the psychatrist’s, blinked because of a lot of harsh cold light… He was outside. Everything should be well now. He felt a little unease, but this would pass soon. After all, he had undergone a major change in character.

Three weeks later, Rick was again at the psychiatrist’s. He looked at the walls full of posters and charts.
“Hello Rick,” the shrink greeted in a cheerful tone. “What have you been doing lately?”
“I made a trip,” Rick answered. “I wanted to see what took my fancy under the way. You know – I only wanted to do things that I really wanted.”
“And? How does this new life suit you?”
He shook his head.
“Not well. Everything that was easy before is difficult now. My head is a mess.”
“It isn’t easy. You’re trying to free yourself from the image your parents want you to be…”
They talked a bit more.
“Can I have a second dose of the introspection medicine?” Rick asked suddenly. “I’d like to meet my functions again and see how they’re doing.”

The window room was a mess. Nerick and Serick looked pale and undernourished.
“What’s wrong?”
“They don’t do anything with all those interesting ideas I’m generating,” Nerick answered.
“They can’t follow us,” Serick said.
Rick patted the shoulders of the two functions.
“I won’t stay long,” he promised. He went through the door. The cold banker’s office was unrecognizable, and a mess too. Ferick ran towards him, arms outstretched.
“Ferick,” Rick laughed, picking him up. The little boy was pale and looked as if he lacked sleep.
“You look tired,” he remarked.
The boy pointed towards the second door, looking at Rick with big asking eyes.
“You want me to free Terick?” he asked.
Ferick nodded.
At the table, Sirick was trying to help out Firick with the decisions. Nirick and Tirick sat together in a corner.
Rick went to the table. It was obvious Sirick didn’t help much. Firick couldn’t process the flood of data the perceivers were generating, and Sirick’s solution was bringing even more data.
“I’m sorry for the mess,” Firick said. “I do the best I can do.”
“We – the perceivers – created this mess,” Nirick called from his corner. “The judgers are too weak to process the data we’re bringing.”
“Makes sense,” Tirick said.
“What if I free Terick?” Rick asked.
“The mess will be cleaned up,” Nirick said.
“Evidently,” Tirick added.
“You’re going to change in the heartless banker again, suffering from burn-out and hating yourself because of it,” Nirick said.
“If I leave it like this, will Firick become stronger and able to govern my mind?” Rick asked.
“Maybe,” Nirick answered, “but he probably won’t become stronger than Sirick and Nerick. There will be a mess in your head forever.”
“Do I really have to choose between those two?” Rick asked.
“Yes,” Tirick answered.
“What if you tried to establish peace between the judgers and use all four of them?” a voice called. Rick looked up. The voice belonged to Nerick. The door to the window room was open and the two extraverted perceiving functions were inside.
“Impossible,” Tirick said.
“Try it first!” Firick called from his desk. Nerick and Serick did a high-five.

Rick nodded. He didn’t lose any more time on it. He opened the door. Sitting on the floor, head down, there was nothing left of the bossy, self-confident Terick.
“Terick,” Rick called.
“You want me back?” Terick asked.
“I need you to take charge of my mind again, but you’ve got to share your office with the other judgers.”
Terick perked up at once. He stood up, without saying anything, and went through the door.
“That sounded a lot more like the real Rick than whatever I can do,” Firick said. “I want you to be authentic, and the authentic Rick is the one dominated by our Terick.”
“Stop talking and get up, you,” Terick said to him. He took the place at the desk and started working immediately.
“Terick,” Ferick called.
“What’s it now?”
“You want to thank him,” Ferick said, pointing to Rick.
“You do that,” Terick said.
Rick nodded. That was the way his mind should work.

 

[Kaveri]

Te:

I suppose you can tell that Te is not among my favourite functions. >:|

(Go on, be offended, Te-doms, but that's not my intent.)

 

[Tamske]

Te:

(Go on, be offended, Te-doms, but that's not my intent.)

A real Te-dom is not offended. After all, a tank is efficient, isn't it?
I quite like Te, especially in other people

 

[Requeim]

Huh?
I didn't mean it as a joke...

what?

i just figured nobody would say anything THAT cheesy

oh well

 

[BlueSprout]

A real Te-dom is not offended. After all, a tank is efficient, isn't it?
I quite like Te, especially in other people

Before I read Kaveri's comment, I thought that the Te Tank = gung ho kicking ass and taking names, vanquishing inefficiency and disorder in a crowning moment of awesome. It seemed a hell of a lot more exciting than the charts and tables sometimes used to visually represent Te.

 

[Tamske]

It seemed a hell of a lot more exciting than the charts and tables sometimes used to visually represent Te.

True!

Charts and tables = Si used and controlled by Te.

My husband prefers a hammer to a tank. Well, for him, the hammer gets the job done and it doesn't use this amount of energy. Very Te.

 

[VagrantFarce]

Charts and tables = Si used and controlled by Te.

No, that's just Te. Just because its boring doesn't automatically make it Si.

[youtube=M4M0DkAeexA]Fi[/youtube]

"Of course, I could hear what the clerk was really saying."

 

[Tamske]

Charts and tables = Si used and controlled by Te.

No, that's just Te. Just because its boring doesn't automatically make it Si.

Boring? Boring?? Charts and tables aren't boring! They are recorded data and useful so - Si used by Te.

And even then, boring doesn't make someting Te either...

 

[Space_Oddity]

Boring? Boring?? Charts and tables aren't boring! They are recorded data and useful so - Si used by Te.

And even then, boring doesn't make someting Te either...

I agree... Tables, statistics, charts etc. are Si used by Te. Si = archiving information. And I also agree it isn't boring - when I was younger I really liked making lists, charts and statistics of just about anything that meant something to me (and actually, sometimes I still do it - it's a great relax). I genuinely enjoyed assorting and archiving information, and as I'm INFP, I believe it was indeed Te working trough Si.

By the way, I really like the Te = tank metaphor... Personally, I call Te the "crushing function", so I think it fits just great

 

[Serendipity]

Not sure, but please debate if you wish to.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3I0SLPaKo"]Ni - part one[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyzKb0ZOHmk&feature=related"]part two[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Space_Oddity]

Not sure, but please debate if you wish to.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D3I0SLPaKo"]Ni - part one[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyzKb0ZOHmk&feature=related"]part two[/YOUTUBE]

Hmm... Švankmajer is interesting, but it's hard to tell with surrealism. Personally, I find surrealism as a whole pretty Ni (it seems like I've always had a huge thing for Ni, which explains why I like Švankmajer, especially Faust, so much), but then, a lot of members of Czech surrealist group are Ne users and I've been able to create some pretty surrealistic stuff myself. Nevertheless, I think that kings of surrealism are INFJs (David Lynch, for instance).

Actually, I've met Švankmajer in person and the only thing I can say for sure is that he's an EXTREME introvert. He also seemed pretty serious and strict, and his daughter said he was quite a rigid and controlling father (if I remember correctly), so I think a J is more plausible than P. Yeah, INFJ seems like a good fit.

 

[Space_Oddity]

Se:

This seems more like Ne to me. The girl doesn't seem to be too "in the moment" to me, I rather feel she might be imagining she's some fairy-tale princess playing in the garden, or maybe she's returning to her childhood in her imagination, or both.

The picture definitely immediately made my Ne go wild...

 

[Requeim]

This seems more like Ne to me. The girl doesn't seem to be too "in the moment" to me, I rather feel she might be imagining she's some fairy-tale princess playing in the garden, or maybe she's returning to her childhood in her imagination, or both .

The picture definitely immediately made my Ne go wild...

the bolded part feels Ni to me

 

[Space_Oddity]

the bolded part feels Ni to me

I don't think it has to be split into Ne or Ni... it's just... imagination. Anyone with imagination can experience such moments. I had millions of them when I was young, I assure you.

Do you think only Ni users like "playing at someone else"? No way.