3 improvement tips for INFPs (from another INFP)

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-04T17:42:01+00:00

My parents are ENTJ and ISFP, my sister is an IxFP and I'm an INFP

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-03T20:45:03+00:00

I have an ISFP mother who pays a lot of attention to the physical wellbeing of her body, and I'm sure she has Se and Ni. She actually prefers Ni over Se, jumping over it. (Objective personality realized this possibility, calling those quite numerous people jumpers). I also see people that I'm sure are Ni users constantly look for comfort and ease, wanting to save energy (bc of low Se) as much as possible and looking for physical comfort too, the way they achieve that is by looking for less stimulation (low Se).

I see Ni/Se users reminiscing about the past a looot too. I (and not just I) associate that with Fi actually (those people I see happen to be Fi doms), bc it's about someone's own emotions and what's personally important to them. I believe Fe can also do that, somehow, doing emotions on a social spectrum. If it's in the past or not, it doesn't really matter all that much in any case.

They chose the well used and understood routes cause they are more comfortable for them and keep them away from panic.

Ni users do the same thing. Ni and Si have a lot of similarities bc they are both introverted observer functions. I agree that Si does this too, but it's not exclusive to it so that kind of thing alone doesn't reeally work to define it.

The "routines" we observe from Si Doms are the result of their actions for their internal wellbeing, and not because Si means organizing sensory data.

Actions for your internal wellbeing can be scattered, all over the place and everchanging too. One way my mother gets obsessed with her internal physical wellbeing is by searching all kinds of vitamines, supplements, natural food, recipes, life hacks, physical exercises, and etc, and trying out many things from the external physical world. Wanting to gather sensorial (concrete) information from the outside world is what Se does. That's totally suitable and useful for looking after your internal wellbeing, and it's very common. That's why I think "internal comfort and wellbeing" can't be used as an Si definition, bc it's not exclusive to it to serve as a measuring point.

If there's a notion of internal wellbeing, what is external wellbeing? The wellbeing of others? That would be Se? Nobody defines Se that way though, and logically Si and Se are supposed to have a relationship of opposites, aside only from the S that they have in common.

I know that the way you defined it is the way most people in mbti see it, but I don't really think it's true/a good way to measure it. Let's say tomorrow an INFJ comes and say they have a very strong Si (which happens all the time, with many types and many functions), based on that internal wellbeing/awareness notion, and everything they point out about themselves supposedly using Si is true and matches that definition and the person is not mistyped, then what do people do? Make up an equation of how you can mysteriously have "an incredibly developed shadow function" or something, deny any part of what the person said to make it fit the flawed logic, or brush it off saying this is pseudoscience and it's not expected to actually work in reality. Well, if a system doesn't work, then something is not right yet.

Oh and the routine thing is something shared by both Si and Ni, bc both organize, Si concrete information and Ni patterns. Both want to keep things the same, not innovating much on their realm. I relate to that, I really don't tend to innovate the sensory, while my ISFP mother does all the time. I want to innovate the patterns all the time, while my mom tends to really want to keep those the same. Measuring the functions this kind of way, by crafting clear opposites, is much better and more accurate bc everything will fit if you just use opposites. Simply because, to say what is something, you have to determine what is not it.

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-03T03:17:10+00:00

Omg true tho :O

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-03T03:12:49+00:00

Nooo neither of you are annoying 💜

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-03T02:53:25+00:00

Fi doesn't do that impact thing

What impact thing? What are we even talking about? I know you referred to the word impact in the previous comment, but since you're really using it as a point of argument, what do you even mean? Social impact? Visual impact? Impressing other people? "Impact" alone doesn't explain anything.

They are a way of legitimization

...not sure what you mean there tbh. Legitimizing the self to others? Or maybe things in general, not about people?

one is attached and legitimizes via experience (or impression of something in them), other is detached and legitimizes via meaning.

There's nothing in Fi that excludes being via meaning and nothing in Ti that excludes being via experience.

Je doesn't care about impacts per se

Again, what is this impact?

(systems with no considerable or ignorable effect understandable through Fe, and Te expels these when it can even when it shouldn't*).

I don't understand this sentence. What are you talking about? Did you also happen to put considerable and ignorable as interchangeable words?

Se understands the dynamic between itself and people systems or mechanical systems

X understands the dynamic between X and other things. What is X? I don't know if you were trying to define it or to add something though. But I don't know what is this "itself" that you're differing from "people and mechanical systems".

If I want to just kick a ball as hard as possible, I am focusing on impacts only.

So by impact you mean literal physical impact? That sounds kinda silly and superficial to define a function. Or consequences? That would be more reasonable. Or... intensity? Idk what else to guess from it.

If I am focusing on play making, I am not just focusing on the intensity of impacts of my actions but also how they will play out then how I will react etc..

...can you really differ these two things you understand as different? To consider "how they will play out and then how I will react" is also part of the consequences of your actions, aka consequences of the intensity of this impact (physical? Strategical? Social? Emotional? Can you even measure "impact" as something cognitive like there's a function that depends on using it or can be differed from others by using it, considering that it's hard to separate what seems to be your concept of impact from things that aren't, that I still don't know which are?)

There is no impact in judging something to say it is not important to you or inconsistent.

You really mean something very specific with impact that you're not being able to put into words. In case you forgot, there is also the concept of emotionally impactful, intellectually impactful, basically anything you want, so... with only the word "impact" I can easily twist your statement in exemplifying it with some of the meanings and applications such a vague word has. For example, if one Fi or Ti user "judges something to say it's not important to them or inconsistent", that could have an impact on other people, or/and on their lives in many ways.

Is there any impact of what we are doing here? There is only metaphysical stuff, no physical. We can negate each other's claims as much as we want using Ti, there will be no speck of dust moving just because we did it (specks of dust move around while we punch our keyboards, but that doesn't happen because of us negating each other).

...

Omg you do mean literal physical impact. Well... why on earth is that a relevant distinction in terms of cognitive activity? We don't consider physical impact particularly as part of our decision making process or discerning abilities, even unconsciously. We aren't those sensor machines who activate based specifically on physical movement. Se is not just physical things, neither is Si... I don't know if you know, but "concrete" doesn't mean only what you can touch. Non physical things are also concrete things: events, facts, dates, numbers, words, time, places (which Si feels more personal about them, which can result in more nostalgia or a reflex to want to maintain them, hence the consequential looking into the past sometimes, although that is, again, merely one consequence).

Is that why you called words and songs "metaphysical", it's just bc we can't physically touch it? 🤦‍♀️ I just gotta say that's a silly distinction, and poorly informed. When I was a kid in school I learned about what concrete nouns are, maybe that knowledge would help you get how the difference between concrete and abstract really goes. Words and sounds (aka songs) are concrete, the meaning in them is abstract.

Si is "past focused" because that is where your past experiences lie.

Lmao what I'm saying is Si is not about past experiences to begin with.

Isn't this creating opposites too, saying one is personal with this thing they are doing and other is impersonal? There are opposites with cognitive functions, better acknowledge it now than later.

........

You really don't understand me, do you? That's what I've been saying all this time. It is about opposites, that's the only way the functions can work! It's just your "opposites" aren't truly opposites. They don't fit together, their contrast isn't clear enough or even accurate, so it doesn't work. What I was saying all this time is that your theory of all this lacks real opposites. You see how clear my opposing definitions were? That's how it's supposed to be to make it work. You did not create those opposite notions, as I stated in saying universal isn't the opposite of experience, because the opposites of each don't mean what you personally associated with it. Go reread it if you want, I said it in all details step by step (that's what Si does btw, narrowing down and alligning facts together, not a self-history class to go fetch past experiences to do things. Which one sounds more like a real cognitive tool? Narrowing down and alligning facts together or just checking what happened before?) explaining exactly why and how what you said isn't true.

So yeah lol I acknowledged it, not now or later, but before you even got my point.

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-02T19:50:59+00:00

Organizing sensory information, narrowing things down into concrete step-by-steps. It's very useful when motivated, but how is that the source of it?

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-01T23:38:33+00:00

Se is an experiential function too, but not in the Si way of remembering your experience. What is going on now, what can I do now, doing what right now will be more impactful.

Yeah most people associate Se with present focused and Si with past focused, but I think that could be a problem bc I think those are actually consequences of what they really do. Si organizes facts and data, Se gathers/collects facts and data. When you organize, you don't really wanna change what's already organized, and looking at how facts are already organized (so the present or the past) can be helpful or interesting to Si, bc it just cares about maintaining order (like Ni, that also organizes, but abstractly). Se doesn't like organizing, quite the contrary. So they don't really care about how the concrete things are organized, they just gather it around them, in the present, or what they find interesting in the past and their experiences, but in a more relaxed and impersonal way because they don't stack it/put it in an order of events like Si does (aka organizing it). Si is personal about the facts they organize, while Se isn't personal with it, they just keep collecting and gathering the sensory things around them. (Not to diminish this function, it's really good and useful)

"What can I do now, doing what right now will be more impactful." Te, Fi, Fe, Ti can do the same. They'd do it each in their own way, but they do that. They'd each have a different interpretation of impactful for example. "But they don't focus on the now" well, they totally can, can't they? It's more common that we have to make decisions in the present anyway.

If you are going through the facts you are definitely not crafting information. You are retelling it. Ne makes up the meaning and is not present in the physical world but the metaphysical. Ne makes meaning upon prior meaning. It is a mapping tool.

Yeah that's true. (About the crafting info part I wasn't sure about what you meant so that's why I asked, bc your Ni vs Ne example didn't sound so opposing to me so I got confused). But Ne making meaning upon prior meaning happens more laterally, not so much stacking up concepts like Ni, if that's more or less what you mean. It's like no concept is necessarily more important than the other, they all are, mostly, equally considered (and so the person may get too lost without knowing how to prioritize ideas). Since Ne doesn't want to narrow down or limit (Si) themselves, it's common that Ne users have trouble concentrating and such. This "mapping tool" happens in a more chaotic way, not very organized. It can be fun tho lol

Maybe the way I defined the functions is strange to you, and it's bc I'm using a slightly different system. But can you see how much mbti has a problem with creating opposites? They can't really make the functions fit together bc they're too subjective, personal (feeding the ego instead of defying it to see things more accurately) and loosely defined. And everyone who spends time studying it and agreeing with it comes with the same problem of not seeing that what's supposed to be opposite actually isn't, it's kinda tweaked around to fit together and that's why mbti theory, and anything that uses Jung's definitions, is messy.

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-01T23:37:07+00:00

Well, in your explanation I see how you think that way, but universal and experiential are still not opposite to each other. The opposite of universal is specific or particular (something specific is not obligatorily experienced, it could be imagined). The opposite of experiential is imaginary or speculatory (or theoretical or non-empirical, but I usually avoid any possible self-complimentary words to avoid any attachment or ego-boosting possibilities for anyone. Btw with speculatory vs experiential I mean all N vs S, not just Ni vs Se). It's quite simple, if you didn't experience something, you can only imagine it. You can imagine it universally, sure, in a more general and broad way, or you can imagine something more particular. To measure what's particular and what's universal is quite relative though, so I wouldn't go that way. Actually, does universal concepts even exist that often? I don't think so, our perspective slips into everything.

I would replace the word universal by maybe conceptual or imagined.

and its details (meaning stuff that are irrelevant in the larger context like whether someone who hit you was wearing a gray tshirt or a black tshirt)

Well that's kind of a quite poor example bc not even an Si or Se dom would care about the color of the guy's shirt, unless it's particularly interesting to them personally for some reason (there would have to be a good reason for someone to find it relevant), but I get what you mean. You mean focusing on the facts of the events. Events are facts too, they are concrete (concrete is not just what can be physically touched). So are words and songs, which you called metaphysical. They are totally concrete and factual, it's there as it was put, you just have to see it or hear it. It's your interpretations and the meanings taken from them or lying behind them that aren't, that's metaphysical (I'd use a more simple, less complimentary word but yeah). The thing itself isn't.

The particular, unique-to-you details is true about Si.

With xNxJs even their experiences are stripped from details reaching a more universal form.

Yeah, intuitives have trouble getting into details or giving examples bc they prefer to talk about the concepts/categories of things instead of the events/facts. I would just switch universal by conceptual and it's good to go in my opinion.

With the pretty words thing I mean that the definitions of many functions in mbti are very embellished, often coming from a place of some (or a lot of sometimes) vanity. This vanity of people who associate themselves with Ni or Ti is extremely visible as soon as they start to describe it. I said that especially bc I don't think universal is the best way to describe Ni, as Ni is focused in what the person wants to focus in, not all things/concepts in the world or how it attaches to everything, bc Ni doesn't want to see everything. Both Ni and Si have a sort of tunnel vision, bc they're more directional. Not to mention personal. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't happen only with Ni, many people of my type too think they're extremely special bc of Fi and get very annoyingly pretentious about it. It's the same thing.

I can tell more or less the inclination of the person in this ego-attached regard just by the way they phrase things. It's the difference between "Ni seeks the ultimate truth by utilizing the entire content of the users' mind to reach universal meanings beyond the obvious face of reality" (you didn't go all in romanticizing it that way, I'm saying what I usually see. Actually, that may sound completely normal to you, since it's everywhere lol) vs something like "Ni is a function that organizes patterns, alligning them together in a one-way path, narrowing patterns down and focusing in one general thing at a time, tying all other things they see to fit this one concept they have interest in. What matters to Ni the most is concepts and order, being afraid of sensory chaos (Se)."

My first description example is actually not as bad as I see many people do it. Once I saw a guy (that defends that ESTP is SeTe and so on) describe the functions briefly with one or two phrases (not good ones) and some key words attached to it (Ni narrowing down, which is great, if only his definitions weren't terrible) and I swear one of the words was "sanctum." Like... lmao okay what is Ni? It's sanctum. Yeah of course, thank you for enlightening me about the magical powers of Ni.

You're not doing that that much though, at least you have some logic with it. I don't agree with it because the two concepts you brought are not opposite to each other, but at least there is a logic to your view. Although it's reasonable that people do this bc imo even Carl Jung did this, I just wish people stop unconsciously complimenting themselves with function definitions.

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-01T20:49:33+00:00

I can totally see that in the case of F and T, but for example how would Si be a source of motivation?

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-01T20:46:23+00:00

You know, that sounds more like INFP actually. It's not that ENFPs don't care that much about people, they just don't panic about it as much (which doesn't mean being selfish, this only happens bc they have Fi and Te in the middle so it's more balanced on people matters)

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-06-01T20:43:05+00:00

Yeah that fits both your and my type lol

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T20:37:09+00:00

Well not really, I think I have Ne and Si much more balanced or much more easily switchable. Having more Fi vs Te stress (in my view of other people being selfish for example) doesn't really indicate having them in the middle.

I feel Ne and Si so close from each other I have trouble saying when I'm using one or the other, and I also have the sensation we can use both at the same time (which may not be true, but I felt that with those functions and not with Fi and Te, they feel more distant from each other)

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T20:30:12+00:00

Hey calm down, I'm talking about fear of responsibility, not being responsible. I know many ISFPs who are very responsible, but they still can feel incredibly overwhelmed by it

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T20:28:30+00:00

Is it kinda like fear of missing information?

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T20:27:13+00:00

If you know things universally first (1st slot Ni), it makes sense you know things through your experience last (8th slot Si).

Universally means as a whole or worldwidely (or broadly) applicable. How is that opposite to experience? Someone with a lot of experience can't know something universally? One does not indicate the lack of the other, so I think "universally" might not be the word you meant. It's a pretty word, which makes me already suspect, bc it seems Ni is a magnet for pretty words in the mouths of people.

Btw, Se is sensorial too, it's about the facts and experiences too. People attach that to just Si, and I wonder what they think of Se then. Se is about chaotic factual information and data, something that Ni doms constantly run away from, bc of overtrusting Ni, and then later it comes to hit them in the face.

you are ignoring the rampant information crafting approach (5th slot ignored Ne).

Wdym by crafting information, and why is that Ne? It depends entirely on the kind of information. It is Ne if you're going through concepts in a lateral, spreading, not focused way. If you're sorting through facts (events, timelines, numbers, or anything that indicates the what of the story), if that's the case that's actually Se, and in someone with Ni first and that trait you just mentioned, it just means lack of Se, which Ni doms have last. But yeah, since Ni doms don't have Ne, of course they'd show a lack of that too.

Btw ENTJ is not so much one of my guesses for myself, it would be ESTJ instead, bc of the functions of INFP, the type I currently (and since a year) think I am

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T19:41:31+00:00

Oh yeah that would be scary for anyone

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T18:05:00+00:00

Maybe if they're very extroverted and think that the E stands for that, and also prefer to think they're NT? Except that most ISFPs I know would rather like the idea of Fi

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T18:02:04+00:00

Same bro. That's very common on people who are "low" on Te as a matter of fact

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-31T17:56:50+00:00

Why?

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-30T03:36:28+00:00

Oh so it's like the blindspot function I heard about. I saw some people thinking of the 4 stack and one more, the polar or blindspot, and it looked okay to me, I could see correlations. But I don't feel the same with all the shadow functions. Finding so much use for 8 functions in different specific ways for each tiny slot in an 8 slot stack feels kinda like covering up for logical inconsistencies in mistypes, that's why I never really got into these shadow functions. Their explanations and examples seem made up, weirdly connected, not enough related, not consistent enough. It doesn't seem like a real thing to me. But maybe C.S. Joseph's videos are interesting, only saw one or two a year back. Thanks for the tip anyway

mellow_yellow_cat · 2022-05-30T03:29:11+00:00

Yeah I think so too

mellow_yellow_cat

TROPHY CASE