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[NF] NF Hero Idealism

CuriousFeeling

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I couldn't think of a better title other than NF hero idealism. I think it's the thing with NFs, someone in a field of our choice touches us so deeply that we look up to them and surround our dreams around them.

This is the case when it comes to me and my favorite musician. When I first heard his music, it captivated my imagination and I found someone who actually understood how INFJs feel different from everyone else. I felt like I went through a spiritual rebirth. It's like "finally, a songwriter out there that gets it and understands the Ni vision!" I suppose the relationship I have with his music is a bit like that with Julie to Julia Child in the movie Julie and Julia. I want to write songs like my hero and carry on his style of music when he's gone. I hope to one day meet him, but I'm not sure if it will ever happen. Still I carry on with this fantasy of one day meeting him in person.

But one thing for certain, a lot of his music has helped me to grow and develop as a person. I knew music effected me deeply, but now music is my passion.

Do other NFs feel the same way about their heroes, both childhood and current ones?
 

runvardh

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I miss those days. Now for everything good I can find out about something I also find something equally or more terrible. After 10 I had to run to fantasy just to keep something alive and even that is now failing as it is what it is - a fantasy. I'm sure I'd find someone if the ideal was right and untainted, but that's an unrealistic hope.
 

Arclight

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Feeling are a biological function.. an INFJ's feelings are no different than anyone else's..

What triggers these feelings are as unique as each person.. But the results are the same.. Or are you really going to tell me loneliness or joy actually feel different to you??

We are all human.. and that includes INFJ's .. Get it? You are a human being..
No matter how much you wish you weren't

thank you for listening..
 

KLessard

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I couldn't think of a better title other than NF hero idealism. I think it's the thing with NFs, someone in a field of our choice touches us so deeply that we look up to them and surround our dreams around them.

I hope to one day meet him, but I'm not sure if it will ever happen. Still I carry on with this fantasy of one day meeting him in person.

But one thing for certain, a lot of his music has helped me to grow and develop as a person. I knew music effected me deeply, but now music is my passion.

Do other NFs feel the same way about their heroes, both childhood and current ones?

Yeah I relate to all of this. Meeting that person might be devastating, mind you. It has happened to me. More than once (I have learned to seek accessible role models). INFJs hate shallow connections, and this is all you could get with that person if you were to meet him, unless you had an occasion to work with him or befriend him. Inside, you feel so connected, but that person doesn't know you (or does he?)

The person I met was never as famous as a Genesis musician or anything like that, but she had a similar effect on me. I felt down for days after that meeting.
I met her again last fall, and we had a friendly conversation, but I was again deeply disappointed I hadn't been able to really befriend her.
 

KLessard

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I'm sure I'd find someone if the ideal was right and untainted, but that's an unrealistic hope.

So true. This is where you get the reality check. Ideal human beings don't exist. This is where you must choose to love your role model as he/she is: imperfect and sometimes hurtful.
 

scortia

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I guess I'm an exception. I really adore the work of some people, but I don't worship them... I'm just too self-focused I guess. I'm impressed, inspired, but ultimately I focus on my own ideas and potential first.
 

CuriousFeeling

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Yeah I relate to all of this. Meeting that person might be devastating, mind you. It has happened to me. More than once (I have learned to seek accessible role models). INFJs hate shallow connections, and this is all you could get with that person if you were to meet him, unless you had an occasion to work with him or befriend him. Inside, you feel so connected, but that person doesn't know you (or does he?)

The person I met was never as famous as a Genesis musician or anything like that, but she had a similar effect on me. I felt down for days after that meeting.
I met her again last fall, and we had a friendly conversation, but I was again deeply disappointed I hadn't been able to really befriend her.

This is something I even tell myself when I envision hypothetical situations of meeting someone remotely famous. I know that the connection I desire is the same I have in the music, and that is really difficult. Perhaps it could be an indication that I'm trying to connect with a part of his personality that I see reflected in me, or trying to achieve self-actualization.

A lot of hero "worship" I think is just us figuring out who we are. We are essentially looking at traits we see in them and how they are related to us, or traits that we wish to have.

But we can turn the yearning to meet someone into something constructive by creating works of art, poetry, etc. and fostering our own personal growth. Heck, I never thought I would ever songwrite before, I would always play music I had in front of me, but now I'm creating my own works. Essentially it's like putting your hero's influences into your own work. I learned in psych class that in order for us to have motivation to do things, the goals must be realistic yet challenging. Thus, it would be a realistic goal to learn to songwrite and practice music to recreate the sound of the musician you like. Not exactly the thing that yields the ultimate happiness (getting Utilitarian here), but if you add up the small things that make you happy, they will all add up and it's a longer sustaining effect. Going higher up to the level of happiness you desire then quickly coming down from it won't yield sustaining happiness.

It can be possible that the passion and connection you feel from your heroes can be used to the NF benefit for helping others to realize their full potential too.
 

KLessard

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This is something I even tell myself when I envision hypothetical situations of meeting someone remotely famous. I know that the connection I desire is the same I have in the music, and that is really difficult. Perhaps it could be an indication that I'm trying to connect with a part of his personality that I see reflected in me, or trying to achieve self-actualization.

A lot of hero "worship" I think is just us figuring out who we are. We are essentially looking at traits we see in them and how they are related to us, or traits that we wish to have.

But we can turn the yearning to meet someone into something constructive by creating works of art, poetry, etc. and fostering our own personal growth. Heck, I never thought I would ever songwrite before, I would always play music I had in front of me, but now I'm creating my own works. Essentially it's like putting your hero's influences into your own work. I learned in psych class that in order for us to have motivation to do things, the goals must be realistic yet challenging. Thus, it would be a realistic goal to learn to songwrite and practice music to recreate the sound of the musician you like. Not exactly the thing that yields the ultimate happiness (getting Utilitarian here), but if you add up the small things that make you happy, they will all add up and it's a longer sustaining effect. Going higher up to the level of happiness you desire then quickly coming down from it won't yield sustaining happiness.

It can be possible that the passion and connection you feel from your heroes can be used to the NF benefit for helping others to realize their full potential too.

It sure does inspire me! I have gone beyond my own abilities, surprising myself of what I was able to achieve because of such powerful inspiration. But the disappointment of the "meeting" is wounding and will make you crawl flat on the floor for months.
 

CuriousFeeling

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It sure does inspire me! I have gone beyond my own abilities, surprising myself of what I was able to achieve because of such powerful inspiration. But the disappointment of the "meeting" is wounding and will make you crawl flat on the floor for months.

On that note, I thought about even if I did work with or met my hero, when I'd have to leave I'd really be a wreck afterwards because the whole thing might not even happen again.
 

runvardh

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So true. This is where you get the reality check. Ideal human beings don't exist. This is where you must choose to love your role model as he/she is: imperfect and sometimes hurtful.

But what if the very thing you looked up to them for was really just a lie? What if you've come to a point in your life when your own successes surpass them? These days there are people around who have certain traits I'd like eventually; but those traits tend to be singular and the person being someone am neutral about, or sometimes dislike. That is my reality.
 

Mad Hatter

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Can't really say that I'm much into idealizing other people. I'm quite the opposite - once I get fascinated by a famous person, I research things about them in order to find some flaw (I guess it makes them more credible and interesting to me.)

(I was really amazed to find out that the historical Siddartha allegedly died of dysentery after eating a spoiled piece of pork.)
 

KLessard

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But what if the very thing you looked up to them for was really just a lie? What if you've come to a point in your life when your own successes surpass them? These days there are people around who have certain traits I'd like eventually; but those traits tend to be singular and the person being someone am neutral about, or sometimes dislike. That is my reality.

I'm not sure I get this. Could you expand or paraphrase, Runvardh?

I do think that when you idealize a person, you seek and hope to find personal ideals there. That person certainly has beautiful things in her. But they might not be your ideals. This is where it gets interesting. As you begin to see this, you have to choose to love the person, not the ideals. The role model I was referring to before (an ISFJ) has disappointed me many times. But then, I realized I really appreciated her as a person, and decided to love her as she was. At that moment, I started to see very noble ideals in her, but different ones than mine, among them loyalty to her family and to her culture and trying to be good and caring about everybody at the same time (what a challenge, but well...).


I will share my personal spiritual convictions here. Take it or leave it, that's up to you. The reason we seek ideals in people is because ideals don't exist on their own, they are linked to a person. God. That's where hero worship can become unhealthy and idolatrous.

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

"We were made for God. Only by being a manifestation of his beauty, loving-kindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish an no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do." (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves- Charity)
 

runvardh

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Unfortunately having my own trouble with God, though I'm certain all the issues have something to do with me. I've tried to yeld, but all that seems to happen is depression and lonliness.

As to further explanations on my issues with other humans: that which I loved about my uncle, as I grew up proved to be false; the things I aspired to pertaining to my father, I have already surpassed. Also my uncle is now only a shadow of the man he used to be and in nearly every way positive I now look down on my father rather than up at him. Other random people have single traits that are nice, but the rest of who they are does not impress me or causes me disgust. This is the best I can explain it, any further would require a mind link and even that I'm thinking would only be 50% helpful.
 

KLessard

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Unfortunately having my own trouble with God, though I'm certain all the issues have something to do with me. I've tried to yield, but all that seems to happen is depression and lonliness.

As to further explanations on my issues with other humans: that which I loved about my uncle, as I grew up proved to be false; the things I aspired to pertaining to my father, I have already surpassed. Also my uncle is now only a shadow of the man he used to be and in nearly every way positive I now look down on my father rather than up at him. Other random people have single traits that are nice, but the rest of who they are does not impress me or causes me disgust. This is the best I can explain it, any further would require a mind link and even that I'm thinking would only be 50% helpful.

Yeah, family is a whole different thing to me. My late INFP father was a very knowledgeable man, even though not a scholar at all, but he had great memory and taught me a million things. When I grew older and went to university, I came to a point where I started to see my father in a different way. I still loved him dearly, but was aware that he couldn't do much for me or teach me anymore. It happens.
I think you have to accept these men's flaws and love them as they are, even if you are disappointed.
I think I'm starting to see your point... :(
You feel like there isn't anybody you can look up to?
I think it's a healthy place to be in a way, seeing good things in some people, but being realistic about who they really are. I think what you need is inspiration.
I will pray for you. God is something different from your father or your father figures. He is not limited.
 

runvardh

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I said nothing about not loving my uncle or father. I need inspiration in an area that is actually going to work and make me happy instead of just one or the other. I also know that God isn't the limited one, it's me, and so far my only help there is if he destroys me.
 

Lacey

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I have the tendency to idolize pretty much anyone. I have to consciously remind myself that they are merely human beings. Otherwise I get into this really bad emotional rollercoaster of being giddy because I think they're awesome, and then comparing myself to them and getting really depressed that I don't measure up. It's not good for me at all.

I also tend to idolize people who are similar to me in some small (but seemingly significant) way, so that I feel that I have a strong connection to them...but they're different enough that I can't actually hope to be like them. It gets me down. I have to learn how to be myself, and decide what kind of person I want to become...without using other peoples as models so much. Judging from how things in my life have gone so far...I'll probably do something different than anyone I've seen, so I have to be more independent in this area.

I fantasize about meeting certain people, but in reality I know it'd be terrible. I'm socially awkward, and the people I like tend to be socially awkward when they're not in performance mode. So it'd be pretty bad all around. ahaha

And real-life heroes... I think I've only had a few. It's kind of bittersweet, I guess. They usually leave my life for one reason or another. My tap teacher was my major one most recently, but now she's a little wrapped up with other things besides tap dance (she just got married) and isn't really able to spend a ton of time mentoring me. (Yes, I'm needy and selfish.) But besides that, she's changed a lot in the past year or so, and I'm not sure I relate to her as well anymore... Anyway, I like having these kinds of people, because I learn and grow so much because of them, but once our time together is done I feel kind of lost. Right now, there's no one in particular I look up to, so I'm left to my own devices and I'm a little uninspired...

I know a lot of people consider their parents/grandparents heroes. I do, to a certain extent. I would call my mom and grandma my heroes, because of everything they've taught me and done for me. However, I don't necessarily want to make the same life decisions they've made...I don't want to mimic them. It makes me think that I have to change my personal definition of hero.

I think heroes are good if you decide what thing(s) you like about that person, and try to work for those skills. Learn things from them, basically. But getting all wrapped up, emotionally, with them as a whole? Not so much.

I think I've decided that I need to be my own hero.
 

Moiety

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Not me at all. Take a look at my signature. Words I live by. I can admire someone's work and see value in it but I will always want to approach things in my own way.
 
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