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Introverted Intuition (INTJ/INFJ)

small.wonder

So she did.
Joined
Feb 8, 2013
Messages
965
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Feel free to ask me any questions, either here or via PM. :)

Ahhhh. How I managed to type out all of those thoughts and not ask a single question, I'll never know. :blush: Actually, that may explain a lot about some real life instances of my thinking out loud and getting no input from others... I'll chalk that up to Sx/So problems though.

In question form, then: does what I described above (about my fine tooth combing the written and spoken words of others for motivational and other thematic cues) seem like Ti? Or is that the false perception of Ti that you were describing?
 

meowington

Parody Parrot
Joined
May 22, 2008
Messages
1,264
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
6w7
In other words, you can think such things through VERY quickly, right? That's your intuition at work!

Oh yes ! I'm beginning to see how I might be confusing Ti with Ni.

What field are you active in professionally ? Dancing ? :p (is that you in your avatar ? how old are you ? are you European ? ... sorry for the avalanche, you've aroused my relentless curiosity :D)
 

uumlau

Happy Dancer
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Messages
5,517
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
953
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Define "feels right" I feel such devoid of feeling in most decisions I make which makes me very indecisive unfortunately. I guess if anything if I know what was good is either after the fact or pretty direct from the other person. Although when it does come to people I can feel in a way that I just know and can't explain if I made a great interaction. But just because I "know", doesn't mean I always do what I feel. Which sounds counter-intuitive and I am still confused why it has happened to be this way. Maybe insecurity, idk. When it comes to big major life decisions, I still have a very difficult time finding what I want to do. Being a doctor sounds "comfortable" in my mind, but I know from prior experience that what I deem comfortable in my mind isn't always comfortable in reality.
Keep in mind that in typology we're assigning names/descriptions to things that are difficult to describe in an analytical way. So when I say "feels right" I don't mean actual feelings/emotions, but more like "seems right" or "I know that's right but can't put words as to why".

I guess it is my fault that I analyze what too much on those "whole" pieces which leads me to my doom, yet I feel very very uncomfortable when doing means to an end approach as well. My feeling and thinking functions always feel like they're underdeveloped. I'm very instinctual and I'm trying to get out of it. Not to mention I "overthink" on everything. What's the most fascinating is reading psychology/philosophy and I start to feel in a very literal way that my mind is rearranging and reorganizing concepts in my mind and sometimes I can better understand on why the most painful situations in my life, start to finally make sense.

That's one of the ironies of INFJs: they're kind of both instinctual and analytical. All INxx types, including INFPs and INFJs, are going to be "analytical" in the usual sense of the word because they're adept at dealing with abstractions, which is what MOST PEOPLE understand to be associated with "high IQ". All "N" types tend to "think too much", and spending most of your time "thinking too much" tends to make you pretty good at it.

The path to coming to terms with instinct vs analysis for you isn't to try to "be more analytical". That won't work, not for a long while. Instead of that, work on honing your instincts. Learn which instincts are reliable and which are not. Look for the "anti-patterns": the patterns that you are easily fooled into believing are true, but turn out to be wrong in the long term.

Imagine that who have two parts of your mind: an instinctive part that knows what it wants and is very fast at evaluating things (this is Ni in part, but other stuff, too), and a conscious part that THINKS it knows what it wants and makes decisions, but often doesn't have the final say because the instinctive part overrides it. This is why it's so easy to start a diet and so difficult to follow through on it. If you learn how to hone your instincts, to TRAIN your instincts, then your conscious mind will have an easier time making decisions and following through, because both of these parts of your mind need to work together. Training your instincts involves developing good attitudes, good habits, and so on, so that your "reflexive" decisions are usually sound.

Also, if you follow that path, that'll get you to where your Ti lives that much sooner, because Ti is - quite unexpectedly - on this instinctive side as well.

(As for where I'm getting all of this, I'm synthesizing a bunch of different aspects of psychology I've been reading over the past few months, and it would take a few pages of writing to even begin to describe the underlying models, here.)

There's always a huge gap between what to do right socially and what to do right to my values. Sounds Fe vs Fi and I don't understand why it's so difficult. Intellectually, I know it's better to blend in, life will be much easier, less insanity because I feel a part of society but at the cost of inauthenticity. But the insanely "irrational" part of me would say "Be yourself" do you want to die knowing you weren't true to yourself leaving an impression on this world though you will have to suffer being excluded and ostracized for what may be truly right and better for this planet but may not attain it because too much suffering leads to lack of purpose and direction.

This is more of the conscious vs instinctive. The question isn't "which one is right?". The question is, "How do I get them to talk to each other?" Both modes of reasoning have valuable information. You have to synthesize them.

One place to look is perhaps the Tao Te Ching, or perhaps Zen koans. Where you have silly questions like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?" The point of these questions isn't to get an answer, it's to get you into a frame of mind where you can actually see what is going on. Most importantly, this and similar philosophies teach letting go of our attachments to things - not to be completely DETACHED mind you, but enough to see things clearly.

Logically "Fe" is more correct to live if we're talking about matters of self-interest (sounds paradoxical I know), although intuitively this "Fi" scenario is more right. (Now I'm just using labels, don't actually use my examples to define Fe and Fi because that'll live on to vehemently opposed disagreements)

tl;dr: Basically you got me more confused if I am a T or an F again.

You're totally an INFJ. If you were INTJ you'd be confused about a lot of things, but mostly you'd be talking in terms of how EVERYONE ELSE is so unreasonable, not why you're confused. ;)
 

uumlau

Happy Dancer
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Messages
5,517
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
953
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Ahhhh. How I managed to type out all of those thoughts and not ask a single question, I'll never know. :blush: Actually, that may explain a lot about some real life instances of my thinking out loud and getting no input from others... I'll chalk that up to Sx/So problems though.

In question form, then: does what I described above (about my fine tooth combing the written and spoken words of others for motivational and other thematic cues) seem like Ti? Or is that the false perception of Ti that you were describing?

Hmm, that's definitely a very INFJ thing to do. It's one of the things that online INFJs do to me on occasion that really annoys me: I will use a particular word, and from that single word, they'll assume an entire background story of why I said what I said that has no foundation in reality. I'd say it's closer to Fe than Ti, which might be why you're having a difficult time with seeing Fe in yourself. Fe is continually trying to figure out where people's feelings are at, and Ni is trying to synthesize them into an overall picture of what is going on.
 

uumlau

Happy Dancer
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Messages
5,517
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
953
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Oh yes ! I'm beginning to see how I might be confusing Ti with Ni.

What field are you active in professionally ? Dancing ? :p (is that you in your avatar ? how old are you ? are you European ? ... sorry for the avalanche, you've aroused my relentless curiosity :D)

Yes, that's me in the avatar. I'm 50. I'm a software developer. In America. Austin Texas, in fact.
 

slylingual

Member
Joined
May 23, 2013
Messages
48
MBTI Type
ENFP
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
she made some decent points but 80% of that rant was this:

"they process information differently than other people do. to exemplify this, i will draw a comparison between Ni and other cognitive functions by... not drawing any comparisons at all, actually. this is just my way of noting, for the hundredth time, that they are different from other people and by different, i mean better. however, i will consistently deny claiming they are better... but, if you read between the lines, you will see that is exactly what i am getting at."
 

uumlau

Happy Dancer
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Messages
5,517
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
953
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
she made some decent points but 80% of that rant was this:

"they process information differently than other people do. to exemplify this, i will draw a comparison between Ni and other cognitive functions by... not drawing any comparisons at all, actually. this is just my way of noting, for the hundredth time, that they are different from other people and by different, i mean better. however, i will consistently deny claiming they are better... but, if you read between the lines, you will see that is exactly what i am getting at."

I totally agree with your assessment of the video in the OP. She isn't adding anything new, in my opinion.

If you want something NEW about Ni, consider this ...

Take the paradigm of "Thinking Fast and Slow": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

We have two modes of thinking in this paradigm, a "fast" mode that is instinctive and quick, and a "slow" mode that is how we process everyday reasoning.

In this model Ni manifests as the ability to "train" your fast instinctive mode of thinking to navigate abstract concepts. So, for example, where most people "just don't get" certain ideas, such as how statistics really work, how math can be applied to solve certain kinds of problems, the individual with Ni trains oneself to "get it". So abstract concepts become "obvious", with all the weird quirks and consequences of various lines of reasoning internalized at an instinctive level.

This explains why Ni is the opposite of Se: Se is much more typical of the "fast" mode of thinking, being that set of gut instincts that allow you to react to your environment much faster than normal conscious thought. If one is training one's instincts to understand abstract thought, then one is NOT training one's ability to react quickly to the environment by living in the moment.

This is just a paradigm, though, not a fact. It's a way of explaining the idea more clearly, but it has nothing to do with whether the idea is true. Mostly, I find it useful to understand how Ni isn't some sort of mystical/magical thing, even though it can appear to be that way.
 

Tilt

Active member
Joined
Sep 18, 2015
Messages
2,584
MBTI Type
ENFJ
Enneagram
3w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
If you want something NEW about Ni, consider this ...

Take the paradigm of "Thinking Fast and Slow": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

We have two modes of thinking in this paradigm, a "fast" mode that is instinctive and quick, and a "slow" mode that is how we process everyday reasoning.

In this model Ni manifests as the ability to "train" your fast instinctive mode of thinking to navigate abstract concepts. So, for example, where most people "just don't get" certain ideas, such as how statistics really work, how math can be applied to solve certain kinds of problems, the individual with Ni trains oneself to "get it". So abstract concepts become "obvious", with all the weird quirks and consequences of various lines of reasoning internalized at an instinctive level.

This explains why Ni is the opposite of Se: Se is much more typical of the "fast" mode of thinking, being that set of gut instincts that allow you to react to your environment much faster than normal conscious thought. If one is training one's instincts to understand abstract thought, then one is NOT training one's ability to react quickly to the environment by living in the moment.

This is just a paradigm, though, not a fact. It's a way of explaining the idea more clearly, but it has nothing to do with whether the idea is true. Mostly, I find it useful to understand how Ni isn't some sort of mystical/magical thing, even though it can appear to be that way.
That's a really cool way to view it. The way I experience Ni is by building general archetypes and storing notable patterns about things and people. After awhile, I have so much in my mental repository that I can effortlessly make the most seemingly random connections between several things... but most of the time I end up being correct about things and people trust my gut and business sense. I think I used to confuse my talent for this as Ti because I could spot inconsistencies in the the data I gathered and synthesized but it was most likely highly skilled Ni.

Over the past few years, I have learned how to work through and explain my thought process in layman's terms so as not to sound like a complete crackpot.
 
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