where i struggle, however, is that a big part of me desires feeling connected. sharing more than infrastructure. my default is to feel that everything is shared, every part of us, which is partly why i think i have struggled with boundary issues in the past. at times, for this e5, this sense of feeling like everything is shared can also colocate a kind of ghostly paranoia, when you feel like you can see more than you can and struggle to ground yourself in your own version of reality in a way that is still but only semi-permeable to those of others.
Right. I see this in Fe. The INFPs and ENFPs don't want to connect that way, either. They want to feel connected, but not "connected with a sense of purpose." They want to feel connected with another person, period. Actions, choosing what to do or not to do, that's all Te, and it's negotiated partly on Fi (what I want to do, what they want to do), but mostly it's Te, what we
can do, even if Ne wants to go bounding off with unicorns and rainbows. The feeling of connection is not derived from this extroverted side of things.
one of the things we want to share in our sense of consensus is sharing the good in ourselves and seeing that in each other, helping connect to that in a way that brings it into focus. when that doesn't happen for me, i don't feel heard. all that middle territory between my needs and the exact specifics between what is said and done feels empty. where we can simply like each other and our weird musicalities (which i think the infps i know totally get too, and why i have so many awkward, quirky writer friends). at times, to me, without this middle range of who we are, empathy feels reduced to a function that can be used to accomplish a specific thing rather than a process that is itself enough, that is simply part of the process of constructively sharing and enjoying the process of characterizing ourselves together.
Similarly, if you cannot articulate your desires in a logistical way, *I* don't feel heard. Both Fe and Te navigate realms of possible things to do (especially with Ni!), but there are particular kinds of logistical considerations that just don't seem to be heard. At best they're emulated, and when it's emulated, it sounds like what you say here, where it's all about sharing in a consensus.
Te doesn't do "consensus." Te/Fi recognizes that we all want different things, but the Te result is anything but a "consensus", and more of a "best deal you can get at the time."
The interesting thing is that Te does this largely without sharing. Simple business transactions are like this. When you go to the store, you can just go in, take what you want, and even check it out yourself if they have some self-check-out aisles. The "agreements" have already been made long before you decide to buy anything. The agreements have no personal values attached to them. At best, the agreements are arrived at as a "happiest solution in practical terms", giving the greatest amount of return, and least amount of trouble, for all parties involved. If I go to the store, and I want a prime steak, I don't have to argue with the guy behind the meat counter whether I deserve a steak; he doesn't tell me I should go get some chicken instead, because it would be better for me. I don't have to haggle on the price for the steak. I don't get a special deal because the guy is my friend. If the store doesn't have what I want, I don't go argue with the store, I just go look in other stores.
Beyond that "store" example, all Te interactions are kind of like that. Others either have what I need or not. They can do what I want or not. There is, to some degree, an objective, resource-based price for getting things done.
By analogy, Fe is good at dealing with the "personal costs", while Te is good at dealing with the "objective costs."
this feels right to me. the part of Te i have struggled with is that it feels like the negotiations about the negotiations behind the negotiations don't start from a sense of common ground.
There is no "common ground" in Fe terms because there is no need to create the "human connection" that Fe craves.
bolded feels e5/head type to me more than an inherent Fe quality. just focusing on mentation, identifying with information quality rather than the force of it, but having the force of it be sublimated by a lack of connection to ourselves and how we use it and it uses us. it certainly wouldn't seem to characterize an e8 etj accurately.
in my class, i am extremely open to student feedback. i pride myself in choosing what feels true to me, and that attempt to honor the truth is as central to me as a person as anyone i've ever known. i don't think i'm just biasing against certain types. at times, the models i have of individuals may create some needless construction traffic, and i knowingly admit this, but i choose to still employ models in general because it at times allows me to see so much further into the truth i would not be able to see solely through my own perspective. it's what allows me to share myself in the way that i do. it's what allows me to listen to others, which isn't always perfect, but in my tangible real-life relationships, is as big a part of who i am there, with others, as any other.
to me, this Fe quality, this way of organizing thinking based on embodied meanings/models, is not an inherent problem. the inherent problem is not checking in with myself to try to fully own the rest of me, so that i don't unknowingly create the perfect conditions for my biases to cross-multiply. so that i can have some T accountability to recognize the story of what is happening and how the story of what i am bringing to this moment can define how to walk the tightrope without losing my balance.
There is nothing wrong with starting with the Fe approach, and it is not an inherent problem.
The way to handle your biases, in my opinion, is to really listen to the other person. If you're hearing that rude Te approach, then you need to put up certain walls and boundaries (so as not to be offended), remind yourself of the "impersonal criteria" Te tends to use, and steel yourself to interact with someone without making a connection that you can truly
feel.
(even now, when you've written a series of very balanced posts, i still am working on not taking things personally.
I find it remarkable that both you and Z Buck have said similar things in this regard - you can TELL I'm being balanced (based on, perhaps, objective factors?), but your "personal" reading of what I say ends up feeling remarkably abusive to you.
Even we Te types have to learn this lesson - the difference is that we learn it when fairly young. You have an elder say to you, "You're wrong." It hurts. It's like the end of the world. You can't figure out what you're wrong about. But if you keep interacting, you end up noting the consistency: the reason "you're wrong" is not because of
you, per se, but because of what you're talking about. If you express knowledge about a topic, it is either correct or incorrect (or a mix, depending on how extensive the expression of your understanding is). You eventually figure out that "being wrong" has nothing to do with
you, and everything to do with checking "what you know" against "the truth", and realizing that it's an iterative process. The elder isn't right because he's the smartest person around, it isn't about any of his personal qualities, he's right precisely because what he says matches reality on an objective basis. Being right is measured against reality, not against personal qualities.
This is, btw, where INTPs start annoying INTJs. They'll say, "you're wrong", but not mean it the way a Te type would. Rather, there is one tiny fact that is out of place (this is important to Ti), and therefore the whole thing is wrong. (Just like true/false tests: to be true, the statement must be entirely true.) Te in this case would be more specific, "You have most of it correct, but you made the following errors ..." There's something about Ti (and all introverted functions, not just Ti) that doesn't want to explicate reasoning: things just "are", and explanations seem almost irrelevant to introverted functions.
that's just because a need of mine is to feel proud of who i am. i am acutely sensitive of this, so it drives my behavior even when i lose awareness of it. i know what it's like to feel the drops that are associated with having to grieve your own limitations. i have searched endlessly for a way out of having limitations, of having to come to terms with being a finite, fallible being. i've experienced the pitiableness of being, of selfhood, and have to work really hard to find acceptance for that. that's also why i think, in some of the previous infj/infp threads, with so many e4s and critical e1 energies falling backwards into us and watching the pile up that ensues and wanting to blame to avoid feeling what we feel, the need for compassion is so high but so hard to actually create enough space within ourselves for. i say this simply because this is a part of me that wants to feel heard, and also because i believe it provides more evidence that in some respects, i think we were both on the right track in pointing out the perhaps greater relevance of the enneagram's psychosocial factors than jung's socio-cognitive ones).
Agreed on Enneagram vs Jung. Jung points out in a very general way the topics of concern, the specific issues being process. Enneagram brings the personal issues into direct play.
Interesting how you use the words "psychosocial" and "socio-cognitive". From a Te point of view, if you want to sound like you're making deep statements without really saying anything constructive at all, combine the word "social" with a word or two that describes what you're talking about, whether "social justice" or "social contract" or social whatever ... it mutates and transforms into the opinion of the person speaking, whatever that is, and nothing objective that both sides (or several sides) can agree upon. I would have said "psychological" instead of "psychosocial", and "cognitive" instead of "socio-cognitive."
The takeaway for Fe: not everything is "social." Not everything is personal.
The takeaway for Te: not everything is objective. Not everything is without personal considerations.
But, in both cases, some things are. Some things are entirely objective. Some things are entirely personal. We just need to put our usual assumptions aside when we're entering unfamiliar territory.