The only thing you're demonstrating is poor understanding of type theory.
It's not that I don't understand type theory, it's that I don't consider it valid. The categories it imposes are arbitrary, something which is not the case when you allow the possibility of being able to combine them.
If you don't want anyone to type you, why are you making posts inviting people to type you based on your writing?
Because I hoped I could give people reason to doubt that I was a single type.
The only thing you're demonstrating is poor understanding of type theory.
It's not that I don't understand type theory, it's that I don't consider it valid. The categories it imposes are arbitrary, something which is not the case when you allow the possibility of being able to combine them.
I suspect that your attraction to personality type theory has to do with your desire for greater self-understanding. Fi wants to be in touch with what's most important to you on the inside, and you suspect that typology can help you define that more clearly. Additionally, Ne wants to understand how you fit into a broader context in a pattern larger than yourself, but you're conflicted about it because Fi feels that fitting squarely into a certain type mold would threaten your individuality. You compensate by continuing to study and discuss the theory, but placing yourself in a special "outside the box" category to satisfy your desire for uniqueness. Standard INFP.
I am not looking for the Myers-Brigg to help define myself more clearly. I did at one point but it's arbitrary and it only makes things more confusing. If I think, well, I'm behaving in a _________ manner, then I am unable to respond to the situation normally and authentically. If I respond according to what is suggested than I am validating an imposition of an external force on my behavior, and if I don't then I am not invalidating it because I don't know if I'm responding that way because it isn't the case or because I am intentionally behaving against my nature. When I think like that I slip into Fe mode, and I am totally at a loss for how to behave because I start responding emotionally in terms of the construct when the construct doesn't give me direction. Yes, I do value Fi and Ne, absolutely. But I use Ne less as a framework for reality than as a tool to create my own reality. You don't see me playing with perspective at all in my Facebook statuses, much less a drive to maintain my own perceptual framework? The loss of an ability to regain that is what I consider the cause of my current dissatisfaction.
I'm not placing myself in a special "outside the box" category. I think the box needs to be redefined, because not only does it not include me, it doesn't account for many people, not all of which I even like or would have motivation to try to promote the uniqueness of. It's not primarily an emotional drive but a mental drive for specificity.
So you freely admit that you have a warped and fucked up conception of self? How do you think you can type yourself accurately, then?
No. You're twisting my words. My understanding of reality and of myself has gotten distorted since about a year ago as a result of an incident with a friend I idolized. I am very careful about my attachments normally, because when I attach myself to people I slip into their paradigm, and if I do this too much and theirs is too different than mine, I experience a loss of my own perspective. This is the first time I didn't guard myself adequately emotionally, and it happened.
Fi to the max. Your idealistic feelings are so overpowering that sometimes you feel the only way to deal with them is to shut them out entirely--which, of course, feels meaningless and fatalistic. You might potentially be bipolar. Have you seen a counselor or something of the like? It might help.
I don't try to shut out my feelings at all. I try to frame the world in a way that makes me feel as much as possible. I am not even remotely bipolar, though I probably have characteristics of both BPD and Aspergers. I wouldn't label myself with either of those things but there are recognizable characteristics, one of which is shifting emotional states with BPD. I've tried talking to a couple of people since I've been at college but they didn't know what the hell I was talking about, and ultimately, I'm the only one who knows my mind well enough to know how to keep myself in a sustainable frame of mind. I've just gotten so far from it that it's very difficult finding my way back to that, although it has been getting progressively, if slowly better.
Many Ne people find that having a creative partner to bounce ideas around with helps out a lot.
Yeah, and I love bouncing ideas with people, but that's not my ultimate creative concern. My concern is that I have trouble generating content because I'm not all that aware of my surroundings, which would make sense given that I have three introverted leading functions to use before I have to use the extroverted ones.
Oh, and I posted a couple pictures of things I've made to show that I do have aesthetic sensibilities (Se), as well as a picture of me dressing up in costume as a kid, because I did that a lot since I was very young and I think that an obsession with costumes is also related to Se.
But don't worry--being INFP doesn't mean you can't be a unique individual with lots of worthwhile and special attributes. It's not a proscriptive insistence that you behave a certain way and it doesn't limit your ability to express yourself. It's just a description of the things you tend to consider important and the ways you prefer to conceptualize yourself and your relationship to the outer world...many people within the same type are extremely different and individualized in a million different ways.
Well, gee, thanks. If I had just known that before..
You have some self-image issues and a (perfectly normal) desire to appear special, unique and out of the box to others...this last part is really most evident in your facebook statuses. )
Clear-cut INFP.
It's not a feeling of emotional inadequacy, but again, a difficulty sinking back into my perspective.