[ENFP] ENFP:Our Inner Simulacrums

[sculpting]

ENFPs seem to build inner simulacrums Maybe INFPs too? I dunno, cant speak for them.

Posted this on the empathy thread, and I wanted to call it out as a separate thread to get feedback from other ENFPs. All comments are welcome.:

Once I was thinking about long lost friends I will never see again...I felt an upwelling of love for them..I felt still connected...Like a invisible, emotional tie binds us forever. I thought everybody did this, but they dont and many even think it is bizarre..

I also feel emotional connection, akin to very deep caring, to several folks here that I have never met, and likely will never meet. It doesnt matter. I still care for them-love.

If I never see them again....what am I connecting to?? In a bizarre moment of thought, I realized it was myself somehow. How can I connect to someone else, if I am only me? (assuming the lack of souls and such)

I think with Fi we mirror/model/map/simulate our emotional world..the "emotional construct".

I think we mirror other people and build them as part of our Fi construct. I'd suggest the gaps are filled by Ne, but the final result is an FiSi model we can use for reference. Fi users are well known for not making eye contact during emo moments...we are looking inside...at the construct of that person we created-their simulacrum. No matter where they go, we will always be connected...as we built the person into being part of ourselves.

When they hurt, my construct of them hurts, thus I hurt. I seek to relieve their pain. With Se in 8th place, physical contact is meaningless. It takes time to change my view of a person as I have to edit that construct though...

It is dangerous to let them become too deeply ingrained in our construct as we have to cut out a part of ourselves and destroy it if we have to cut them off. For this reason we may be playful with other people-but true emo connecetions will be present if we share our emotions, especially our emotional history with you....It is hard to hate or feel mean angry emotions at another person...as we are really hating our construct of them...thus hating ourselves. So we forgive very easily. It is very horrible if I hurt someone I care about..as then I get trapped in my own pain I feel for them, a part of my own construct, and get trapped in a bad place.

A very dangerous thing is that we can feel love for those we have never meet...and be deeply hurt when they never understand that those emotions were very real for us...as they cannot feel love unless they are physically with another person. Neither is wrong or right, but are perceptions of the world do differ...Be cautious when you interact in a long distance way with an ENFP for that reason.

Because our construct is us...when someone attacks us..we defend it sharply..defensive Fi...because they are hurting us. They are hurting our constructs....thus they are hurting all of those we care about...

So while totally isolated, apparently selfish, with Fi or harsh with Te....we in reality carry everyone we love within us and bear their pain, and are driven to help quell that pain. Yup, I sometimes shut all of that off and come across as Te bitchy....

So that ability to step away from this...I agree it might be shades of Fe....but it is very welcome. To be able to emotionally connect and care very deeply, authentically, for another, but not have to carry them as part of me......well I think I will keep practicing that as I do like it very much... It is such a relief.

 

[sculpting]

Below is skylights replay to my post above on the emapthy thread..


YES YES YES to EVERYTHING

Quote:
Originally Posted by Orobas
Once I was thinking about long lost friends I will never see again...I felt an upwelling of love for them..I felt still connected...Like a invisible, emotional tie binds us forever. I thought everybody did this, but they dont and many even think it is bizarre..


me too. it doesn't sound crazy to me at all. i know it's been affirmed a few times in that ENFP Possessiveness thread that ENFPs never really stop loving someone they've loved. i feel this same way with places i was once attached to and will probably never go again. it makes me sad that i won't see them again but instead i carry them inside of me (FiSi?) and it's that whole global connection thing, you know? i do want to be a part of everything and everyone and have everything and everyone be a part of me. i can't even begin to fathom why... there's something almost spiritual about it...

so Ne collects, Fi decides what it values and wants to add, Te projects and/or Si stores. this all works with the Jungian descriptions. Ne gathers info from outside, Fi decides, and Si gathers info from inside when summoned - though our Si isn't great, so we remember just was most important to us - which would be mostly feelings (especially enjoyable feelings) and major ideas/lessons learned, not really the whole picture. makes well for rose-colored glasses, doesn't it?

not that i really have a problem with that... we just need a workaround code sometimes... speaking of -- Te does check things out logically if we have to present them externally, which is which is why we're figuring out stuff about ourselves while we talk maybe this is why our little supposedly extraverted selves love message boards so much! not only do we get to talk about tons of new ideas with lots of people but we also figure things out when we talk and it doesn't require the other person to listen to us in real time... lol...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Orobas
I think we mirror other people and build them as part of our Fi construct. I'd suggest the gaps are filled by Ne, but the final result is an FiSi model we can use for reference. Fi users are well known for not making eye contact during emo moments...we are looking inside...at the construct of that person we created-their simulacrum. No matter where they go, we will always be connected...as we built the person into being part of ourselves.

When they hurt, my construct of them hurts, thus I hurt. I seek to relieve their pain. With Se in 8th place, physical contact is meaningless. It takes time to change my view of a person as I have to edit that construct though...

It is dangerous to let them become too deeply ingrained in our construct as we have to cut out a part of ourselves and destroy it if we have to cut them off. It is hard to hate or feel mean angry emotions at another person...as we are really hating our construct of them...thus hating ourselves. So we forgive very easily. It is very horrible if I hurt someone I care about..as then I get trapped in my own pain I feel for them, a part of my own construct, and get trapped in a bad place.

A very dangerous thing is that we can feel love for those we have never meet...and be deeply hurt when they never understand that those emotions were very real for us...as they cannot feel love unless they are physically with another person. Neither is wrong or right, but are perceptions of the world do differ...

this is brilliant particularly... it explains, perhaps, why we do have such hard times letting go of people romantically - we take them all in and get terribly close to them, so close that they become a huge part of who we are. and sometimes they didn't even get that close to us, so that it seems like not that big of a deal on their part, whereas we're having to break down and rebuild a huge part of our identity to move on. that, or we cut and run before they do, immediately seizing onto the next person so that we can start rebuilding our identity right away, and not have to experience that painful breakdown.

i totally agree about anger too. i cannot stand there being conflict with someone. if this is all right, then when i say i feel like i'm being "torn up" inside is actually rather literally true - my internal version of them and our harmonious relationship is being torn up by all our negative emotions. and Ne just spices it all up with relevant possibility. i typically build a whole NeFi scenario of god what if something happens to them in the time between us being angry and resolving the conflict, they could think i hated them and that may cause them emotional pain and that would be horrible...

perhaps this is why i cannot seem to cut myself off from my own emotions and just get work done, while an ENFJ friend of mine can. it's not the difference between T and F, it's the difference between Fi and Fe. and when escape from the world of interior feeling is needed, it's better to resort to Se and Te/Ti, not feelings-based Fi values or past-based Si databases. logical thinking + present experience = escape.

this all makes me feel oddly liberated. as much as i love having the strengths and even the quirks of an ENFP, there are some things that are very difficult -- i think i've voiced them before as "just caring too damn much". it'd be nice to figure out how to work around that for the sake of everyone sometimes.

(personal relationship angst part cut and pasted below; read at discretion. it was a valuable realization on my part so i figured i'd post it just in case anyone else might benefit, but it really is kind of angsty.)
when i'm breaking up with someone, the pain is so much in the loss of shared inside jokes and past experiences (Fi Si) and all my projection about how well we have worked and will work together (Ne Fi and Si)... and to a certain extent, all the things about them that i've gained through them and will no longer have. wow, that sounds selfish, but i don't really mean in a material sense, more like experiential. like the people i know through them, it just becomes awkward, but i don't want to lose all those people either. and more than anything, it just seems like we have this huge whole ground of common experience and affection between us, and there are so many ways it could work out, why start all over again with someone new when i still love you and we can fix this? that's always my problem. though i guess... i guess it could be fun to start all over again with someone new. wow, it really could be. holy crap, am i moving on?

 

[targobelle]

you know my hubby(entp) thinks I'm crazy when I go looking up info about ppl from my past. Even ppl I met online, just cause well I need to know. I need to know they are well and around and just a whisper away. Silly I know

Do you think we gather info from others to grow ourselves emotionally, to expand our horizons and experiences to better relate to others that we encounter? You know how food and water nourish us physically, could emotional contact nourish us cognitively our maybe better yet our souls?

you know your post is so very relateable! (yah yah spelling who cares if it's not a word)

NeFi

Dominant: Extraverted intuition (Ne)

Ne finds and interprets hidden meanings, using “what if” questions to explore alternatives, allowing multiple possibilities to coexist. This imaginative play weaves together insights and experiences from various sources to form a new whole, which can then become a catalyst to action.[13]
[edit] Auxiliary: Introverted feeling (Fi)

Fi filters information based on interpretations of worth, forming judgments according to criteria that are often intangible. Fi constantly balances an internal set of values such as harmony and authenticity. Attuned to subtle distinctions, Fi innately senses what is true and what is false in a situation.[14]

referenced ~ ENFP - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Rebe]

I haven't read through the post thoroughly - but apparently INFPs 'fantasize' about people who are not longer in our inner most circle to stay emotionally/mentally/spiritually connected to them.

I do this. I idealize them somewhat, which is dangerous, but when I can't stand the thought of losing someone who was so important to me and we had such a meaningful connection, I carry on with them in my mind even when physically they are gone, we moved on, etc. It doesn't last long, just a few weeks/months after we part. Eventually, they get replaced by something else. But ... for a while, I'd sort of 'hold them' in my consciousness.