[NF] When Fe & Fi Go Awry: The Definitive NF guide to F-ness (Let the Antics Ensue)

[Esoteric Wench]

I've been gone from this thread for two days... and good grief... I'm gonna have to spend an hour reading to get caught up. Then more time composing my responses. I'm sort of in awe of the people that can be so attentive to the conversations and who never seem to take hiatuses.

This begs the question as to how our more voluminous posters on this forum otherwise occupy their time.

Do none of you people have jobs?

 

[BlackCat]

General question here- fidelia, peacebaby, all of your participators- are you mainly talking about NFPs or all of the FPs? It seems like 90% of these discussions are about NFPs in particular vs NFJs; not just Fe vs Fi.

 

[Fidelia]

I'm only focussing in on NFPs because I have very little real life experience with SFPs and NFPs are mostly who have joined the discussion. I'd welcome hearing something from the SFP perspective though.

 

[BlackCat]

Where did the discussion start? What are you guys answering in particular?

 

[Fidelia]

I'm afraid that involved about 29 pages of reading! You up for it?

 

[BlackCat]

Maybe. I feel like I'm experiencing deja vu though, since I've answered these kinds of threads numerous times with no one really responding to what I say. And it feels like the same discussion over and over again; same conclusions and all.

I'll check it out in a few hours after class then! Maybe it's different, eh?

 

[PeaceBaby]

I appreciate all you've said from the Fi perspective up above, PB. It has hit me in a way that most of the dialog has not, and I am still thinking about it.

But in this particular area of the discussion, I think this is where Fe considers Fi to be naive... just like people who enter the field of politics thinking "All they have to do is tell the truth, and then everything will be fine." It doesn't work that way. Hate it or not, people are swayed by public persona ... even you. You only see what you see. This is why smear campaigns are so effective -- and they become even more effective if the person doing the smearing is believing they're just "telling the truth" and feel passion for their cause.

I agree it's naive at times ... way earlier in thread with my work example, I know it was naive of me to think that just pointing out and standing up for what was so obviously right would mean everything would turn out right.

But how simple it would be eh? If truth was what mattered most? Without the drama that (especially politicians etc) wended around that supposed truth? I mean the crystal pure truth, and I know believing that there even is such a thing is naive no doubt too.

And if falsehoods are entertained or given more credibility than they deserve, it creates disruptions and fosters untruth. Rumors smear; and the tone of your comments left me feeling like it's the people who are being smeared who have to now expend the energy to deal with the mess that others have created, even if the people creating the mess a few hours later suddenly say, "Oh, well, it wasn't that big a deal after all." That's horrifically unfair and exhausting; I think responsibility comes in at both ends, not just one.

Yes, please don't get the impression I think this is a one way street. All of us need to bear responsibility for our words and actions. I hear you - throwing out an emo-rant then saying sorry afterward sure can leave hard-feelings all 'round.

We have all kinds of people in the world, and all of them with their particular tendencies, all of them within their various micro-cultures, and then all of them in various stages of maturity, growth, wellness and stability.

It's so multi-layered and sophisticated. Attending to all that is mind-boggling.

I've been at both ends of that stick, so I do appreciate your POV. It's not fair, not fair at all. It's a weight that sometimes you feel frustrated to have to carry.

Active listening is effective and an important tool, but sometimes it seems like it can be taken advantage of or just enables people to not take responsibility for their own choices. It also can feel like coddling sometimes. It's confusing to know when to use it and when not to.

Interesting the word coddling has come up a few times ... I guess I see AL as attending to emotions, or honoring them. I think when I get into Fe trouble, it sure does help me back it up and take things down a few notches. It's like the language of emotional neutrality. It doesn't assign any motive, it tries to understand the other POV, and it makes sure the listener is hearing accurately and the speaker's message is heard as they wish it to be heard.

Has more possibility to create win-win then anything else I have tried anyway.

No, it's like a forest fire... you let it burn TOO long, and it'll start more little fires all around the forest and the whole thing will eventually go up, even if the original fire subsides. "The tongue is a raging fire," isn't it? Things people say, even carelessly / just to "vent," can start fires that can burn down reputations and communities. The feelings linger for some people long after the event in question, while the people who spoke carelessly or even just "impassionated in the moment" might sleep soundly without realizing how they've really torn someone else up. I've got three kids, and one of them is really good at "telling his truth in the heat of the moment," then ten minutes later moving on... leaving the other two kids to deal with the crap he dumped on them, sometimes very unfairly, while often they coddle him too much at their own expense because they're trying to be fair and polite. Trying to find a balance in that mess is hard.

The fire only spreads when there is fuel to feed it - remember that.

Fire-fighters first focus on containment ... hey there's a great metaphor there.

There are 4 ways to put out a fire:

1.) Starvation - removal of the fuel
2.) Smothering - exclusion of the oxygen
3.) Cooling - reducing heat, with substances such as water
4.) Inhibition of the combustion reaction - breaking the fuel, heat, oxygen chain reaction.

Where would Fi users focus on putting out the emo-fire? Where would Fe users?

Me, I would focus on 3 and 4 - I wouldn't try to smother it (#2), because I know emo-fires burn hotter when someone is trying to suppress them. I wouldn't try taking away the fuel (#1), but I would try to make sure no one is adding more fuel, more #4 I think. If the emo-fire just uses the fuel that started it in the first place, it is self-limiting. Only more fuel sends it surging forward.

I think some Fi users feel like Fe users rely on 1 and 2 - in trying to remove #1 they say things like "Oh, there's nothing to be upset about, what are you carrying on about". The message from #2 would sound more like deflection, joke-y type comments that mock the original emo-rant. Those kind of comments seem directed to just shut the emo-ranter up, or reduce the credibility of the ranter. Ironically, I think that stuff ends up being the fuel added to the emo-fire.

No wonder it keeps on a'burnin'!

But I digress...

I agree finding the balance is Hard. I know you feel engaging in these scenarios as a bystander is sometimes more like meddling in other people's affairs. But, imagine if I entered W's thread asap, reinterpreted his rant back to him, with words that let him know I heard him, but let others know he wasn't just ranting away without purpose. That could have been enough to stop it all, right there.

See, the difficulty in suppressing is that other people in the community leave too. They feel constrained, they feel everything they say must be sanitized, that they have to "toe the line".

I don't have the solution, but I do agree it's hard. It takes a great deal of time and energy to plow through those situations.

There's still stuff that people have said here a year or two ago that was never resolved, never will be resolved, and still eats at me no matter how hard I've tried to lay it aside, and undermines my self-confidence; I just try to block it out and continue forward regardless, shutting out emotions and relying on what rationality I have to keep me on track.

Ahh, see this is where you and I divide. I would be using those emotions to reestablish a harmony ... shoving them down is only a temporary bandaid, I've done it before myself many times, but sometimes you just need to pull that bandaid off and talk with the other person directly and in a forthright way. NOW - that being said, communication is a two-way street, and if the other person shuts you out, or won't listen, that's where you get left holding the bag and must work through the residue on your own.

Do none of you people have jobs?

I had dental surgery last week, so your thread was good timing to help keep me distracted. Thank you EW!

General question here- fidelia, peacebaby, all of your participators- are you mainly talking about NFPs or all of the FPs? It seems like 90% of these discussions are about NFPs in particular vs NFJs; not just Fe vs Fi.

I am only talking from the INFP POV. I have an ISFP best friend, and she is very different in these matters ... I can expand more on that later if you're interested BC.

 

[PeaceBaby]

I'm afraid that involved about 29 pages of reading! You up for it?

If you set your control panel to 100 posts per page, it's only three pages!

 

[Totenkindly]

Just a partial response right now...

But how simple it would be eh? If truth was what mattered most? Without the drama that (especially politicians etc) wended around that supposed truth? I mean the crystal pure truth, and I know believing that there even is such a thing is naive no doubt too.

I think this is sort of what happens when people assume they have The Truth, as opposed to just "truth."

Let me suggest that you have one facet of the truth -- i.e., there is definitely truth invested in the way Fi looks at things. But Fe does as well, it has a grasp of Collective Truth rather than Individual Truth. Communities function in defined ways, and certain behaviors are either cohesive or disruptive, and this is a relevant type of morality to human living, even if it seems less relevant to an Introverted-directed function.

Let me drag this away from F for a second into T. I can identify with your comment here in terms of Ti -- I feel like I see the "underlying truth" and "structural truth" of something when I look at it, but I have to admit (as part of being truthful) that is only one sort of truth... even though it's my natural bent to somehow view it (originally) as the Real Truth or the More Important Truth or as more legitimate in some way. We each think in terms of our original individual truth by nature and judge other things as less truthful. I admit to have some suspicions about Te and even at times have had the feeling that it "brutalizes Truth" in the process of accomplishing goals. Sacrifices are made, and sometimes I do not like them, and sometimes I feel they even violate the truth the goals are supposed to implement.

But is Te less truthful than Ti? It might seem so to me, because it's really some sort of negotiated arrangement between reality and conceptual truth -- truth taken from the amorphous abstract and made manifest. To me, it can seem like the Procrustean compromise -- making things fit into boxes that don't quite fit, merely in order to achieve goals... but the truth is that the goals are never achieved and wonderful things are never realized without that sort of compromise. Te is describing the limits of my conceptual model in manifest reality... and it is saying something "truthful" about the world as well in the process. Maybe it all comes back into a comparison between the Real and the Ideal.

Take this analogy and fold it back into the Fi/Fe thing. Maybe Fi feels like it has a better handle on the Essential Model of morality/values, but realistically all of that can't be made manifest within a system of interacting parts and disparate moralities. Fe has to focus on the overall effect and how the parts work together (or not), just as Te focuses on the same... and without that, nothing happens.

In fact, since I'm currently in "programmer mode" writing use cases right now, I'm driven to see that, between Introverted and Extroverted functions, we are really describing different truths that are separated by scope. Individual Truth and Collective Truth definitely do affect each other, like a huge circle; but rules within one system aren't necessarily going to dominate within the other scope, similar to how some systems are not scaleable.

<here goes lots of wonderful stuff by PeaceBaby in the middle that I am still digesting, thank you!>

NOW - that being said, communication is a two-way street, and if the other person shuts you out, or won't listen, that's where you get left holding the bag and must work through the residue on your own.

That. Either they don't talk, or it seems any sort of shared assessment is impossible, or they just don't even "get it." I have found that many of my F friends believe that if you just continue to talk to someone, you can eventually make some sort of connection or make up in some way. I have not had that experience; I don't know whether my perspective is Fe or simply T, but from childhood I've just had some really formative relationships where people simply were not reasonable although I bent over backwards, so at this point I'm used to seeing where things are going based on the type and degree of resistance expressed earlier in the conflict, and often I just see it as futile.

There is little to do but just suck it up... and it just makes even harder when the other person doesn't even seem to be aware of the amount of damage they can do to me on a deep level by remarks that end up seeming to mean little to them.

Getting back to Active Listening, we're all different, and we all bring different baggage to the table. It's not even necessary type-dependent, it's all very unique and individual. Some things that wound one person deeply don't even bother another person, even if they are similar individuals. It just has made me far more cautious about how I enter conflict and where, and what things I say and do not say -- because I don't know what old wounds I'm on the verge of tearing the bandages away from and sticking in a knife and twisting.

Fi tends to take a more personal approach to this, Fe a more formalized approach, but I don't really like to criticize one approach over another; both have legitimate reasons and methods used in order to protect other individuals, and unfortunately those methods have both strengths and weaknesses. Fe sort of sets rules in place to avoid even going there in the first place, which can be a good thing, but maybe sometimes avoids getting into the nitty-gritty and confronting something that needs to be confronted; Fi comes from the other direction.

If you set your control panel to 100 posts per page, it's only three pages!

Lol -- that's what I do. Less pages, more skimming.

Ironically, I have had many Fi users invalidate my feelings because they look at very superficial reasons as to why I am acting this way.

Well, that pretty describes the reason I've been a bit emo in some of this thread. I feel like my positive goodwill and motivations are easily discredited or labeled as "superficial" because they're Fe-related in mentality. I had to learn this the hard way, dealing with an Fe spouse for so many years. I made many of the same claims and caused hearthache from my end in misjudging/downplaying human courtesy and established protocol (criticizing from a T perspective), but eventually I felt like I had been unfair and in some ways misjudged. It is kind of ironic for me to feel like the shoe is on the other foot now, but I guess it's a wonderful learning experience.

 

[PeaceBaby]

Thanks for your thoughts Jen.

No, I don't have "The Truth". It would be insanely presumptuous to believe I do.

I only have my truth. I try to live my truth within the multi-layered components of everyone else's truth, as individuals, within groups, within society. I don't have to invalidate your truth in the process to live mine. Quite the opposite, I honor your truth. And your right to see things from your perspective. Fe is true for you, and that's great.

That doesn't make me naive however, to at least try to realize my truth, to give words to it, to make it "come to life".

I do see the world as it is today, I see how it "works", I am not blind to the many realities, some joyous and some full of despair. My eyes are wide open.

Do you think, even for a second, that I don't know "realistically all of that (Fi Ideals) can't be made manifest within a system of interacting parts and disparate moralities." But I can still aspire to a belief, an ideal, that it can.

Help me understand what your point is. I guess I feel uncertain what you are trying to say to me. "Get with the real world?" Can I not, even here, say how I feel at the edges without someone feeling the need to pull me back to center, to get me back in line with the program?

Let me think a little more about this, k?

-----

And as for Active Listening, rather than take my word for it, why not try it next time you see an emo-rant around here? Try it for yourself. Maybe it will help, maybe not.

 

[Totenkindly]

No, I don't have "The Truth". It would be insanely presumptuous to believe I do.

I only have my truth. I try to live my truth within the multi-layered components of everyone else's truth, as individuals, within groups, within society. I don't have to invalidate your truth in the process to live mine. Quite the opposite, I honor your truth. And your right to see things from your perspective. Fe is true for you, and that's great.

That doesn't make me a fool however. I see the world as it is, I see how it works, I am not blind to the many realities, some joyous and some full of despair. My eyes are wide open.

Do you think, even for a second, that I don't know "realistically all of that can't be made manifest within a system of interacting parts and disparate moralities." But I can still aspire to a belief, an ideal, that it can.

Right now, I am reading a lot of latent emotion in your comments. I felt like your first line was an unexpected slap in my face... like I went into an area I thought was safe, and I stepped into a wound. (Note my post above, where I specifically described the benefits of avoiding engagement based on the desire to not needlessly poke another person's wounds... one benefit of social morality.) Am I right in perceiving this, or am I reading into things?

You say a lot of things here that you really seem to believe are true -- I read them as conscious values you hold inside of you, and you are even rising up to state them here with conviction, so I *know* you believe them -- but when I engage you in these sorts of discussions, I feel like the way you are engaging and the sort of stances taken are saying something else entirely... which is why I felt I needed to clarify what I did. What you just said here surprised me because it was running counter to my perception. Why am I perceiving you that way? I honestly don't know... but it's clear there is a dissonance between your perception and mine that we have to work through.

Could you explain more about how someone can be honoring another person's "truth" if they actively disrupt it and engage in ways that deny it or downplay it? It sounds like you believe it to be true, so I want to understand, and I'm not getting it -- it doesn't seem to operate to me that way.

Do you think, even for a second, that I don't know "realistically all of that can't be made manifest within a system of interacting parts and disparate moralities." But I can still aspire to a belief, an ideal, that it can.[/

I was talking about Fi as a framework, not you specifically as a human being.

It sounds like that comment bothered you.

Help me understand what your point is. I guess I feel uncertain what you are trying to say to me. Get with the real world? Can I not even here say how I feel at the edges without someone feeling the need to pull me back to center, to get me back in line with the program?

Ah. That's how you were taking it?

I guess I could get offended too and respond with an, "After all you know *I'VE* been through in my life, you think I would demand someone else get back into the program and just merely follow status quo?!?" Geez. I mean, I've been bitten in the ass as much as you have or more because I haven't "toed the line" and I lost all of my social/family status because of chasing my personal truth.

No, I was describing how I saw Fi and Fe working -- I was describing. I was not PRESCRIBING behavior for you or insisting you get back into a box and merely follow rules. (Hell, I had an ESFP kid break me in; that boy can never be kept in a box for an instant, I had to learn to let him run free.)

But if we are going to describe Fe vs Fi -- yes, Fe is saying there are established protocols that mean something, based on human values and how people interact and function, and that Collective Morality can describe that, and Fi is saying there is Individual Truth that exists in each person and that needs to be expressed... and that both types of morality need to be synced up somehow.

 

[PeaceBaby]

^ placeholder for response, but there are no worries here k? I am not upset with you or what you said, at all.

I feel some passion to what I write, but I am not angry or frustrated in the least.

As for point 1, there is no "wound". More soon.

 

[BlackCat]

One thing that would help, could you point me to the specific questions you've asked of the FPs fidelia/and others? Since what I think I'll do in response is answer those questions, and then comment on the NFP's perspectives and tell how it differs from mine to give some clarity I suppose.

 

[Fidelia]

I'm kind of going out on a limb here by being this honest. I'm still not sure if it's the right thing to do, but I think that is more respectful to you from what I am hearing all of you Fi users saying. I find it very difficult to say something like this because I know it does end up creating waves and I hate waves. It's not that I'm angry, but rather that I find myself wanting to react with a flippant attitude, which isn't conducive to understanding or real conversation. I've tried hard not to do that, but thought perhaps expressing my impressions may give a better picture of what's going on.

PeaceBaby, I've seen you so far recommend to EW, myself and Jennifer that we try active listening, as if it's something that you came up with and have mastered and which we never have. I know you don't mean it that way, but it really feels condescending, like you have found the perfect way to communicate and you are going to teach us. I expect that similarly, we maybe make you feel frustrated in doing something that we are unconscious of. If that is the case, I'd like to better understand that.

I feel irked when people say things like, "So what I am hearing you say is". It feels like I am visiting some kind of doctor, not having a conversation. I agree that active listening is important. It is important to non-judgementally gather information, ask questions to make sure we have accurately understood what was said, that we don't make assumptions and that we double check our perceptions before reacting. It just doesn't feel like that is what you are doing towards Jennifer. My perceptions may be wrong, but I notice that several Fe users are having similar reactions.

When anyone has challenged your perceptions, you retreat right away to saying that it is either that they are not actively listening, that Fi is difficult to express and you took a lot of time and effort to do so, or that you see a deeper vision of the world than they do. That feels dismissive.

No one is trying to keep you from saying how you see things, or pull you back to a Fe outlook as the one right way. It is possible though that when they ask you more or challenging it, they are trying to better understand where you are coming from. I am wondering if that makes you feel put on the spot or defensive, as I feel with Te? For me, it has more to do with looking for a way to put into practice some of what you are saying and it is difficult to do so without properly understanding what Fi may look like when applied. Like with Te users, maybe that feels like we are forcing practical solutions before we adequately grasp the whole situation.

I'm just not sure of a way to better figure to "synch up" our views as Jennifer called it, without looking for a way to bring some of Fi perspective into practical expression. Ideally, I think within an individual, a Fe perspective should be tempered by the beneficial added lens of Fi as we mature as individuals and vice versa. I also think that within a group, the mindset of both would end up creating a better result than only one or the other. This is what I think we are attempting to determine. Is that something that just can't be done, and so we are attempting to force Fi into a box that can't contain all the different individual expressions of it?

 

[Totenkindly]

One thing that would help, could you point me to the specific questions you've asked of the FPs fidelia/and others? Since what I think I'll do in response is answer those questions, and then comment on the NFP's perspectives and tell how it differs from mine to give some clarity I suppose.

I personally am cool with you answering said questions... but I remember earlier I sort of got slapped because I was addressing Fe from the Sensor perspective (i.e., SFJ ) rather than NF behavior... and people complained... since this conversation is in the NF Idyllic. Rotsa ruck!

 

[KDude]

PeaceBaby, I've seen you so far recommend to EW, myself and Jennifer that we try active listening, as if it's something that you came up with and have mastered and which we never have.

I've come to the conclusion that NFJs (at least speaking for myself) are basically relentless in trying to understand things (discounting the usual issues for people not to be). I'm still unclear how NPs come up with new possiblities (and would like to know more), but I think NJs try to focus on whatever part of a subject they're missing, what they might have been off with, what's gone wrong, etc.. Relentless in the sense that we stick to it too, in J fashion. It's gotten me in trouble, where I just don't "leave things alone", and in a few cases, throw people off because I come back later with an entirely new understanding of something than before.. I used to think I was messed up for this. Anyways, my point is that I agree. If an ENFJ or INFJ says they're trying, you can count on that being true. They risk even being annoying if they're trying to understand something (just a joke..I'm just trying to illustrate a point ).

 

[Fidelia]

I personally am cool with you answering said questions... but I remember earlier I sort of got slapped because I was addressing Fe from the Sensor perspective (i.e., SFJ ) rather than NF behavior... and people complained... since this conversation is in the NF Idyllic. Rotsa ruck!

I'm open to whatever. I just get confused when there are so many varieties of each kind of Fe and Fi and it sometimes muddies what we are really referring to when we talk about Fe and Fi. There Ni-Fe and Fe-Ti and Ne-Fi and Fi-Te and then all the other S versions. Do we start separate threads to distinguish, have several conversations going on within this one, or what do you guys think works best?

 

[onemoretime]

Maybe it would help to discuss the issue without resorting to functions.

 

[Tiltyred]

I've come to the conclusion that NFJs (at least speaking for myself) are basically relentless in trying to understand things (discounting the usual issues for people not to be). I'm still unclear how NPs come up with new possiblities (and would like to know more), but I think NJs try to focus on whatever part of a subject they're missing, what they might have been off with, what's gone wrong, etc.. Relentless in the sense that we stick to it too, in J fashion. It's gotten me in trouble, where I just don't "leave things alone", and in a few cases, throw people off because I come back later with an entirely new understanding of something than before.. I used to think I was messed up for this. Anyways, my point is that I agree. If an ENFJ or INFJ says they're trying, you can count on that being true. They risk even being annoying if they're trying to understand something (just a joke..I'm just trying to illustrate a point ).

Yes! I've been told more than once to "stop poking it with a stick."

 

[PeaceBaby]

Right now, I am reading a lot of latent emotion in your comments.

It seems to me you have picked up some emotional timbre in that post. And you are correct to feel that there is some emotion. What I note you interpreting this as is me being angry or upset, or retaliating. What you are really feeling is the passion behind my words and in noting passion you are assigning potential motivations for that passion, from your perspective. And, Ti will tell you there could be many motivations. I respect that.

So stay with me now; we're in the front seat of the roller coaster, and I promise we won't fall out.

My specific thoughts were that you were pointing to naivete on behalf of myself and Fi in general, and I countered it with a more direct and plaintive posting style to demonstrate not only my clarity and sincerity, but to elicit more specifics from you. Let me elucidate ...

I felt like your first line was an unexpected slap in my face... like I went into an area I thought was safe, and I stepped into a wound. (Note my post above, where I specifically described the benefits of avoiding engagement based on the desire to not needlessly poke another person's wounds... one benefit of social morality.) Am I right in perceiving this, or am I reading into things?

You felt like I snapped you back in that first line, I take it? That you felt safe to make a general comment about truth but were shocked to see me respond more directly and seemingly more forcefully. And it may have hurt your feelings some. Or at least confused you why the tone felt different. You then tried to figure it out. The best thing you did there was to ask your questions. Allow me to share my feelings on them.

Yes, I feel you are reading more into that than exists. No, it's not a wound. Of that I can assure you. But I responded more passionately because to me it's a statement of the obvious. And, I needed to really gauge - do you think PB is deluded enough to think she is the bearer of Truth (capital T emphasized?) Say it isn't so! I wanted clarity.

You say a lot of things here that you really seem to believe are true -- I read them as conscious values you hold inside of you, and you are even rising up to state them here with conviction, so I *know* you believe them -- but when I engage you in these sorts of discussions, I feel like the way you are engaging and the sort of stances taken are saying something else entirely... which is why I felt I needed to clarify what I did.

You feel my beliefs run counter to how I present myself? Expand this for me. Do you feel defensive when I counter with direct phrases? Does it feel hostile to you? Does my passion feel threatening somehow?

What you just said here surprised me because it was running counter to my perception. Why am I perceiving you that way? I honestly don't know... but it's clear there is a dissonance between your perception and mine that we have to work through.

What way did you perceive me? As being retaliatory? As being angry? Share the specific emotions and let's dissect them, k? Think of all of the emotions you believe I had writing that last post.

Even rewrite that post to look like what you believed I was saying.

Invest this time with me and we can sort this through.

Could you explain more about how someone can be honoring another person's "truth" if they actively disrupt it and engage in ways that deny it or downplay it? It sounds like you believe it to be true, so I want to understand, and I'm not getting it -- it doesn't seem to operate to me that way.

Perhaps what is needed is a disclaimer. In a perfect world, we could all live "our truths" - oooh and let's rewind some - we could all even have a chance to discover our truth in the first place, in order that we could realize the potential of our lives. In that perfect world, you could live your truth and I mine and we could collectively co-exist, harmoniously. Naturally, that means we all are lucky enough to have healthy bodies and minds too, received healthy parenting and had growth-oriented life experiences, never mind any differences in cognitive function or in how we see the world.

So yes, the perfect world.

I was talking about Fi as a framework, not you specifically as a human being.

It sounds like that comment bothered you.

Thanks for clarifying.

That one did make me bristle a bit ... that comment negates the very essence of Fi. One can still hope ... it's like Te saying to Ti, "That can't be done in the Real World". Well, Ti knows it, knows that may be true, but that doesn't stop one from dreaming, does it?

I guess I could get offended too and respond with an, "After all you know *I'VE* been through in my life, you think I would demand someone else get back into the program and just merely follow status quo?!?" Geez. I mean, I've been bitten in the ass as much as you have or more because I haven't "toed the line" and I lost all of my social/family status because of chasing my personal truth.

I know you have experienced much pain and know much of loss, to which I am completely empathetic. You know what the burden of oppression feels like, you know what the loss of trust feels like, and you know what it is to be shunned for simply being YOU. That precious Jen that so many of us here on the forum have come to admire and adore.

My desire was to expand how that comment starts to feel confining. I want to be sure I am hearing it right, so I rephrase it in an extreme way. You read my questions as fact, when it is still a question. This happened in that Sx thread, exactly the same way, and your reaction was the same then too.

The way I present the question, the language I am using is the barrier, I see that now.

I said, "Can I not even here say how I feel at the edges without someone feeling the need to pull me back to center, to get me back in line with the program?" The response that would help me is, "PB, of course we want to hear your POV, and even though we don't get it, it's great that you have shared your thoughts. We just want to understand you better. Let's keep talking!"

You (generic you) read it as a statement, a judgement. It's not. I promise it's just a question. Albeit one with some passion driving it. But it's way more contemplative than you are perceiving.

But if we are going to describe Fe vs Fi -- yes, Fe is saying there are established protocols that mean something, based on human values and how people interact and function, and that Collective Morality can describe that, and Fi is saying there is Individual Truth that exists in each person and that needs to be expressed... and that both types of morality need to be synced up somehow.

That's lovely actually. @bold: I agree completely.

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I sense that anytime my posts come across as being "emo", that Fe takes what it SEES, attributes a variety of emotional motivations to those words a'la Ti, picks what seems most probable, then either feels sympathy or feels threatened etc. and thus desires to bring the poster back to center.

I don't need you to do that for me.

EDIT: Before anyone else jumps on the paragraphs below, please read further on in thread because I don't need 10 more people saying I've been pretentious here. Thanks.

I enter these discussions expecting to understand as much as be understood. But I feel like I am reaching way past the center to help you (generic you) understand Fi - in order to really take this trip with me, you must take my hand and not be afraid to go to the darker places. It's OK. I am with you. I'm not going to let you go and my intention is not to hurt you. We'll come through it OK if you let it happen.

What would it take for you to trust me at this point? I am still here and still trying.