I'm exactly the same way.
Sometimes I forget why the ESTJ stereotype involves huge amounts of anger, and the ENTJ stereotype doesn't.
I am VERY good at deciding what I subjectively think of something. I can do that with 99% accuracy in a matter of seconds. I think most ESTJs are good at that. Maybe it's Si added to Fi, reinforcing and broadening our obsession with the "right"/"wrong" dichotomy?
That Si/Se distinction is without a doubt a factor. Like we were discussing the other day, it really is remarkable to me how big of a difference that is. I don't form subjective evaluations around "sensation". Those valuations are almost a separate process from the direct experience.
For instance, I was searing some salmon about a year ago in some very, very hot oil. Had never really used that particular technique before and I added a little too much oil to the pan, it splashed onto my wrist, and I ended up getting what would become a third degree burn.
Now, it was enormously painful, but at the time, the pain was just kind of...interesting to me? Like the way that it evolved over the course of the evening from numbness to cold to searing, then sore a few days later and itchy as it became to heal. There was just so much texture to it that it was hard to describe it totally as unpleasant. It didn't feel great, but it was just something that was currently apart of my existence at that moment and would eventually shift. I would be hard pressed to say much more about it than that. I would rather not sear most of the skin on my wrist off again, but if it happens again, at least I know I'll be in for an interesting evening.
I don't know if this happens to you, but when I'm in inferior-Fi and thinking "why does no one appreciate me" and "why does no one understand me" and all that BS, there's inevitably a moment when I think "oh, shit, I dug my own grave here".
Haha! Yeah...definitely know
that feeling. The better I'm doing mentally/physically/emotionally, I can sense that tailspin and can pump the breaks. If I'm run down, though, my Te filters evaporate and it's just like swinging an axe through a cocktail party. I am a bit better at disengaging for a while to recharge when I'm at that point, though. Still a work in progress...
I really should start ranking the levels of clearance like the federal government does.
"Yeah just went through the SSBI for my EJCC TS clearance. You wouldn't believe the number of questions oddly specific questions about knitted fingerless gloves..."
Yeah, this definitely highlights how linear Te is. In particular when it's paired up with Si. Ni does sort of throw a "nebulousness" into the mix as WUR pointed out, but at the end of the day Te is surprisingly simple, and not the least bit convoluted. It's sort of confusing to me because I feel like so much information is being omitted in thinking, but it truly isn't needed. I guess what surprises me, is the lack of "back processing" or the inessent brain chatter that I for years expected everyone to have, but it seems like Te just doesn't have that.
One of my favorite quotes about filmmaking comes from a guy who runs a vblog called
Every Frame a Painting:
Tony Zhou said:
Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s not in the frame
That's Te in a nutshell to me: an ongoing, conscious choice about what matters and what doesn't. I can't speak as much for Te-aux, but for Te-dom, when something's in the frame it has our attention. When it's not in the frame, it doesn't. The shot can be as complex in its composition as you'd have it and convey as much or as little, but once it's gone then you focus on whatever replaces it.
Here's an example: Say you went on a date with a person you just met, and it went fairly well. No one else knows this person except for maybe one or two people. I could understand withholding if it went poorly, or if you were still feeling it out to see if it were going anywhere. Nevertheless, some individuals won't tell their friends, or if asked will give very little detail about it, and not share how they felt or reacted to things. Basically details are left out. I'm wondering now if part of it is because those details simply don't exist. It just seems odd to me that it wouldn't be shared.
Mm. It's not so much about the info as the friends. Anybody who asks me what I was up to that evening, I would be honest and say that I was on a date. Maybe talk a little bit about how it went. But I wouldn't assume that anyone else would care unless it's something we'd discussed in the past, and was established as something we discuss.
It's not like after the date, I will get on my phone and inform all Column A friends in a group text BUT NEVER COLUMN B FRIENDS. I'd probably not tell anyone unless it seemed relevant at the time.
This whole thing is very linear, and as Te would be, very efficient. I mean, I do the same thing where if I have a problem I can't solve, I eventually dump it to the back of my mind and let back processing do it's thing, but I see that as more Ni than anything. It is about subjective content, yeah. It's EASY (like really fucking easy) for me to figure out if I like something or not, regardless if it is subjective or objective. Having this set up as you do, with it being sort of binary pass/fail, it feels like it might miss things. Let me try and ground this a little bit: career/education paths. Does this process make figuring out those sorts of direction difficult? It seems almost unusual, because I would imagine that Te would regard career/education paths as something very important and top priority to solve. It seems like it would spend a lot of effort figuring out what is liked, disliked, the right decision, and wrong decision. That said, because of it's inate simplicity and efficiency with solving likes and dislikes, does that mean that for even objectively important things like that are really difficult to solve? That question goes for any Te user who might want to answer btw.
For me, I knew I wanted a career in international affairs when I was like 13-14. And from that moment, basically the singular focus of my life for roughly the next ten years was to achieve that. When I finally did and it wasn't for me, it caused a massive crisis, and I've spent the last few years experimenting to really find what I want.
This brings me to a semi-related point. I've always understood Te as a fundamentally creative function. Te to me is about building something out of nothing. It's this is what's in my heart (Fi), this is the vision I have for it (Ni), these are the resources available to me (Se) now let's assemble something that will create the reality that I want to live in.
I think that element is left out of a lot of conversations about Te, and is not always directly expressed by TJs. We do a lot of what we do because there is no greater rush for us than being able to hold something in your hand that had just been an image in your mind before. We create
constantly and the focus on efficiency is almost selfish in a way, because you're trying to get to that payoff as fast as possible lol. One of the things I love most about who I am is that if I believe in something enough, I will work everyday for 20 years if that's what it takes to make it possible, because I KNOW I will make it happen. It's how I've always been and gives me a certain optimism even when pursuing something leads me through some bleak places. I just believe if I keep putting one step in front of the other I'll get there.
It sounds corny af, but I think all ETJs have a sort of closet Pollyanna streak deep down so w/e.
